SIDNEY, Mont. — For most high school seniors, a college degree is the surest path to a decent job and a stable future. But here in oil country, some teenagers are choosing the oil fields over universities, forgoing higher education for jobs with salaries that can start at $50,000 a year.
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<p>But school officials in eastern Montana said more and more students were interested in working for at least a year after graduation and getting technical training instead of a four-year degree.</p>
<p>Last year, one-third of the graduating seniors at Sidney High School headed off to work instead of going to college or joining the military, a record percentage. Some found work making deliveries to oil rigs, doing construction and repairing machinery. Others decided to first seek training as welders or diesel mechanics, which pay more than entry-level jobs.</p>
<p>Meanwhile, enrollment at Dawson Community College in Glendive, about an hour from Sidney, has fallen to 225 students from 446 just a few years ago, as fewer local students pursue two-year degrees.</p>
<p>“It’s the allure of the money,” said Thom Barnhart, a guidance counselor at Sidney High.
<p>It’s pretty cool that kids in that area have an option to make decent money without college in that area. Kids in Alaska have similar options for similar reasons.</p>
<p>I think the only “fretting”, as you put it, the author of the article is doing, is about the long term prospects for these jobs. They depend on an industry that may not exist for long in its current form.</p>
<p>Funny that the NYT doesn’t fret about the job prospects of newly-minted journalists who will have the desired credentials of 4 years of college plus maybe even grad school. Decent job? Ha. Stable future? Hardly.</p>
<p>BC I think it is not that oil is going away but that the price may drop or fracking regulations added or other factors will reduce the availability of these relatively high paying jobs: </p>
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<p>I hope cheap energy that STAYS HERE brings manufacturing back too.</p>
<p>You can always go to school. You can’t always find work. Work. Save. Go to school if you need to down the road.</p>
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<p>Shale oil is uneconomic below about $70/barrel.</p>
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<p>Then oil prices will skyrocket and those skills will be in demand in Alberta. It should also kill our economy too. Our economy is starting to depend on low natural gas prices and it’s affecting prices around the world. Natural gas is $3/mbtu in the US. In Japan, it’s $18. Can you say competitive manufacturing advantage? That should trickle through electricity production and it’s already killed the price for coal.</p>
<p>Does this superintendent worry about the lack of jobs for those will college degrees and the debt that they incurred in getting those degrees?</p>
<p>If welding and advanced diesel mechanics classes were offered in cooperation with the industry, the CC wouldn’t see declining enrollment. One thing that helps industry is relying on existing educational institutions as partners. I live in a manufacturing area and it is common for welders, union stewards, journeyman electrician to take classes at local CC for certification. It saves the companies the trouble of creating and implementing their own training programs and the competing businesses know what the workers learn, so it is transferable skill.</p>
<p>Here is a nice summary of the issue from one of the Times commenters:</p>
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<p>Everything you do in life “forecloses” other possibilities. We are really going to worry about an abundance of high paying manufacturing jobs available for high school grads? After high school I worked as a dishwasher for less than minimum wage and my brother worked at a drop forge where it was constantly 120F. The fact that these jobs are available is a good thing. </p>
<p>Here is another Times commenter who feels things have been “foreclosed” for him
<p>Our local community colleges have tech and trades certificates and AA/AS programs. They are more tech/trade oriented than academic. In MA, the CCs are more balanced.</p>
<p>We have a great tech school that offers an alternative for the last two years of high school and also adult ed…everything from auto mechanic/body work to firefighting/EMT to robotics/automated manufacturing to welding. </p>
<p>Anyway, I don’t see anything that I’d call “fretting” in this:</p>
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<p>It seems to me to point out an unusual circumstance where kids in this area can get well paying jobs right out of high school. That is not the case in most parts of the country anymore, so it is newsworthy. If anyone is “fretting” it is the school official interviewed, not the writer of the article.</p>
<p>Heck, most kids go to college so they can get a job that pays $50K a year.</p>
<p>Unemployment is up to what percent right now among generation Y? A significant percentage of college grads are going back to living at home while barista-ing at Starbucks or doing some-such until they can find their footing, if ever, for the duration of this crappy economy. And the NYT is worried that a significant percentage of high school grads in Montana are ditching college for $50K a year? What am I missing here that makes this a bad thing?</p>
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<li><p>Oil is predominantly used in transportation these days, since the first oil shocks of the 1970s drove other energy users (including manufacturing) to other sources of energy. Oil remains dominant in transportation because solid fuel (e.g. coal), gaseous fuel (e.g. natural gas), and electricity storage all have significant disadvantages in energy density and/or refueling speed and convenience, compared to liquid fuel.</p></li>
<li><p>New methods of extracting oil won’t necessarily make oil cheap, since they are relative expensive methods, so that if the price of oil falls below the marginal cost to extract the oil, the new methods simply won’t be used to extract the oil.</p></li>
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<p>However, if you are referring to natural gas, then yes, it is advantageous to US users of natural gas for it to be readily available and inexpensive here.</p>
<p>“2. New methods of extracting oil won’t necessarily make oil cheap, since they are relative expensive methods, so that if the price of oil falls below the marginal cost to extract the oil, the new methods simply won’t be used to extract the oil.”</p>
<p>Exactly. And since China and India are going to be increasing consumption for at least the next decade there is now a floor to the crude price for the foreseeable future. Add to that Japan’s panicked (dare I say “headlong”) conversion to Nat Gas and a lot of supply is getting taken up. </p>
<p>Its not impossible that there will be a bust. But then people have been waiting for a bust in Microsoft and GOOG for a while. You can have a pretty nice career while everyone is waiting for the bust.</p>
<p>I thought the article insinuated that these kids who are forgoing higher education for boom-level rates of pay in a a politically-incorrect industry were potentially throwing their futures away for short-term gain, all the while citing the reality of unemployment statistics. My take on things is that unless something jump starts the economy and increases the number of available entry-level white collar jobs, there are going to be plenty of fresh college graduates waiting on lots of tables in the near to mid-future. </p>
<p>Renee Rasmussen, the Bainville school superintendent was “worried” about these kids’ futures if the industry was regulated out of profitability. The NYT has made no bones about what it thinks of fracking and would be delighted if the whole business were shut down tomorrow. I was perhaps being sarcastic in my use of the word.</p>
<p>Of course, if the people involved went work in well paid oil jobs, but saved some of their money in case the boom ends, or they decide to get out of that line of work, then they will have some money for college or other education for a career change.</p>
<p>^^^Indeed. Now if those young fracking-work workers living in their parents’ basements would have the foresight to save up a nest egg for a few years rather than buying motorcycles or whatnot they could then revisit the idea of higher education at some future time when they might have a better idea of where their lives are going and have the means to do something about it if they want to change career paths. Sort of like a gap year, plus a few.</p>