<p>Problem with the argument is that available data strongly says that more education = more money. One argument made in the linked article is that we need more trade workers because people with BA’s are unemployed. My understanding of the facts, as conveyed in the actual unemployment data, is that the reverse is true: more education, less likely to be unemployed. The same is also true with wages: more education, more stable and higher wages.</p>
<p>I agree with romanigypsyeyes, one of the problems is that the trades are regarded as a “last resort” or jobs to shove the “dumb” kids into, particularly by the upper class (and somewhat the middle class.) The families who expect that “of course” their child will be going to college are not going to for one moment entertain that their kid might actually . . . ENJOY . . . a trade. It won’t even occur to them to mention it as a possibility to their kids. It’s perfectly acceptable for a boy to go to college and become an architect who designs buildings, but unthinkable for him to be apprenticed to a carpenter so he can learn to design and build furniture because . . . why, exactly?</p>
<p>The trades are not for everyone of course–they aren’t my aptitude to be sure–but at the same time I’m sure there are kids cluelessly trying to find their place at college as they wander from major to major (at $texas a year) who would’ve thoroughly enjoyed a trade. Maybe the kid who spends all his time under the hood of his car and comes to dinner with a smiling, grease-smudged face would like being a mechanic more than being the CEO of Ford.</p>
<p>I do believe that other options should be considered for high schools students, other than the four-year bachelor’s degree route. A few posts mentioned skilled trades, such as plumbing or mechanics, which are career options that don’t require a four-year degree. I believe those areas are overlooked due to the supposed lack of prestige of those jobs. What’s wrong with becoming a carpenter, firefighter, or a bus driver? There is also another career option that doesn’t require a bachelor’s degree: nursing. </p>
<p>One argument that I see for encouraging students to get a bachelor’s degree is that college graduates earn more over a lifetime than non-college graduates. However, does that really apply to every college major? I know that physicians, lawyers, accountants, and engineers can potentially earn more than someone with only a high school diploma. What about other majors? Especially with the sky-high costs of numerous private colleges in this country, is it really worth it for some students to spend upwards of $1000 a credit hour (and borrow thousands of dollars a year) in order to be more “well-rounded” with courses in writing, math, and philosophy, for instance? Anyone can do that by taking those classes at a local community college, at significant savings, without incurring any loans. Moreover, is it worth it to be in debt, say $40,000, for a starting salary of $35K per year? </p>
<p>I just don’t like seeing students willing to go into massive debt for a degree that may not earn them a good starting salary (isn’t a good salary one main reason for going to college?), and requires them to move back in with their parents due to the high cost-of-living in some areas of the country. (Granted, I don’t know what one would consider a good salary: $30K to $40K per year?)</p>
<p>I think this is a very interesting discussion.</p>
<p>I graduated with a bachelor’s degree that prepared me for a variety of careers (law, social work, public policy, education). When I entered graduate school, I was exempted out of many foundation courses because I had the background knowledge in the material (which I learned in college). I can take more interesting upper-level electives (e.g., grantwriting, web design) in my specialization.</p>
<p>The future issue in higher education IMO is the master’s degree (or insert JD/MD) becoming the entry-level professional requirement for stable, higher paying positions. Employers already lean toward hiring people with master’s degrees in some professions (particularly those dominated by women) over bachelor’s degree holders. Pursuing a career will become quite expensive!</p>
<p>Not everybody needs college. I’m in a 4-year right now. I have no idea what I want to do with my life. My parents are paying a ton of money each quarter for me to “discover” myself. And because I don’t know what I want to do, I’m not as motivated to work hard in my classes. That’s why I’m considering withdrawing, studying at my CC or state for a year and then joining the military.</p>
<p>High schools need to let students realize that there are options beyond college. Trade schools as people have said. Or the military. I could join the Air Force as an Air Traffic Control apprentice, get FAA-certified (and paid), see the world and arguably have far more valuable experiences than I would getting drunk each Friday and Saturday, get money for college if I really wanted, and then in the civilian world get a job as an ATC at a major airport. I know a guy who was an ATC for 20 years and by the end of his career he was making over $100,000 a year. Sounds a lot better than graduating in four years and potentially be stuck working a $12 an hour job being a supervisor at some store.</p>
<p>“Our culture dictates that we need a college education to be successful in the real world.”</p>
<p>This is a HUGE red flag that we should fix our high schools, and not just pass the graduates to the next level. What backwards thinking- not to the poster of this quote, but of society for thinking that if “level 1” is broken, we should address it in “level 2”. Not only is it backwards, it is infinitely more expensive and actually damages, overloads and ultimately waters down the “level 2”. </p>
<p>Let’s focus on fixing the igh schools rather than making college “mandatory”</p>
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<p>This. Too often, when people say that all kids don’t need to go to college, what they really mean is that other people’s kids don’t need to go to college. Coming from Kentucky, I knew an awful lot of people who were discouraged from going to college, often by family members.</p>
<p>I do think that there should be more vocational ed programs. The district that I attended in high school had an extensive vocational ed system (though they didn’t call it that, possibly to avoid stigma) at the high schools, with programs at different schools including aviation & tourism, EMT/Paramedic training, firefighting, highway maintenance, computer technology, early childhood education, electronics, machine tool & die technology, construction technology, and many others. However, a college prep curriculum was available to all students, including those in vocational programs. That, I think, is the key. Provide options.</p>
<p>Jessie, I really do appreciate your thoughtful post, and agree with much of it. Regarding, however, the paragraph about Kentucky: agreed that the less visible students should not be ignored or dismissed into non-academic paths, but I tend to see (in my encounters with highschoolers in my daily job), many more DCHurricanes than anyone else. One of my students right now is someone who slacked off in high school, due to low motivation and not envisioning a goal, or connections between studies & any practical goal. He is preparing himself right now to join the Navy after high school graduation, and it’s been my job to get him to bring the greatest possible skill set he can to that endeavor. I agree with DC that is a much better use of parental money and student time to take some kind of a non-4-yr-college path at first, if the student cannot articulate to others from within, a reason to go to college. Both my sister and my brother flunked out of 4-yr colleges due to zero motivation and internal distractions. (“Where am I going?” “Why do I want this?” “This is my parents’ dream, not mine.”) They only “found themselves” after they went to a cc, then to 4-yrs and through circuitous job paths. And worse, in their cases (they were very practically oriented), the (later) job paths would have shortened their multiple later attempts to complete a 4-yr degree, precisely because the academic majors chosen would have been meaningful. They took much longer to find themselves with traditional assumptions than with a journey that would have been more internally driven.</p>
<p>Very, very often people structure their goals in reverse, so to speak. A semi-vocational path (concurrent with or after h.s.), a part-time job (at any age), and certainly time in the military, exposes the student to a variety of options which excites him and motivates. There have been people who have been turned on to the possibilities in engineering due to military training as an enlisted person, and then later gone on to pursue a 4-yr. degree.</p>
<p>The student I mention, and many like him whom I meet, has not previously seen the connection between education and the working world; it was one reason for his poor performance prior to grade 12. Now, however, he is excited about the prospect of a career in the armed forces, and his performance this year has turned around.</p>
<p>Not enough h.s. teachers teach real-world connections through the subject matter. Most students do not see the applicability of geometry to landscaping, to filmmaking, to carpentry, and more. So we don’t just need “career talks” in h.s. We need such speakers and guests to relate how particular subjects are needed in their careers, and even how they wish they had listened more closely in _____class, which later they had to “re-take” in community college in order to understand something basic about their job.</p>
<p>DCHurricane, I encourage you to have a heart-to-heart with your parents. I’m sure they’ll be more supportive if you leave soon than if you wait it out 4 years and then tell them it was a waste.</p>
<p>If the issue is trades, then what we lack is a comprehensive trade school educational system. </p>
<p>But our educational system is wholly different from European systems. Their systems are oriented toward much more education in high school while our system is aimed at the college level. Our high school graduates are behind Europeans - and most everyone in math - but our college graduates are ahead. </p>
<p>Remember that community college or other 2 year associates programs are essentially the make-up for our high school system. </p>
<p>I don’t see our K-12 system changing radically because the system as a whole has been reasonably responsive to our needs. Our system’s main failings - besides poor districts, which is a different subject - are in science/engineering (including electrical engineering / comp sci). That comes from two reasons: </p>
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<li>We don’t track kids into fields as they do in many countries and thus we rely on college level choices, which means we end up with somewhat fewer overall graduates in those fields.</li>
<li>Those areas have grown so fast that it’s hard to see how we could satisfy the needs, especially when many employers - as in Google - want to hire from a global pool to get the best overall candidates. I think it’s better that companies start and grow here than that we insure full employment for our graduates over foreign graduates.</li>
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<p>I’m not sure I agree with this statement. Most 2 year associates programs are not covering material that is taught in K-12 they are designed to train people for a very specific job and most every CC has a track program into the state universities for students that take that approach for financial or academic reasons.</p>
<p>I do agree that getting kids ready for school is a fundamental issue but it also begins before the K-12 curriculum. Many kids, because of many reasons, are not kindergarten ready so it starts much earlier than high school. The sheer effort of our K-12 system to give every American equal accesss to eduation is monumental and incorporates kids at all points in the intellectural ability spectrum.</p>
<p>There was a business roundtable in my state several weeks ago. One of their main findings is that it is easy to find engineers and managers but very, very hard to find machinists.</p>
<p>I know that one of the local defense contractors will hire high-school kids for PCB manufacturing with after-school hours and substantial paid training. They’re trying to build their own trade workforce for the future. One of the problems with attracting people to work in the trades is the high cost of housing locally, due to having a lot of professionals in the area.</p>
<p>BITD when kids went to university they all worked for the same diploma. Now, there are Honors colleges and and regular college. With everyone going, they had to do something that would challenge the student who would have gone anyway and make it easier for the student who wouldn’t have gone before he/she thought he had to in order to find any work at all except flipping burgers. No society can survive with everyone being white collar college graduates. Someone needs to be the plumber, gardener, etc. These are truly talented people who can fix things I can’t. Let’s let them do what they want and give them a trade and don’t set kids up for failure who shouldn’t have gone to college and spent a lot of money only to find out it wasn’t for them.</p>
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<p>I wonder if there is statistics about trade school vs. university degrees. (I looked real quick but nothing jumped out, I will look later). As I said before, it is easy to export someone’s job if it is with computer degrees, and it is easy to import doctors who work for less, but I haven’t seen any Indian plumbers lately.</p>
<p>I agree with many of the posters here:
Excellent vocational schools are sorely lacking in the US;
HS remediation programs have a place, but should not be the focus of CC, and not exist in universities;
Remove vocations (nursing e.g) from Universities.</p>
<p>The US is suffering from a schizoid attempt to pander to education universalism on one side, while expecting Universities to be for-profit businesses (in name or not) on the other. The unsurprising result is that huge amounts of (someone’s) money have been spent with relatively little society gain. The hordes of adults with 4 year degrees who are either unemployed or minimally employed speaks volumes of our inappropriate and sub-standard schooling of these people, as well as economy mismatch.</p>
<p>Face it – if a college is being paid 20k+ a year per head to reach remedial RRR, who are they to complain ? Obviously they will not (at least not very loudly), but the general taxpayer sure should. Come massive defaults of student loans in the near future and government shouldering of the debt burden to shoulder yet another ‘too big to bail’ enterprise, society will belatedly start to wonder if education universalism is really the golden goose after all.</p>
<p>College helps provide individuals with a range of classes that help students decide on a career, and ultimately tailor their educational experience towards that career choice. Not everybody needs that.</p>
<p>Corporate ladder-climbers need college. Entrepreneurs often don’t.</p>
<p>I met a multimillionaire the other day. He was a blazingly smart guy that started several small successful companies. After some discussion, he told me that he dropped out of school in the 10th grade. Did he need more than a 10th grade education to succeed? Yes. The education part he got from self-study, independent research, and online training courses. He wasn’t the lazy type of dropout. He was bored with school because it was slowing down his career pursuits. Same with Bill Gates. Both are cases of individuals who really didn’t need college to teach them how to think critically and rationally. They knew what needed to be done, knew that they gain the knowledge they need without a school, and knew that launching into what they wanted to accomplish with their lives would not require any school’s stamp of approval – especially when the school would inflict a multi-year delay on the chance to finally get started. Bill Gates might have been just another IT project manager if he hadn’t quit Harvard when he did.</p>
<p>Incidentally, as much as I favor a strong vocational system in the US, it too can fall into mediocrity without too much trouble: An acquaintance of mine teaches Nursing classes at a local CC. Not only is the entrance requirement to Nursing essentially nil, he has been told in no uncertain terms that failing students is not acceptable.</p>
<p>Perhaps one solution is to turn vocational schools into places where smart kids may wish to go, and effort is required to successfully complete.</p>
<p>"Bill Gates might have been just another IT project manager if he hadn’t quit Harvard when he did. "</p>
<p>Or if he had stayed, he might have advanced the public domain, rather than be the king of a public domain – repackaged as non-standard, monopoly regressive mountain of garbage.</p>
<p>Many CCs are open admission, but most are not open placement. Typically, and unlike many 4 year colleges, all new students must take placement exams. These exams determine if a student will likely benefit from English 101 or College Algebra for example. If not, developmental courses are available that do overlap with high school, but few of these courses actually count toward graduation. CCs also provide a range of certificate programs and other shorter term training opportunities, most of which have generally accepted exit criteria. CCs constantly evaluate their programs and spend a great deal of time trying to improve them, much more so than do 4 year schools.</p>
<p>Most CC nursing programs are top rate and have stringent placement requirements. I am quite familiar with a program that requires extensive placement examinations, and anything less than a first time 95% student pass rate on the independently provided nursing board exams by students is considered unacceptable. Community Colleges also provide many of the technicians found in our hospitals and most are very well trained.</p>
<p>Perhaps US News and World Report could sell a few more copies if they rated Community Colleges. I currently don’t know of a rating system outside of the purely subjective RateMyProfessor.com and do know that they range widely in quality, even within community colleges.</p>
<p>You have to be careful about some vocational programs. A person who has a formal associates/certificate in Pharm tech will not get paid more than a person who has no experience. Most pharmacies will pay a bonus if you are certified, though. Getting the associates, might make it slightly easier to get a job in a hospital, which tends to pay more.</p>