[raananh]

The real issue is that everyone, everyone(!) today graduates from high school, get accepted to a college and get a degree from college, even if they are dumb and have no skills.

As a former professor in a university, already many years ago, in the 90s, I was told I cannot failed students that clearly have failed the classes.

Instead, it should be as it used to be not long ago, which makes sense:

- to graduate high school was an accomplishment
- to get accepted to college was an accomplishment
- to survive college was an accomplishment
- to graduate college was an accomplishment

And the FEWER(!!!) who accomplished all this get jobs they deserved and their efforts pay off very nicely.

College degrees today, even from Harvard are mostly useless because too many get them, easily. Way too many... paid for with a lot of money.

I would summarize it this way: if I had to hire someone, and I have a candidate with zero experience from an Ivy League university versus a candidate with some experience, nice personality with either no degree or from a university I never heard of, guess who I would hire?

Lastly, I was in the corporate world for many years until my recent retirement. I had to deal with recent graduates from Ivy League universities. Over the years I clearly saw a sharp decline in the quality of those graduates. Most(!) of them are now as dumb as a piece of wood when asked to use their brain and what they learned to analyze something or logically make a decision. They work in a very robotic way.

I would like to think, and my experience shows that it does not matter where and what you learned. Most important is your natural capabilities, personality, self-discipline, and, above all motivation and interest in what you do! NOTHING beats that.

[ehendersonjr]

Originally Posted by retiredguy123

Recently, there are a lot of news stories, news outlets, and polls that are promoting young people to skip college and to go to a trade school. However, most people promoting this idea are very wealthy mostly because they have one or more college degrees. In my opinion, these people are being hypocritical and they are giving bad advice to young people. For example, Mike Rowe is a multi-millionaire who made his money using his communications degree, not by going to a trade school, which he heavily promotes. He even has a foundation to encourage blue collar workers to learn a trade.

My advice to recent high school graduates is to get a college degree as soon as possible. Anyone can do it. The degree will last a lifetime and it will allow you to apply for high paying Government and other white collar jobs. Some of these jobs can set you up for a higher than average income and job security for the rest of your life. There is nothing wrong with learning a trade, but without a college degree, you will always be limited in job opportunities.

This is my opinion, but I would like to hear other opinions.

Both a.college degree and a journeyman accreditation take. ~3-5 years and either can result in 6 figure incomes after being attained.

The big difference is that after the attainment, the graduate is in debt tens of thousands of dollars because they paid someone to teach them. The journeyman trade specialist, on the other hand, is ahead tens of thousands of dollars because someone paid them to learn.
Education does not equal knowledge and knowledge does not equal intelligence and intelligence does not equal wisdom.

[retiredguy123]

I find it interesting that a person can get a trade school degree in their 20's and use those skills for a few years before they need to be updated to get a job.

But, a person can get a 4-year college degree in their 20's and use that degree to get a job for the next 40 years or so, with no updating required.

[Redsmom]

Originally Posted by retiredguy123

I totally agree. A 4-year college degree is always a positive and will never be a waste of time.

Could very well be a total waste of money though. I’m surprised nobody is mentioning the debt that the average college student goes into to get a four year degree that is often absolutely useless in getting a job.

[Stu from NYC]

Originally Posted by retiredguy123

I totally agree. A 4-year college degree is always a positive and will never be a waste of time.

Depends upon the degree. My BIL degree was in communications and was useless in getting a job.

My son had a desire for a degree in statistics and wanted a job as a sports statistician for a pro team.

Sat down with him and asked him if the team is active for say 6 months a year what will he do for the other 6 months?

He minored in stat and it has worked out for him but not as sport stat.

[MrFlorida]

Originally Posted by OrangeBlossomBaby

Remember you said that, if you or a family member ever need a medical procedure involving robotics. Just say no to the doctor and tell the janitor to turn the machine on.

But when you need something fixed around the home, that janitor will be useful.

[retiredguy123]

Originally Posted by Redsmom

Could very well be a total waste of money though. I’m surprised nobody is mentioning the debt that the average college student goes into To to get a four year degree. That is often absolutely useless in getting a job.

I am not an expert in funding a college degree. But, there are a few options that I would consider. Signing up for an apprenticeship as mentioned in Post No. 30. Or, going to a community college for the first 2 years. Working part-time during college. But, a lot of students choose to borrow all of the money and spend most of their free time partying. Personnally, I didn't need to work, but I had a lot of free time in college and still earned an engineering degree. I would also point out that the current student loan debt is about $1.6 trillion, so apparently, many of those loans are not being paid back.

[Topspinmo]

Originally Posted by Jayhawk

But it could be a huge waste of money for those who get a philosophy degree from a private school. Too many people are going to be paying student debts (or trying to find a way not to pay) for many years after getting useless degrees.

And, student loans should only be for tuition, not living expenses, weed, beer, and pizza.

Don’t forget spring breaks to Florida and beyond...

[retiredguy123]

Originally Posted by Stu from NYC

Depends upon the degree. My BIL degree was in communications and was useless in getting a job.

My son had a desire for a degree in statistics and wanted a job as a sports statistician for a pro team.

Sat down with him and asked him if the team is active for say 6 months a year what will he do for the other 6 months?

He minored in stat and it has worked out for him but not as sport stat.

You must have done something right. Don't you own your own village in The Villages?

[MandoMan]

That’s a fair assessment. I spent four years in college, then six years in graduate school, then decades teaching at a state university. I had over six thousand students, but I only know what has happened to a few of them. One has a degree in professional writing but works in a warehouse. Another has a degree in elementary education but has never landed a permanent teaching position. At least a thousand of my students were business majors, and I advised hundreds of those on what classes to take. They all had to take Macroeconomics, but a large percentage got Ds in it. If you can’t handle Macroeconomics, there are a lot of jobs in business you also can’t handle well. I only had a handful of outstanding students. Several thousand of my students probably shouldn’t have been in college ever because they had no interest in it and only wanted a diploma.

By contrast, my little brother dropped out of college in less than a semester. (He went back for a semester to take math classes he needed and find a wife.) My dad told him he needed to find a job. He wanted something outdoors. So he searched through the Denver Yellow Pages looking for something that looked interesting. He stumbled upon Surveying and thought that sounded fun. He called around until he found a surveyor willing to talk to him and got hired as an assistant. He gradually learned what he needed to know. After several years, he got a surveyor’s license. He moved to Missouri to be nearer his wife’s family and found another surveyor’s job, then in a few years bought the little company. He was good at it, honest, and loved the work. He was pulling in $250,000 a year while his brother with a Ph.D.was earning maybe $70,000 a year.

My brother had to use Trigonometry every day in his work. He and his wife were able to handle the book-keeping parts of the work. There are a number of trades where smart kids with a good work ethic can end up owning their own business and be very successful without college, perhaps with an apprenticeship or trade school.

Meanwhile, what happens to the large percentage who drop out of college with many thousands of dollars in loans and no degree? What happens to those who graduate with low C averages and aren’t really qualified to do any job that requires a college graduate? What happens to those with business degrees who fantasized about working on Wall Street and making millions but who ended up as “vice president” of a bank branch with two employees making peanuts?

What is worse, what about the large percentage who barely learn to read in grade school and disrupt all their classes and keep the others from learning. Do we pass them on until they finally drop out or receive a high school diploma they don’t deserve? Do we let them hang out in their neighborhoods hurting people until they end up in prison? Perhaps for the good of American education we should identify them young and let them drop out if they want to. Then send them to work at minimum pay jobs doing things that use their muscles but not their brains. They might enjoy that. They would be poor, but they are going to be poor anyway. Maybe turn them into teams of migrant workers to pick our crops.

[OrangeBlossomBaby]

Originally Posted by MrFlorida

But when you need something fixed around the home, that janitor will be useful.

The janitor doesn't need trade school either.

But if he goes to trade school, he'll be better equipped to fix things that his trade school education prepared him for.

That's the point. A higher education prepares young people for more opportunities, than if they had no higher education. Whether it cost money or not, is another matter entirely. There are scholarships and grants that don't have to be paid back, since they're not loans.
Some folks can qualify for those. Did you know there's a small scholarship available for students with pediatric cancer who live in Delaware Valley?

There's a grant offered by NCSU to undergrads with the legal last name of Gatling or Gatlin.

All kinds of oddball grants and scholarships that can help ease the burden of students who want a higher education. Plus merit and athletic scholarships, and GI scholarships. So funding isn't really part of the equation.

The equation is - which is superior: higher education, or not? Which is better - trade school or college?

The answers: Higher education is better than not, regardless of your field of study. KNOWING MORE THINGS is better than NOT KNOWING them. Always.

Trade School and College are both equal, viable options, and the choice is subjective, depending on the student's interests and abilities. There's a third option that isn't even mentioned in this thread yet: Community 2-year college programs. Those are dirt-cheap for residents of the state and in some communities, free. They teach very specific courses, you get an Associates Degree and you can get state certifications as well.

[OrangeBlossomBaby]

Originally Posted by MandoMan

By contrast, my little brother dropped out of college in less than a semester. (He went back for a semester to take math classes he needed and find a wife.)...

You can stop right there. He would not have been able to be a surgeon, a lawyer, in a few states a police officer (some require an associates degree or better), in some states a licensed electrician. He chose to limit his options. Maybe he didn't want to be any of those things, but by dropping out, he eliminated the possibility, even if he wanted it.

[Jayhawk]

Originally Posted by OrangeBlossomBaby

You can stop right there. He would not have been able to be a surgeon, a lawyer, in a few states a police officer (some require an associates degree or better), in some states a licensed electrician. He chose to limit his options. Maybe he didn't want to be any of those things, but by dropping out, he eliminated the possibility, even if he wanted it.

He was making a quarter million dollars a year doing what he loved. He may well have hated all those other careers you listed. Sounds like he's the winner.

[Michael G.]

Originally Posted by MX rider

One final note, don't discount the Military. It can be a great career for some if you stick it out and move up in rank. My son was in the Air Force for 8 years and was making pretty good money with great benefits. He's now using his GI bill to get a degree in cyber security.

I'm surprised more people didn't mention the military.
Great way to see the world and insert discipline in young people
to respect our country and others, a rarity in today world.

[jimjamuser]

The world is changing rapidly. Making the general statement that ALL should go to college is NOT a good statement today due to high COSTS. In the 60's and 70's college cost were MUCH lower than today. Also,obviously some people do not have the mental capacity or money to benefit from a college education. Joining the military is a good option for those that can't afford college. If you test high, you get a better, technical job, which may involve some military technical classes. They can be pretty good in quality. The future is going to change RAPIDLY due to A.I. A person that is not in the military could choose a vocational college, which should be cheaper than a traditional 4 year college. It is hard to PREDICT which jobs will be taken over by A.I. machines......even medical Doctors MAY ? be replaced by A.I.