therefore, you'll get to hold on to that $1,000. the deal was reached at the last minute. you had to throw in this keystone pipeline that goes from canada to texas. that had to be thrown in there and there were concessions from democrats to get that in there, but this is only an extension that will go for two months. they'll have to take up this fight two months from now, but this gets us through the top of the year. we'll have more at the top of the hour be with more right now, your bottom line. ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ in education, a job, a home and a good retirement, every part of the american dream is changing. good morning, everyone. i'm christine romans. coming up, the growing gap between our generations. we look at the challenges, the stereotypes and what we can do to make sure that each generation can do better than the one before it. we begin with education. college tuition and fees have risen more than 400% over the

the last 30 years. things have sure changed. take baby boomers. many of them were the first to go to college, right? today their children and grandchildren may hold a degree, but it comes at a steep price and they're still looking for a job. student loan debt now stands at $865 billion, topping credit card debt for the first time. let's bring in ryan mack, president of optimum capital management, john doggett, professor at the university of austin. and an organization focused on issues facing young americans and rubin navarrette, individuals 18 to 30, how do they feel about the shifting situation for education? it costs more. you're not guaranteed a job, but you know you need it. >> there's tremendous concern out there. we know that as young americans, we need that education to get ahead. there's huge benefits from

getting a college degree, but as you mentioned, the price of going to college is going up faster than inflation and going up faster than healthcare. >> yeah. >> unfortunately, the policies that we're putting place like slashing aid to higher institutions at the state level and cutting pell grants are exactly the wrong kind of policies that will make it more affordable to get a higher education and to get ahead. >> i want to bring you in, because the ability to go to college was a milestone for an individual and for a family. has that milestone, the price of that milestone changed and how do we convince kids that, yes, it really is worth it to get a college degree. i'm sorry that it's going to cost you so much. >> it's crucial that kids get a college degree, but the milestone has become a millstone. if we look at what's happened with student loan indebtedness, it's gone up 511% since 1999. it's twice as fast as the subprime crisis that took down the banking industry a couple of years ago. we are now telling our kids you

have to have a college education, but it will cost you an arm and a leg and another leg and it doesn't make sense. >> you have to be so strategic about the education because we know some places are hiring and some aren't and you and i talked about that a lot, science, technology and engineering and the rest of the world, quite frankly is turning out kids with superior skills in some areas. ruben, i want to bring you in. let's talk about the american family because everything is changing and maybe the cost of an education and the cost of everything is one of the reasons why this is happening here. barely all of young adults are married. this is according to a new pugh report. by 2010 it was more than a quarter of a million dollars and that's not counting college. you have people graduating from college going into an economy at a time when they should be thinking about having children, getting married, homeownership themselves and they're saying wait a minute. i'm not going to do it the way my parents' generation did.

>> christine, you're right. it's all different and the first thing they've got to understand is they can't take the life experience that their grandparents went through and their parents went through and apply it to themselves. they've got to realize that the degree will not be worth as much now as it was before. instead of setting their sights on a bachelor's they'll have to go to a masters and ph.d and they'll have to think about getting that next job. everything's different. one of the main problems is we'd like to use our parents and grandparents as a frame of reference and we lose sight of the fact that things have changed enormously and this is an example of that. >> you talked to a lot of young people and people trying to improve their finances. you know an awful lot about money. it's not a given that this generation can do the same things generation x did and live a little bit better, is it? >> it's not a given anymore. >> absolutely. the bottom line is this, we're

strong create our own experience even while in college. we work with a lot of young folks and a lot of mentees of mine that go to the city college, it might not be looked as as prestigiouprestigious, bue for individuals to start volunteering in the community and document how you're volunteering and starting your own business and failinga at your business so you can highlight that experience once you graduated college so you can appear more marketable. doing all of these things and more to make sure, you're creating your own experience and not just rely on that college education. average work life earnings go up by $1 million for those individuals who go to college and those who do not. that pool of individuals who go to college is starting to grow and grow, so it's becoming smaller and smaller in terms of opportunities for individuals. so we have to learn how to create our own experience. don't wait on the ship to come in and don't use that college as

your only crutch and be successful. >> if you're a college degree your lifetime earnings are $1 million more, but more and more team know that and so they're getting that degree and the pool of opportunity is shrinking. everyone, stick where you are. there's so much more to talk about. it used to be that you had a job for as long as you wanted a career and then it was time to retire. not anymore. we'll look at the new normal for all of the generations. ♪ i'm burning out this useless telephone ♪ ♪ my hair is gone ♪ cheap cologne ♪ motor home ♪ i'm the rocket man! [ both ] ♪ rocket man ♪ burning out his fuse up here alone ♪ burning out his fuse up here alone? ahh. [ male announcer ] crystal clear fender premium audio. one of many premium features available on the all-new volkswagen passat. the 2012 motor trend car of the year. ♪ and i think it's gonna be a long, long time ♪

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♪ ♪ welcome back to your bottom line. what was, you graduated from college and you had a job. you had a job for as long as you wanted a career then you retire. not anymore. more than 13 million americans are, generation x are at the highest earning point in their lives can you make the argument that your generation will suffer more than the other generations because they'll hit their peak.

>> the bottom line again, science, technology and mathematics is is continuously growing. the technology unemployment rate is 4.2% whereas the rest of the unemployment is 8.6% nationally. many of us in generation x are not necessarily trained in those areas and we're finding ourselves in the pool and opportunity of jobs are smaller and smaller. we're getting retrained and going back to school and many of us in generation x are finding refuge in the additional masters program and going back to law school and just to make sure they can live off of student loans and they can wait out this recession. again, we have to make sure that we're getting retrained and educated and knowing about those areas that are hottest, but if you're not educated in those areas like science and technology and mathematics you will position yourself best for this recession and it's hard with the economy. >> john doiggette, if you're a boomer and you're talking about

stem, stem, stem, and someone just lost their job and they're in their 50s, they don't feel like they're in a position to be retraining for stem after 30 years on the job. how do they reboot? do they need to reboot? >> boomers need to reboot because they're afraid of retirement now because many cases, their biggest in egg would be the equity in their house and we know what happened to house equity levels. they dropped in half. the problem is that if generation x is having a problem retraining the boomer generation is having the bigger problem retraining. some of us are fortunate like ourselves and we work with young people all of the time and we're very careful with technology, but i've seen some of my peers who have never worked with new people find it very challenging. this is the most frightening time for boomers ever because many of us thought that we'd be able to retire with dignity and comfort and we're finding that that's just not happening. >> ruben, you've written about millennials and your millennials are comfortable about technology

and they're entitled, particularly at work and you've written about this. does the workforce need to adapt to these millennials or do the millennials need to adapt to the workforce? >> a little bit of both. i hear sometimes from hundreds of employers whenever i write about this subject because they've all got a story to tell about some young person that they interviewed in their 20s who comes in with, okay, i work here, i'm doing you a favor, when am i going become vice president and there's a sense of not paying your dues and being in a hurry. my generation has a sense of immediacy about it. >> they go to one internet company over another because they say i can get it faster, faster, faster, so they want everything right now. >> and the young kids, there's this perception in the workforce that they need to learn how to play ball with the generation xors and the baby boomers and the silent generation is still working and don't expect to be handed as much as the boomers

were in terms of government contracts and retirement. >> i mean, look, young people, i think, want the same things that every generation in this country wanted and that's opportunity. this is a generation they think has tremendous potential. we talked about how we're tech savvy and we're entrepreneurial and it's a generation that's serving our country overseas. this is a generation that has a lot to offer, and i think we need to invest in them and absolutely, young people need to be part of figuring out this new economy, but we also have to invest in them and give them that opportunity to succeed, and if i can add just one thing, we talk a lot about college graduation. the reality in this country is two-thirds of young a documents don't get a college degree and in the past, we had that opportunity without a college degree to get a middle-class job and that's going away. that's one of the things that we're most concerned about. >> let's keep it there for a second because there's more to talk about here. we'll talk about owning a home and that's a huge part of the

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for baby boomers, a white picket fence, two-car garage and a mortgage to pay off in 30 years, that was part of the american dream. now as we pull ourselves out of the financial crisis that dream might be changing. they're home with their nest egg and it's a broken egg. this is critical for how people retire and how young people view homeownership. >> it's really frightening for a lot of baby boomers because they anticipated that when it was time to retire they'd be able to sell their home, down size and take a lot of cash out and that's not happening for a lot of baby boomers because of what's happening in the market. however, the reality is if i'm young, this still is a great

time to own a home. interest rates are at historical lows and house values have gone down significantly and what we know is when the economy turns around, interest rates will go up. so if i'm a young person who has a job, i would really think seriously about buying a house right now because this is a great environment. if i'm a baby boomer, i'm sweating bullets because i'm worried i'll lose my job to some younger person. i'm worried that my pension may be cut or my retirement may be cut and i'm worried that i'll be forced to sell my house at a loss. if i'm a baby boomer, it's not a good time. >> let's bring in aaron. homeownership is not necessarily the the dream for your generation. when i talk to young people and they say if i want to get a job in seattle and live in baltimore, i can't have a mortgage. they sometimes feel bad for

their trends wfriends who have care of costs associated with a home because they need to jump out of it with a month's notice, right? >> we find many young people want to buy a home. 46% of young adults said they were delaying purchase of a house. the economic anxiety does make you think twice about buying a house if you already have student debt, you'll add the mortgage on top of that. you're not sure what your job situation is going to be. i think those are real challenges and it affects the whole economy when young people aren't invested in buying a house. >> the conversation people are having can i get back on mom and dad's insurance for health care insurance and how many years i can live at home before i completely -- my parents completely go crazy. we're talking about multigenerations -- we're talking about, frankly, the silent generation moving home with the boomer kids and the boomer kids are called the sandwich generation.

it's interesting because when we talk about multigenerations livering at home, 28%, 29% ever homeowners are under water on their mortgage. you have child care costs going up and you have people's out of pocket expenses for healthcare still going up. there's just a new reality about homeownership and the costs associated with it. are we changing >> are we changing what we think is the american dream, do you think? >> yes, i think so. going back, again, world war ii, the generation, you made it when you had a home. rather than pay rent, you're going to have something that you can call your own. the baby boomers bought into that. one thing you have tok understd about the generations, no matter what the generation is going through, someone else is always watched. what happened to the boomers in the 90s, when they got hit by the recession and laid off in many cases, the extra to my generation was don't put all your eggs in one basket. likewise today, younger generationals are watching what happened with xers saying, look

what happened, you put all this money into it, all the things that john talked about before, all the various anxieties, the uncertainty of the market and they say, i'm out, i'd rather go rent. so every generation sort of learns from the other and there's an apprehension. >> there are two numbers, everybody, that terrify me about retirement. two numbers. i'll tell what they are and whether those fears are scared by respective generation. next. tank top v neck 3 piece suit dance wear bolo snakeskin boots sequin costume under things stiletto heels skinny jeans houndstooth snuggie pork pie hat oshkosh socks 5% cash back. right now get 5% cash back at department stores.

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retiring this year will be $230,000 to pay for medical expenses throughout their retirement. that's out of pocket and it doesn't include nursing home care. that according to met life adds another $87,000 per year for private nursing rooms. and if you want a roommate, it will be in the $87,000 range. ryan, we really need you to help us financially prepare for retirement these days. those are big numbers. >> the bottom line is, we have not done the right things in order to get prepared for this. a typical preretiree only has about $65,000 in savings. those numbers don't include the numbers to eat, which is probably on average over $200,000 just to feed themselves through those years, as well. so a lot of expenses that we're not doing and especially when you put it to the fact that over 98% of all households essentially are relying on social security as a primary sourt of income. these numbers are preposterous.

less than over half of america says they have less than $2,000 of workers save for retirement at all. so there are certain things that we can control. there's a lot of things going on in europe, a lot of things in government going on across the world that we can't control. but what we can control is starting right now, better late than later, start putting money in that retirement account and saving as aggressively as possible. >> but rubin, this reiterates there's two americas, right? there's the america that's going to be able to save that money and plan and have the kind of income. they can save all that money. and then they're going to have to pay all their money when they're old to support themselves. then there's the other part of the equation when people who aren't going to save that money, either can't or woken, and the public will have to pick up the tab. >> christine, it's more complicated. in many cases, you may find some of these folks at the lower income levels are more frugal. they do a better job of savings. they're used to having less. having gone through the great depression and having to go through resources and in world

war ii the idea of sacrifice, saving money away, the baby boomers come along and for, as you know, madison avenue, for 30, 40 years have been going back to using beatles songs to tell cars and they tell boomers, come on, you deservive, buy yourself a new car. so the boomers didn't have any money saved. ultimately, the wealthy people, just because you're wealthy doesn't mean you know how to manage your money, doesn't mean you know how to save your money. it's not a question of rich or poor, it's a question of when you were born. >> 40% of americans say they will never been able to retire. is your generation in crisis mode? >> i don't think we're in crisis mode, but i think it's absolutely true, the definition of retirement has changed during our lifetime. when i was growing up, the idea of retiring with a gold watch was a reality. right now, i quite frankly think i'm going to continue to work as long as i'm healthy and i know a lot of my friends are going to

continue to work when they're healthy. >> we don't have any choice if we can't afford to retire. a friend of mine from college just retired after 38 years working with the los angeles prosecutor's office. and he retired because he had a great program. his retirement pay is 100% of what he was making full time. and in spite of that, he is now working as assistant dean at our former college. so even though he's retired and being paid 100%, he is working full time. retirement for the baby boomer generation is working until you physically can't afford to work any more. that's a real change. >> aaron, time is your best friend. you have a whole course load of working in front of you to save for retirement. do you think your generation is thinking now about saving for when they're 80?

>> i don't even know how you can think about it. when you're thinking about paying for your rend and your car payments and your student payments, saving money to retire let alone saving money for your kids to go to college is an after thought. we found that 81% of young adults think protecting social security is a priority for congress and i think it's because of this economic insecurity problems that we don't know where we're going to get the money when we've got all these other costs right now. >> yeah. i know you and your group have been very active on that front now on those sorts of issues. i want to thank all of you. this has been a fascinating trip through the generations and the issues facing them. let's come back and talk about it maybe in 2012, all of us together with all the hopeful things that may be turning around here in the near term. thanks, everybody. have a wonderful weekend. what are your thoughts on the generational divide inspect we want you to weigh in. generation x and y, find us on