I’d call it the “populated coastal tax” — I don’t see SD housing as much more expensive than say suburban NYC, DC, or Boston, especially when low property taxes and low utilities (cheap HVAC costs) are factored in.

It’s not unknown to pay $1000/mo tax and $600/mo heating costs on a $500,000 house in the Northeast.

Seems like I’ve seen quite a few “all the taxpayers are leaving Cali!” threads over the years on this site.

On a tangential note, my oldest graduates in May from a California university and has already received TWO job offers in state – six months before graduation!

The economy must be doing pretty good out here at the moment.

[quote=CA renter]Awesome news about your eldest, svelte!!!

Would you mind sharing his/her major with us? I think many of us are pretty worried about world our children will be inheriting from us.[/quote]

I’m not svelte but I believe the best majors for good jobs right out of college are the eight business disciplines at the CSU. The best of those eight for immediate good jobs are Business Admin – Acct Option and Business Admin – Mgmt Option.

If the business student follows their 4-year plan and keeps going past four years, they can get an MBA in just ONE academic year going FT or a minor (such as Int’l business or Human Resources) in just ONE quarter/semester (4-11 addt’l units).

And as I’ve posted before here, CSUN has the “Professional Accountancy” 4-year BS program available but they are very picky about who they accept as freshman into the program.

Also, unlike the UC’s, a handful of the CSU’s use only full tenured professors (NOT student TA’s) to teach class (CSUN being one of those schools).

The CSU has 4-year plans available now for the Class of 2018 on at least eight campuses. If the student (declaring a bus major, for instance) seeks out regular academic counseling from the business dept and follows it religiously, they are now *supposed* to be able to graduate in four years.

The CSU’s aren’t messing around anymore admitting marginal freshmen who are not ready for college level English and math so a lot of changes have been made to their admission procedures for Fall 2014. If your student has a “conditional” admission to a CSU campus right out of HS, they will need to attend summer school immediately after HS graduation at a qualifying CSU campus up to five days per week for five weeks in person/residence or five days per week for two weeks online for no credit (depending on their level of remediation needed) or their admission will be rescinded. The CSU will NOT accept remediation taken at the incoming freshman’s local CC. My last kid did not need remediation but several of their current classmates had to take it.

see: http://earlystart.csusuccess.org/

http://money.cnn.com/2013/03/05/pf/college/graduation-guarantees/

The CSU has had a very poor reputation for graduating students in four years in the past decade-plus and they are now striving mightily to fix that problem in campuses which are the least “impacted.” My advice for parents of high schoolers is to push them to take AP English or Math as a senior (and earn at least a “C” in both courses all year) if they don’t score high enough in their CAHSEE in these areas as a junior. This will negate the need for them having to sit for the EAP and ELM in January (in which they can get “trapped” into remediation courses before enrolling at a CSU if they’re having a bad test day).

If a kid follows the proper bureaucracy in HS, they should be able to gain admission to at least two CSU campuses if they apply to at least 4 campuses (preferably 6-8) thru CSU mentor. If your highschooler doesn’t know what they want to major in and can’t decide by Oct of their senior year, then the CSU probably isn’t for them at this time as they will get up there and possibly take the wrong GE’s, spin their wheels and end up spending 7-10 years getting a bachelor degree with a bunch of excess, worthless credits under their belt. In that case, I would find a small (public or private) liberal arts college (<5K students) tucked away somewhere ruralish with little distraction to send them to where they can get enough individual attn to "find themselves" in the most expedient manner possible.

Having your 19+ yo kid tied to mommy and daddy's apron strings living in their old bdrm while wasting a lot of time at CC and working at the local McD's with their high-school buddies (many of whom they've known since K) getting nowhere is a surefire way to end up with your kid (and their kid [s]) whining at your doorstep ten years later.

The CSU can make your kid successful and your kid CAN get a good FT job in the Golden State straight out of the gate but they've got to be open as to location of first job and eloquent and presentable by the time they are a senior working their contacts: that is, be able to talk it, walk it, groom it, dress it and engage adult-interviewers in meaningful conversation at the drop of a hat. My kid(s) are products of the CSU and were/are like this and that is why they are and (hopefully) will be very successful in life. So I feel that job success for college grads is one-third choice of major, one-third perseverance and stamina to finish a rigorous 4-year plan (w/no other classes added in) and one-third personality traits (which can be cultivated in some cases if not already there).

Just my .02.

The Movie/entertainment Biz seems to be doing very well as well.

Heck whatever they got going on in L.A. seems to be doing very well, There are new Tesla’s Maserati’s and assorted German luxury and sports cars everywhere and traffic is just packed at rush hour.

My advice for parents of high schoolers is to push them to take AP English or Math as a senior (and earn at least a “C” in both courses all year) if they don’t score high enough in their CAHSEE in these areas as a junior.

correction: the EAP is the test taken by CA high school juniors to assess their readiness to take university-level English and Math, NOT the CAHSEE (also a required exam taken by high school juniors):

see: http://www.calstate.edu/eap/

Sorry for the error. Seriously, there is so much bureaucracy at the CA high-school level for students these days that I’m so grateful to be finally done with it.

Also, I stated above that incoming CSU freshmen could NOT take their English and math remediation courses at their local CC. I checked into this when my last kid sat for their ELM/EPT in January of this year (just in case) and the two CSU campuses my kid was admitted to would not accept remediation courses from our local CC (SWC). It depends entirely on which CSU campus your kid will accept an admission offer from and which CC your kid is planning to remediate at prior to CSU enrollment. The decision is entirely up to the particular CSU campus and should be obtained in writing before your kid attempts to enroll in English and math remediation courses at a CC.

The EPT cannot be repeated and the ELM can be repeated, although not in the same month (in SD, they are given at SDSU). The best case scenario is for your kid not to have to sit for them in the first place (be “exempt”).

see: https://www.ets.org/csu/about

Even though SD County is losing another ~5K jobs, likely by EOY, I’m overall bullish on the CA economy. SD has always been known as a “branch office”/retirement locale and nothing has changed. A SD County parent should not expect that their college grad kid is going to be able to make a decent living in SD County and also have job security (unless they can obtain a meaningful gubment position). It’s okay. CA’s freeways aren’t going anywhere and neither is Southwest Airlines. There’s really nothing wrong with the rest of the state, not even LA. I’ve recently changed my opinion, even on some “armpit” inland cities. It’s all good 🙂