If you’re graduating this spring and you’ve managed to score a job you’re probably thanking god (if you still believe there is one) and thinking you’re super lucky. But think again. Because according to the WSJ, those currently entering the labor market won’t only be suffering from low-salary syndrome this year, but for, uh, ten more to come. Yes, ten years—or more!

See, supposedly if you graduate when the economy, uh, sucks (like in 2009), you’ll end up making about 100K less over the next 20 years than your bud (soon to be mortal enemy) who will graduate in better times. Why? WSJ says that even if the economy bounces back in a few years, while you’ve been working your butt off in the tiny firm no one has heard of, your luckier friend has just been hired at Bank of America. And now, although he’s two years your junior, he has more experience, a better resume, and a bit, or a ton, more moolah than you do. So while he will move steadily up the ladder, you will have a much harder time finding better and brighter pastures, and your wages may suffer (what seems like) eternally.

But hey, money doesn’t matter, right? Read More »

When I was in high school, my parents always told me that the only way I was ever going to do anything in life is if I went to college. NOT going wasn’t even discussed. You had to go to college if you wanted a job. If you wanted to work at McDonald’s or WalMart forever, then fine, you could skip out on college – but everyone knows (at least according to my parents back then) that working at WalMart wasn’t really a job as much as it was a sentence to the worst life ever.

Well, I went to college, and I even did my parents one better and went to graduate school. Armed with both a BA and MFA, I was certain I could pretty much get any job I applied for, and would get paid 35K at the minimum.

Ha. Ha. Ha. And I’m not alone. Not only have most of my friends with MFAs scrambled to find anything to pay the bills post graduation (working at Borders, in a file room…with freaking MFAs!!), but it seems like degrees in general are losing the battle to inflation.

According to this really long and slightly boring article from the Wall Street Journal, college degrees no longer carry a promise that you’ll immediately grab a job and get paid in awesome wages.

“What employers want from workers nowadays is more narrow, more abstract and less easily learned in college. Read More »

I don’t know about you, but when I earn some cold hard cash, the word “budget” is definitely not the first thing on my mind.

In fact, that money is spent on clothes, nights out, and my astronomical rent (woo, New York City!) so fast that a budget is almost a laughable concept.

I’m willing to bet (I spend my money on gambling too, apparently) that you just may be in the same financial boat, which is why College Candy is here to help your broke ass out.

The Wall Street Journal is reporting that budgeting your money isn’t so bad because–gasp!–it is now possible to manage your finances the same way we all manage our friends! How, you ask?

Social networking! It seems to be the only way we know how to do anything anymore. But, it’s so obvious! You gotta love it.

Financial social networking sites like Wesabe.com and Geezeo.com are here to save the day…and your pocketbook!

It works like traditional money managing software like Quicken or Money, but here’s the catch…your peers can offer feedback on just how well you are spending your paycheck. They can offer tips and tricks that may increase your savings or slash your debt. (Can they leave drunken wall posts too?) Read More »

• I really wish my contribution to society was “:-)”! I’m really jealous…seriously. (Wired.com)

• So, wait, it’s breaking news now that people like to look at attractive people and it only takes a half second to notice them? Any horny college kid could’ve told you that. (Yahoo News)

• If you have a tramp stamp, beware! All of those pregnancies that your stamp has been causing is going to make birth a lot more painful. (wsj.com)

• Bad News: You’re in college and weed is still illegal. Good News: As long as you’re not a raging pot-head. (denverpost.com)

• I almost forgot Halloween was coming. So, just in case you love candy as much as we do at College Candy (ha) check out some sweets that never made it onto store shelves. (i-mockery.com)

I have never played Second Life, and had no idea what it was until a few months ago. Computer games aren’t my thing. They make me feel like I have anger issues, and I can’t stare at a screen for hours without going cross-eyed.

Plus, I’m not all that into living a giant lie.

But some people really dig it. They dig it so much that they spend hours and hours online, living life as an “avatar” and forming relationships with people they’ll never actually see. Like Ric Hoogestraat, a guy from Arizona who is so obsessed with his online life, he ignores his real wife for an animated one.

The Wall Street Journal (for once not being conservative and boring) recently ran an article about Ric and others like him, people so caught up in computer games that they prefer them to reality. Even though Ric insists that the women he married online is simply part of the game, his wife doesn’t like the situation one bit.

And I completely understand. Read More »

There’s no doubt our culture has been stuck in a pit of hypersexuality for some time now. And there’s also no doubt that women are trying to figure out their place in this sex-driven society; do we embrace the attitudes men have long carried with them, use our sexuality to gain power, flaunt what we got? Do we make a sex tape and laugh about it, or pray to God to keep us pure until Prince Charming arrives in his black SUV?

Wendy Shalit, author of the book “Girls Gone Mild”, claims a new revolution is upon us, and that revolution abhors sex tapes, preferring to wait for Mr. Charming instead.

In her book, Shalit claims “the young women [of] today, put off by our hypersexualized culture, are reverting to an earlier idea of femininity. They wear modest clothing and even act with unbrazen kindness. They don’t mind abstinence programs at school, and they prefer a version of feminism based on self-respect rather than sex-performance parity. They also take matters into their own hands when craven adults neglect to object to the objectionable.”

The older generation of mainstream feminists, Shalit says, “are so committed to the idea of casual sex as liberation that they can’t appreciate or even quite understand these younger feminists.” She goes on to say women who advocate casual sex “just don’t understand that pursuing crudeness is the problem, not the solution.” Read More »