Because there’s billions of dollars in student loan debt out there, much of it on the verge of default, and it’s not because hoards of kids are going to liberal arts colleges.
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@JackH2021
Yeah, you’ve got the right of it. Most of the building trades take 4 years, some more, some less. You go to school for about 10-12 weeks per year, then work in the field, getting gradually more responsibility. The pay increases year by year till you are paid 100% at the end of your training and you become a Journeyman. Electricians(a very good trade) usually have to do 5 years of school. It used to be 4, but electronics and controllers have become so common that they added a 5th year.
I am less sure about the manufacturing trades such as Millwrights. I would guess that their training has changed drastically, as much of their work would now involve the interface between computers and machine, whereas in the past the hands and human brain ran them.
You can make a good living in the trades, but it can be a tough, dirty, and dangerous life. If you have an entrepreneurial spirit and the ability or training to manage people then you can can do even better.
Going into the Trades is not a "lesser" option, IMO, though there are so many types of trades that it's hard to generalize. It's more a question of fit. I will say that if you are going into the building trades then you better be in good shape, and be pretty tough. You also have to be able to think through problems- as one of my old co-workers once said, "A Carpenter is paid to think." Most good tradesman have a similar mindset to Engineers, IMO.
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Nope, in actual fact apprenticeship programs in the trades are often paying positions.
Even those that aren’t (e.g., some airplane tech licensures), they’re generally positions that require an AAS degree, and those are offered at a lot of community colleges with correspondingly low community college tuition.
The main exception is culinary arts—there are a lot of expensive for-profit culinary schools out there. But even for that there’s often a community-college-based option in much of the country.
We do.
The country has gobs and bunches of community colleges and public open-admissions/open-access universities, and they exist in part to give people a “second chance” (or even an nth chance) at academics. (They also educate massively more people than the colleges that tend to be on the radar at all, let alone get much love from posters, here on College Confidential.)
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While Air Force and Navy personnel in the Iraq theater in 2003-2006 had a lower death rate than young civilian men in the US (Army and Marines personnel had a higher death rate), note that Air Force personnel may be deployed in places that could get attacked by enemy forces (e.g. air bases in contested areas).
That’s right. There are paths to get back into four-year degrees through community colleges, continuing education classes, etc… Some of my favorite students have been the ones who are nontraditional, either starting out for the first time or returning after years or even decades.
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Alright, so are we making a mountain out of a molehill, here? You guys certainly make it sound that way. Btw, community college counts as “college” in my neck of the woods.
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Weren’t there favorable comments in the late 1940s about the WWII veterans attending college on GI Bill money? As in, more mature and committed to their school work, compared to traditional college students just out of high school.
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I joined the military out of high school. I’m so very glad that I did. I would not have survived college life right out of high school. The military taught me responsibility, team work, and the satisfaction of doing a job no matter how small with pride. After my 4 years in the AF I landed a job with the FAA for a few years before going back to college where I earned a BS and MS. A great path - for me.
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The military isn’t a viable path for everyone who isn’t mature enough for college right out of high school—I wasn’t remotely ready for college, but I wasn’t cut out for the military either—but for those for whom it is, it can be a valuable experience.
(It can also be a risky one—the risk of serious injury is higher than in college or many other careers, for starters—but that’s a good place for parents or other mentors to step in, to help teach how to balance the various risks in any undertaking.)
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Did they marry college educated women? I wonder if success overcomes the lack of a college degree in the eyes of college educated women.
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@Sweetgum I had a similar experience- with a daughter. Given the support (and support is not the same as enabling) and time, many of our kids find their way without coercive external motivators.
And more young women should consider going into the trades.
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The “giving up” by college men described in the article, perhaps is an unintended consequence of the absence of support offered to male students in their K-12 school days, as there are few programs, if any, that serve as the counterparts to “Girls who code”, “Women in STEM”, “WriteGirl” and the likes, which, evidently, are helpful to boost the targeted students’ performance in school, even through college. Why don’t we use the same successful support group template for the boys, before they get to college?
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Why indeed? Politics maybe?
Scott Galloway seems to think its because boys have many more alternatives to traditional college available to them than to their female counterparts, including the construction trades. I’ve been hearing this argument a lot lately, but I can never figure out whether the proponents see it as a good thing? is it?
EDIT: in an earlier version of this post I incorrectly stated the first name of the noted Professor Galloway as David instead of Scott.
It may not be unequivocally a good or bad thing. I.e. it may depend on the situation. More options may be better when there is free choice in the matter, but if there is family or social pressure to choose the additional option that is not a good fit for the person (perhaps based on parental views on what are suitable professions based on gender), that can be a bad thing. Remember that someone’s choices in high school and immediately after high school graduation are heavily influenced or controlled by parental choices and circumstances, so the choice may not be that free a choice for the high school student or recent graduate.
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deleted.
Rivet, I agree with you. I was a far more disciplined and motivated student in grad school right after mustering out of the Marines than I was in undergrad. And it showed in my grades.
dfb, you are right in that the military is not for everyone. It can be a great option, however, for someone who needs direction, or who wants to escape a bad situation.
As to the risk of serious injury, applicants can manage that in their choice of service branch, and to a lessor extent MOS. Marines - high chance of training injury or battlefield casualty. Air Force - exceptionally low chance of injury or battlefield casualty. Even in the Marines, which is more focused on combat and has a largest percentage of people in the combat arms of all the services, there are many rear area specialties like logistics, aircraft maintenance, etc. that very low risk.
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“Girls who code” and “Women in STEM” because the majority of STEM fields continue to be dominated by men.
We could use more support for male students for writing and other creative outlets.
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