<p>The thing about the trades is that unless you are self employed and have good outside insurance, you will be making roughly what you made when you are ready to retire, as when you were starting out.
Or less, allowing for periods of unemployment/ injury, and taking into account inflation.</p>
<p>Of course, even with a Phd, you need to be ready to relocate, whenever your company decides they can cut costs by moving your division from Seattle to Huntsville. <cough-boeing></cough-boeing></p>
<p>That’s true, emerald. Wife of said plumber complained that he had periods when his back gave out and was worried how long he could continue to work. Although I’m not so sure if that’s very different from, say, a computer programmer suffering from debilitating carpal tunnel syndrome. </p>
<p>They all work in the technology field, very very educated and skilled but completely self-taught. Fiance gets a raise every year, which is higher than what I get, so his income has been steadily climbing. There is a promotion on the horizon. Every indication for now shows that he has a very bright future ahead of him. We won’t be rich, but he does fine. Of course I worry like any sane person would what would happen if something happened to this job, but he’s had good offers from other companies over the years and there is always his other job to fall back on so I think we’re about as secure as anybody else is in this day and age.</p>
<p>Not every person has the skills to do what he’s doing or will have the opportunities that he’s had, I want to be clear that my point isn’t that nobody needs to go to college-- I am not trying to generalize. I am trying to de-generalize. My point is that it isn’t just 18 year old super genius millionaires who don’t need to go or maybe shouldn’t go right away until they’re sure it’s what they want. He got this job right after high school graduation and was making more than many college grads do, it would have been hideously stupid to go borrow 50k to go to college and give up that job. He probably would not have been good at college anyway, he doesn’t care about things that are boring and everything except computers is boring. He has as much in assets as I have in debt, and makes more money than I do, and probably always will! He made the right choice for him, no doubt about it. I am glad nobody beat him over the head with this statistic when he was 18 or he might not have made the right choice. He could easily have ended up in the same job with debt and a half-finished degree.</p>
<p>I have other non-college friends who aren’t doing as well as my fiance is doing, but are still doing better than me. I have friends that work in retail or in trades and make wages many here would find unacceptably low, but they live simple lives and are able to support themselves. I make well above what they make, but I have less than they do for living expenses once you take out my student loans. In 10 years when my loans are paid off I will be better off than them, but doesn’t it lack foresight and maturity to consider what I am going to do for the next 10 years in the meantime? I am at my family’s mercy until those loans are paid off.</p>
<p>We say it all the time with regard to education, but we really have to mean it-- there really is no one size fits all. Especially not when we’re talking about something that costs thousands or even tens of thousands a year. Not everybody can afford to make that investment, no matter how good it would be for them in 10 years if they could. You have to have the capital to pull that off without sacrificing financial security in the meantime. And it has to be what you want to do! There is no point in going just to screw it up and drop out because you didn’t belong there in the first place. There is nothing worse than having enough student loan debt for a degree without actually managing to successfully finish the degree. I know three people in that situation and they have it worse than anybody I’ve ever met.</p>
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<p>This is the key. Good opportunities in today’s economy depend on becoming well educated and skilled. But people need to realize that becoming educated and skilled can (at least for some people) happen in ways other than attending college for a bachelor’s degree.</p>
<p>I agree. I don’t think college should ever become a “default” for youngsters. They need training and should be encouraged to develop a specialty, but that doesn’t have to come from a college degree. I think if fewer people went straight to college and developed their skills in other ways, the student debt levels would be less problematic. </p>
<p>I think if students & parents weren’t so fixated on “dream” or brand name schools, they would be less willing to take on debt they knew they couldn’t afford.</p>
<p>@emeraldkity4</p>
<p>The sad thing is, the vast majority of crippling student loan debt is not associated with “dream” or brand name schools at all. It is associated with base tier and for-profit schools that offer very little in return more the endless monthly payments they leave in their wake…</p>
<p>This probably makes me look stupid but what is a mellenial</p>
<p>Millenial refers to the generation born starting in the early 1980s, after generation X.</p>
<p>I object to the word “chose.” I know many whose parents won’t pay for anything after age 18.</p>
<p>However, there are ways to continue your education, without help from your family.
It may be not be as easy as moving from your parents house to a dorm campus but most students actually do not do that.
One third of college students are over 25. Only 14% of all college students live on campus or 25% of full time students.
More need to work, to join the military, to attend community college part time, while they position themselves to finish their degree.</p>
<p>^I wish there was more help for HS students making those kinds of plans. If I’d waited until I was 24, or even just got an associates the first two years and then worked for a while and went back for the bachelors when I was 24, I would have had an entirely different situation. We were told, “go now, or assume you will never go.” I didn’t really realize it was an option to be flexible about when to go and that there was more than just “college at 18” or “no college.” I should have, I take responsibility for that, but it would be nice if schools introduced a wider variety of options. Maybe they do and it was just mine that sucked.</p>
<p>My fiance’s former high school has a lot of really nice programs for students that are more interested in trades or other non-bachelors paths. They have a separate building where you can go and take all these different courses, which is something he did for his technology classes. My own high school attempted this with a couple of courses but doesn’t really have a defined program, and the counselors must have only encouraged very bottom of the barrel students to consider that path. I had a 2.6 my junior year of high school and they were pushing HARD for 4 year college.</p>
<p>When I was in high school, no one said anything about going to college.
They did have auto body for those that were interested in that, but I wasn’t.
Many high schools have their hands full with student current issues, let alone getting involved with what many would consider the purview of their family.</p>
<p>I would have preferred they left it up to my family rather than blatantly defying my family and telling me to ignore them when they were telling me I couldn’t afford to go. If they are going to be in the business of steering kids in either direction, that’s not the way to do it. We had to go to one or two mandatory meetings with the GC to discuss our options and she was “outraged” that I, with my 2.6 GPA, would consider community college. They said, “if you just get in, the money will be there.” and “these things have a way of working out.” and “if you don’t go, you will fail at life and never be independent. youll never get a job.” and “if you don’t go right now, you will never be able to go.”</p>
<p>But, like I said, maybe I just had the worst HS ever about this sort of thing.</p>
<p>I was put on a " not likely to graduate" track when I was in high school, perhaps that would have been preferable?</p>
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<p>Perhaps they are living in the past, when a new high school graduate, without parental support from parents wealthy enough to disqualify them from financial aid, can find a subsistence job to cover his/her living expenses while also paying the trivial tuition and other school costs of a nearby state university that was not that selective so that most non-failing high school graduates could get admitted.</p>
<p>Much higher college costs, including for state universities, and worse job and pay prospects for high school graduates, mean that this route is much less doable now than in the past.</p>
<p>Just to show how much it truly comes down to counselors: Ema and I went to the same hs and I have a very, very different experience than she did. I vaguely remember the GC meetings but my GC was just interested in making sure I was on track to graduate. I don’t even really remember talking about college or scholarships or anything of the sort. </p>
<p>I, too, take issue with the “choose” in the title. Almost every one I know who didn’t go to college right out of high school didn’t do it by choice. Our local CC is about $450 per 4 credit class (I just did the math because I’m considering taking class there). Still a fairly decent chunk of change especially if you can’t get loans because your parents refuse to fill out FAFSA (I knew many such parents). My friends are just reaching the age where they can get independent status on FAFSA and many are returning to the local CC. </p>
<p>There is an inherent conflict of interest between private HSs (and to some degree public HSs to) that want to show that their students were accepted and succeeded at prestigious Us and families who want to be sure they can afford the U and earn a living upon graduation, without a mountain of debt. </p>
<p>I had to always ask the HS GC what schools were LIKELY to give significant merit to our S rather than just expecting finances to work out. </p>
<p>Our val accepted assurances that she’d get lots of merit and was crushed that she was accepted pretty much everywhere but only got significant merit for flagship U. She tearfully attended and graduated manga cum laude with NO debt and is so far debt free in med school too. </p>
<p>My kids were first gen college, so we didnt have any expectations that what counselors said or didnt say had any relevance to our family.
We investigated for ourselves, the same as we would do any other large outlay of time & money.</p>
<p><a href=“Opinion | How to Get a Job at Google - The New York Times”>Opinion | How to Get a Job at Google - The New York Times; dont need a degree</p>