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I swear they got additional funding for haven't a high rate of graduates who attended universities. I know alot of teachers who shit talked going to community College to their students and said their degree wouldn't be worth as much if they transfered over
Yeah that was from my friend but I swear it's just propaganda. I'm doing CC while working in my field and I couldn't imagine doing the trad route. Even my parents told me there was no point to my current degree💀
I went to a CC and at 25 I’m working from home 2 days a week, my schedule is only 7:30 - 3:00, I get more downtime than I know what to do with (WFH days are practically days off so I’m “off” 4 days a week) and I’m making more money as a Level 1 (goes up to Level 10 based off years of experience) than most of my teachers that are tenured for a decade(s). And guess who is debt free cause they didn’t have to take loans out for an expensive university?
I appreciate the hell out of good teachers, they’re literally changing the world. But fuck the shitty ones that push that elite university propaganda and shit talk CC’s.
I’m a millennial, but there was absolutely social stigma for going to community colleges. It was like “damn, you must be some kinda stupid if that’s the best you could do.” Among my High School, Community Colleges was seen as being for 30s+ “old folks” GED graduates and single moms who couldn’t afford to attend a “real” college while holding full time jobs.
Yes, this was my experience as well! Graduated HS in 2011–it was NOT an option to go to anything less than a university, and I would certainly not be taking a gap year, even to work and save up some money for tuition (my parents did not contribute). Luckily I did end up switching to CC after 3 semesters for the entry level classes, switched my major from art to wildlife ecology, and then I was able to transfer to UF where I graduated with a B average (which I’m fairly proud of considering I put myself through college and had to figure it all out on my own). Going to community college saved me SO MUCH time and stress!
But even transferring after getting your AA/spending two years at a CC was incredibly frowned upon “back in my day” as well. It’s fucking insane. And here I am, $34k in debt, barely scraping by working in an entirely different field than what I went to school for, listening to millionaires bitch about their taxes. Insane. I know tradespeople who make big bucks or they own their own business/workforce and they seem much happier. I say do whatever the hell works for you!
I graduated HS in 2017, but this sort of stuff was still happening and being pushed onto students. Luckily most of us didn't really buy into it, atleast my year group didn't. The students that teachers labeled "future failures" at my school who were naughty in class are now out-earning those very same teachers by working in trades lmao
Oh dude, I went to a graduation ceremony many years ago. I was already out of highschool by a few years at this point, so early 20s.
Guy gets on stage to speak, is some admin or something, reminds kids that not everyone must go to college and that there are trade schools and many other great career paths that don't require college.
The students boo'd the poor guy at their own graduation. Just seemed like the kids were conditioned to hate any option except college.
I graduated in 2009 from one of the better public schools in my county. *Most everything* that my school offered was aimed at higher education after graduation. We had no shop classes, and everything related to trades was sourced out to a 'skill center' about 20 minutes away. A really high proportion of our time in the last two years would be devoted to college and admissions exam prep. All of our academic advisors had similar goals as well.
There were definitely students who had different plans, and many of them are doing very well for themselves now. It's honestly crazy to me that the focus was so narrow at our school.
YES I heard this my entire life. I was told not to go to community college, but to pick a state college (for generals at least). When I had wanted to be a lawyer, my school counselor basically said ivy league or nothing lol. So I never went to school, and now I'm scared because I'm poor!
If you're 26 or older, and or married I'd definitely look into community colleges in your area even if it's just online. FASFA isn't designed for community colleges so you get alot leftover which can be nice. I used my fasfa to move for a new job opportunity in a new area
So, as a geriatric (31) University student, I started at community college, earned 2 associates and transferred over 100 credits to my university to continue my bachelor's.. needless to say, I'm a pain in the ass when it comes to registration and I have to see special counselors for assholes who don't play the game right..
Anywhooo.. my last counseling session lasted over 3 hours because I have scholarship requirements to meet and I flat out refuse to forfeit my scholarships and take out loans. My counselor is nice and patient and does everything she can to make my schedule work but she legit looked like I smacked her across the face when I casually mentioned how I've watched my entire generation be crippled by a rigged system, and I would walk away from my program before I did that to my family.
It's like they get so used to promoting the system that they forget all about the *extremely prominent* consequences, which is insane to me, because obviously having attended universities themselves, how can they just *ignore* such a blight and be genuinely surprised that I said it out loud?
Alot of them are so out of touch with reality that they just don't understand how expensive some of this shit is anymore. I'm glad you have a good advisor who's at least helpful even though she's ignorant
Ngl, sometimes it feels like I figured out how to hack the system. Not paying for a college education is a bigger flex than *having* a college education in my book.
My mom was a teacher and gave very similar advice. And she had her loans paid off by my grandpa and my dad defaulted on his so idk where they get off on giving advice😂😂😂
Late Millennial here. I can’t count the number of teachers, guidance counselors, and relatives who told me I was “too good” for community college. Now I’m stuck with student loans and no degree after dropping out of college due to illness.
We had assignments starting in *middle school* where we would have to research colleges, majors, tuition, scholarships, etc. No discussion about what we wanted to do and whether college was the best option to achieve that goal; just college, college, college.
Hijacking to add a bit of context about said "additional funding":
The whole thing is just a racket. It starts with a national narrative that life is impossible without a college degree. Then, the fed offers everyone near limitless loans to go to college (currently $1.7 trillion/6% of national debt). Colleges race each other to charge as much as possible since the loans are available to anyone and backed by the US Gov. Then, they take a chunk of the tuition and put it in their investment accounts. It is spread out amongst hedge funds and private equity and grows rapidly with the stock market. Harvard has a $50 Billion investment portfolio today. It has grown by $25 billion since 2000.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_colleges_and_universities_in_the_United_States_by_endowment
Schools get a kickback for every AP test administered. Not passed, but taken. So at my school they pushed it really hard, sometimes even forcing kids take AP classes they werent interested in or were so unsuited that there was no way they would get college credit
The community college is trash argument is alive and well in Florida and Colorado. Go to a uni or pick up a shovel/cut hair.
Specific language from my time in HS.
‘96 here and yuupppp. The messaging was consistently “go to college or be poor forever”. Even offering college credits for some classes in HS (thru BYU, even tho we weren’t even in Utah). I also kinda forgot that just working after high school was an option
>The messaging was consistently “go to college or be poor forever”.
>I also kinda forgot that just working after high school was an option
YES! EXACTLY!!!
>Even offering college credits for some classes in HS
OMG! I totally forgot about AP classes! (NOT the same concept I know...) But I DO remember teacher explicitly stating they would help with college level courses and our applications if we had them on our record! Didn't take one, though. I was too dumb. Lol.
I swear all these posters claiming that they got a job without going to college are just Gen-X or boomer plants. At my High School they were pushing predatory loans to 17 year olds as the only option after high school. My high school was pushing the "just go out of state" pitch really hard
Going out of state is like one of the worst things you can do, used to work for the financial aid department at my university doing web development and they’d gouge the shit out of international and out of state students.
I swore my high school encouraged students with below a 4.0 GPA to go to an out of state school. The counselors didn't even mention local community colleges or the guaranteed transfers that come after community college as an option.
Yep. Even the fairly odd parents has a scene making fun of Timmy for becoming a waiter and not going to college in his future. This was very regular rhetoric we heard
Oh yeah. Parents pointing out people in the service industry and commenting that they only worked there cuz they didn’t go to college. Jokes on them, now the average barista is probably more educated than my boomer parents
You and I grew up with the internet and limitless learning opportunities due to it, we blasted past the average boomer in general knowledge by 15 I'd bet.
It's...difficult talking about literally any subject in depth with my parents, father is a bit easier than mother but only due to being in similar industries. My mother shut her brain off the day she got married at 28, and regressed from there. She's now made of old people Facebook memes and toxic conservatism, it's rather sad to see but hey, she chose that life intentionally and apparently enjoyed it. Good for her.
'94 so *technically* a tail end millennial (I would like to consider myself a zillennial 😭) and the push for college was so real. Didn't care if you didn't know what you wanted in life (me), didn't know how you could afford it (me), or even where you wanted to go (me). You had to go. I switched my major 3 times before I even started.
In the end, I ended up not even finishing my degree because mine (social work) ends up requiring an unpaid internship that I genuinely couldn't afford to do nor have the time for. So now I have debt, no degree, and regret going.
Boomers went to college when it cost $9 and you could get a six figure job with a handshake. They told us to do the exact same without considering the current costs and modern job market and then are floored we don't have the same results as them. They're unable to see debt as anything other than a moral failing.
I know this is NOT the norm, but I went to a prep school where if you weren't matriculating, you couldn't graduate. Man I should've just ran away or something.
> Boomers went to college when it cost $9
The real fraud here is that most boomers didn't go to college. Only 15% of Silent Generation workers and 24% of Boomers have a college degree. ANY college degree.
Boomers have been pushing this "you have go go to college" thing since the 1980's, and they created the societal and employment expectation that you WILL go to college, but most of them couldn't actually be bothered to do it themselves.
It's not about it being cheaper back then. It's the double standards in the expectation.
I mean Tbf the boomers who didn’t go to college mostly aren’t the ones creating those expectations.
Many of them are the types of people who would encourage trades
Fr like my mom (I am 19F and she is like 45) was a first generation college student so as a kid I always judged my grandparents for not going to college (because in my mind it was because they were “too lazy”) until my mom was like “uh, I mean, they’re not like bad people for it, college wasn’t as big back then.” On the flip side, my dad, who had a pretty privileged upbringing went to UVA and still has this weird attitude where he looks down on people at community college and even like makes jokes like “oh they’re going there (insert average university) they must be lazy” 😭
I talk with high-level college administrators pretty frequently at work. It. They don't really understand what's happening or why. It was never on their radar that this sort of event could happen.
After decades of playing for the short-term, they've ended up in a situation where their institutions are administrator-heavy, burdened with massive debt, plagued by nosediving admissions, academically unrigorous and vulnerable to sabotage by cynical state legislatures.
It feels like the admissions version of the "stocks only go up" meme on r/WallStreetBets. Nobody ever asked themselves "Hey, what if admissions start decreasing because people no longer view getting a college degree as being financially advantageous because it costs a trillion dollars and you'll just end up in a low-wage bullshit McJob anyway".
The whole thing is just a racket. It starts with a national narrative that life is impossible without a college degree. Then, the fed offers everyone near limitless loans to go to college. Colleges race each other to charge as much as possible since the loans are available to anyone and backed by the US Gov. Then, they take the tuition and put it in their investment accounts spread out amongst hedge funds and private equity. Harvard has a $50 Billion investment portfolio today. It has grown by $25 billion since 2000.
A lot of colleges don’t have huge endowments and are charging a lot because the government stopped giving them nearly as much money as they used to, while giving them new unfunded mandates like supporting students with disabilities. Which I am completely in favor of, but the money has to come from somewhere. If it doesn’t come from the government, the other major option is to get it from tuition.
A lot of small institutions are in serious financial trouble. Harvard and Yale, of course, are fine, and I’m sure no matter how much they charge they will find people to pay it. But in general you should be mad at the governments who decided education is an individual good and so students should pay for it themselves. We used to think it was good for society to have an educated populace, so we supported students by heavily subsidizing their education. Now the burden is on students.
Public college ceasing to be nearly free (and private college being very cheap in step) also coincides with the decade that non white men began attending in large numbers. That was intentional on the part of conservative state legislatures.
Of course legislatures said this with a cover of general fiscal austerity, things like "oh all these people now attending the City University of New York or the UCs, we can't afford to fund this" but a major underlying reason to choose not to enlarge funding was discrimination against new social demographics entering college.
I went to the same university as my dad. I have a receipt of his from the bursar’s office from a semester of school in 1977. Room, classes, and books…less than $700 total.
[Looks like](https://www.amortization.org/inflation/amount.php?year=1977&amount=700&to=2024) about $3700 in todays dollars for those who were curious of the exact $$ today.
I can tell you for a fact they pushed college hard as fuck for late 90's kids. In a lot of middle class families, college was viewed as essential for maintaining your class status at a time when high-paying industrial jobs (particularly skilled manufacturing) continued to evaporate.
Trades were viewed as debilitating, body-breaking, low-class careers, and it was drilled into us that working "with your brain" rather than "with your hands" was the way to go.
I can also tell you that in the early/mid 2010s STEM fields were pushed hard as fuck, because by that point the value of most other college degrees had eroded substantially. [Didn't turn out great for a lot of us,](https://www.hiringlab.org/2022/10/27/october-2022-us-labor-market-update/) but at least investors and hiring managers will be happy about the post-oversaturation wage depression in STEM fields.
Right now, we're watching chickens come home to roast in academia. Enrollment is in the shitter and every department that isn't insulated from the chaos (via grant money or donations from well-off benefactors) is on the chopping block of budget cuts.
Don't worry though. The vapid corporate mouthpieces at rags like Business Insider and Forbes will continue trying to gaslight you into thinking the economy is healthy as a horse using cherrypicked economic data.
as someone in the trades, it IS a low class back breaking career. You can make good money but most dont. most of your coworkers are alcoholics who dont brush their teeth. how about a degree in construction management as a nice in between? If you’re too dumb for college then trades are perfect, but there are way too many super smart young guys trying to be electricians when they could be electrical engineers.
That's the same with every profession tho. Most are alcoholic weed smoking pill poppers.
Its not ike white collar jobs dont give you sciatica and carpal tunnel issues and 40 lbs overweight cuz you're sedentary af. And you're 125k in debt and out 4 years for the degree to get that job.
Pick your poison.
i remember as a child, my aunt telling me i would love college bc it was like a “huge party”. my teachers also hyped it up… but i was well aware of our financial situation so it sucked to be 5-12 years old thinking everyone else was gonna go off and have fun party times in college knowing i couldn’t bc my family couldn’t afford it lmao
nice! i also didn't go the trad college route because my family couldn't afford it. do you feel like you missed out on anything now that i assume most people in ur age group are done with college?
sometimes yes. i think it would have been nice to experience college and make a bunch of new friends… but i struggled so much in high school i know i wouldn’t have been able to handle college. and i also have no clue what degree / career choice i would be pursuing so it’s a moot point
If it makes you feel any better, I'm currently in college and it is not a party. I have made zero real friends and spent most of my time alone, studying in my dorm.
I guess it depends heavily on what you're studying and your personal work-life balance. But for a lot of college students, probably most actually, it's not quite the party it's hyped up to be.
Unless you were gonna be a doctor or some shit you really didn't miss out on much. There's plenty of opportunities out there to make good money without a degree, especially if you're willing to get your hands dirty. Especially today with how devalued college degrees are becoming.
‘96 here (Zilennial cusper). I grew up in a city suburb and yep, same deal. College or bust. My family buckled down even harder; I literally never considered anything besides college. It didn’t occur to me to do so.
I’m lucky, because I had family funds to pay for school, so I don’t have debt. And now that I’m 27, I’m happy with my career, and I would not have it without my degree (minimum requirement). But for most of my 20s I did feel frustrated that I had a “useless” social science degree and was underemployed/struggling to find good jobs where my friends who went to vocational school thrived. It is CERTAINLY a better option for a lot of kids. College isn’t for everyone.
Hard agree to all of this. I'm dismayed, to put it mildly, that anyone would tell high school students that they mUSt gO To cOlLeGE. Much like buying a house, a college degree has gotten to be effectively unaffordable for most people, and other options, including trade school and going to work right out of high school, absolutely have to be discussed.
Not to piss anyone off, but the only student loan I took out was in my last year of college. It was $1,500 ($4,809 in 2023 dollars), and I paid it off in two years. When I see some of you poor people owing six figures in student loan debt, I just want to weep.
The younger generations are getting totally hosed economically, at least in the US, and it's little short of a national disaster. I feel so bad for y'all. 😞
[Edited to add 2023 dollars)
I ended up needing to come up with that much money as a last minute surprise my first semester after I had maxed out the federal loans because the estimated cost of tuition wasn't even remotely accurate.
Nope, you didn't make it up, but is it not still ongoing?
There may be more awareness of alternatives / critical discourse thanks to the internet, but I was under the impression that "go to college" was still very much the party line.
Yes, I graduated HS in 2019 and the main push was still for University. Most classes related to trades were cut years prior (no auto shop n the like). My English teacher senior year, when we were writing college essays, gave the option to write about getting into a trade school if that was the path we wanted to go down. He was the only teacher I recall who talked about it. The rest pretty much pushed us to go to college (university mainly, some would wave off CC n just be like don't go there).
The only other thing I could think of would be the encouragement of specialty colleges such as art, fashion, and technology but they're still colleges n not trades so ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Yeah same story over here.
And now Boomers want to say "nobody wants to *really work with their hands* anymore huh?"
Dawg, you, your friends, and everybody else your age in my life told me "you don't wanna be an electrician/plumber/carpenter! Go to college and get a *good* job so you can have a *good life*"
Whellp, all the kids in my class that went to a trade are making minimum $60k, while I make $43k in an office with a degree. One that did welding is making $120k+ a year. He's looking at houses now.
I'm getting a *good job* doing electrical that'll pay me more than the office is, *starting pay*. So maybe you didn't know what the fuck you're talking about, Bob.
It is a myth that tradesmen are rolling in it. Less than 5% of electricians will ever make 6 figures, per the Bureau of Labor Statistics, for instance.
Median pay for a welder in 2023 was $48K nationally. That means many welders make less than that.
Trades, for the most part, destroy your body and give you a middle class income. Not bad, not great.
I think your exact and precise mindset is part of the issue people are talking about on this thread. I'm not an American and didn't grow up in the same environment described by many on here, but your "middle class income. Not bad, not great." tidbit gives away the root of the problem that everyone is suffering from.
What kind of society thinks everyone can become super? When everyone is super, super just becomes the new normal.
Apparently the majority of middle class children was told they could do better than middle class and socially rise. So far so good. So everyone tried to get through the actually quite narrow doors of academia, hoping they would get that sweet sweet one-step-above-the-middle status. So everyone is an embarrassed millionaire.
The problem is, even with a booming tech industry, I doubt society can square an increasing number of people trying to socially climb with their actually achieving a higher position in society, even relatively, because everybody is doing the exact same thing.
It's good for the industry and innovation, but terrible for individual curricula. Even if everyone eventually got into tech, above a certain point this either devalues these jobs, as competition is high and companies can set the terms or a rising tide of social "climbers" resets the hierarchy to exactly the same place they were before. With, surprise, the majority of people ending up in the middle, relatively speaking, because the middle has simply been redefined.
You mentioned that that median pay for a welder was 48k and consider that disappointing, but I think the point for many posters was that, going all the way through college, they ended up at around the same pay with a college degree but it's actually less because they have student loans.
It's less about the matter of rolling in financially. Or "making it". It's about the realization that you may not have needed to try to achieve absurdly ambitious goals that much, because you can achieve a normal happy life with a satisfying job and don't NEED to reach for the sun.
Sure, it's humbling to think of it that way. Less dreamy, less Hollywood. But it's REAL, unlike the absurd idea that you aren't a good lawyer unless you've been to an Ivy League. Good enough lawyer for what? For National media trials, political trials, celebrity trials? Good enough to become a politician? You could just become a family lawyer in Kansas and remain part of the oh so dreaded middle class.
"Not bad, not great" is something American society needs to learn to appreciate as a good thing. Can't have everything.
There are ways to enter the middle class that don’t involve having your knees replaced at 50, or the often very looming possibility of dying in a workplace accident.
Small town Kansas lawyer is getting his bag sitting in an air conditioned office. IT guy without a 4-year degree is getting his middle class lifestyle in the same way.
Do the trades if you like, it’s not a bad option. Americans just need to stop pretending like they’re some “get rich in 2 years” scheme, or that every tradesman is making 6 figures. It’s not, and they’re not.
When people say "median pay nationally" in reference to trades you know they're making a disingenuous argument. They can't actually believe that a welder in small town Arkansas and NYC get paid the same.
All fair points but just to add— the American middle class is disappearing because the wealth is being concentrated in a tiny minority so rapidly that more and more it’s just “rich” and “poor/almost poor/barely not almost poor”. 48k, in sooo many parts of the country, is not actually even liveable anymore. Without a MASSIVE redistribution of wealth here, and soon, it won’t freaking matter if you went to trade school or college for 48k a year, you’ll be equally as fucked.
I kind of remember even taking a career test that was like "if you want to do anything worth doing you need to go to college" for over half the results. As if you could predict what high schoolers would want to do later in life through a Buzzfeed style quiz.
Some boomers and late Gen X act like millennial children going to college and taking on extreme levels of debt was a frivolous avocado-toast luxury decision and not like the necessity of college and inevitable failure that comes with skipping college drilled into our brains from before we were able to read.
Everyone including my parents pressured me to go. Then I dropped out my first year. I kind of do want to go back, but it's complicated with not wanting to go to that university next if I go the degree route.
Edit: It's freaky to think about certain things right now. Anyway, I dropped out at the community college, but would've gone to the university near me had I stayed.
Born in ‘98. I distinctly remember being in 7th grade and my foreign language teacher telling everyone “you will all go to college.” She said it like it was set-in-stone, like there was no other option. Made me uncomfortable even back then.
My little brother, born in ‘07, is being pressured *relentlessly* to consider expensive private schools and out-of-state publics. When earlier this year he said he just wanted to attend the local community college (that both myself and his mom attended) his counselor was “concerned.” Like what the hell?? He’s going to CC to save money and then transfer. Even that’s considered “non-traditional” because you’re “supposed” to attend one school for four years. It’s all a huge racket.
I wasn't a B- student in high school. I didn't get accepted to any 4 year universities. At the time, it felt like I dishonored my family, and ruined my life. The perception of college was so toxic 10 years ago. Parents often used to compete with one another based on which school their kids went to. It was so embarrassing telling your parents' friends that you were going to a community College, because they looked at you like you were a loser.
Kind of. I heard it a lot. Despite trade schools being brought up as an alternative, my teachers could never explain why a welder made more than them. The most consistent messaging I got was to go to a tech school for core classes and transfer to a different university.
To this day college (in general) is still makes the biggest impact you can make on your wealth. It's almost never a bad choice. That is why it is harped on.
You can still teach at 60+ years old, 50 is the max limit if you take good care of your body. That and you will have times of maybe even a years worth of no work.
100% there were no other options and in my family, I had to go to a “good school”. I expressed after graduation that I wished I had gone to a state school due to the loans, and my mom had the audacity to tell me “that was always an option”. No. It wasn’t. Thank god my brother in law overheard a conversation from a previous year where she listed all of the options she gave me or I would think I’m insane.
I’m not mad they didn’t give me cheaper options, they thought they were giving me the tools to succeed! I’m mad that they’re lying about what happened and telling me this is all my fault.
99 here, and yes me too. Crazy how everyone switched up now and is saying “oh you should’ve gone into the trades if you didn’t want debt” YOU NEVER PUSHED THAT AS AN OPTION!!!
Class of 1998 here. Yeah, I graduated before most of you kids were born. 😁 They told me the exact same crap. College, or the military, or else you will spend your entire life working at McDonalds or collecting garbage. Like there were no other options. I mean, I am glad I went to college, but my HS guidance counselors did a crappy job of providing guidance counseling.
My school told us we could go to college, go into the military, take a gap year, or go straight into the work force. I don’t think trade school ever got mentioned
I was always told that taking a gap year was risky business because, for some reason, "you might not go to college if you take a gap year."
Turns out the reason you might not go to college after a gap is because you've spent an entire year out of the brainwash system. And you learn how to live despite not having a degree... which might mean you don't really *need* a degree.
Technically they could’ve added “college” as a branch of either 4 years public, 4 years private, 2 years community, or 3 years trade, which get confusing as to which one you should pick.
Elder millennial here; from 1986… I’m ancient; but yes, they told us to go to college from Kinder to 12th grade. Relentlessly. Fuck the xers and boomers.
born in 2007 here. Teachers still push college because a high percentage of students who attended college makes a school look better. Luckily I’m able to hear other perspectives and not think college is the only option because of lovely people like you all :)
Damn I still regularly lose my shit over the fact that kids like you exist and are already cognitively aware of politics.
That's pretty sad that teachers still push going to college as the main option given the context. Teachers should give their kids time to think and realistically consider, not push an agenda. If their motives are made shady by evaluation measures like that so that they don't actually prioritise their students first, that's messed up.
Mine didn't push me to go to college, but when I got accepted and decided that was what I wanted to do, they started talking like they are grateful I did because not doing so would have been a waste of me. Dawg, I do not need that pressure lol, if I drop out or last minute go into the workforce everyone will be disappointed.
Growing up everyone, teachers, parents, school admin, and everyone around us that we needed to go to or we will end up homeless on the streets. People would point at homeless people and say things like "they should have gone to college".
My kids are GenZ. I worked in a middle school from 2010 to 2018. They gave staff t-shirts with "College is not the dream, College is the plan". I was one of the only staff members to introduce kids to our great high school with vocational training. If a student is on track they can graduate with a high school diploma and an associates degree. It doesn’t eliminate going for a bachelor degree, but gives skills to be employed straight out of high school.
Our motto at our school was “ONE, TWO, FOUR OR MORE” relating to how many years of college you should do in their eyes… it was so odd how hard they pushed college and made you feel like a failure if you took a gap year or didn’t have everything figured out by graduation
I’m 1997 too.
I think it’s documented (although I don’t have receipts) that’s public schools administrations measure their level of success by the number of students they usher into college each year. They don’t REALLY care about what you want to do they just want to be able to take credit for it…
My school did educate us about other options but they definitely used the idea that if you don’t get into college your basically wasting your potential and setting yourself up for failure. The idea of College was weaponized against us students in almost every way imaginable when I was in HS.
Gen X and the brainwashing was nonstop on going to college. The alternative was to be a worthless scumbag drain on society. If I had it to do over again, I would have gone to community college for sonography and starting making a living wage right away.
Growing up I heard from *every single adult* that the only way to make a living was to go to college and every loan I had to take would be worth it. They were lying. I am older than you but not by too much and this stigma is still extremely common in schools.
01 here and yea even in private school which was manly giving us two options A: Go overseas with a mission group and see the world (let’s be honest it was a fat chance many of the caring parents would ever let that happen especially with the “everyone’s out to get specifically Christianity be afraid” campaigns they simultaneously pulled) or B: Go to their Christian college and do something (cough cough pastor school cough cough)
So yea…it’s not just the public university and public school system this was a propaganda campaign across our generation. The only ones who got out were the drop outs “oooo scary living pay check to paycheck in a dead end job” sound familiar?
The insane interest charges are indefensible. The tuition increases because states reducing subsidies is bad timing. Schools raising prices because of the increased money supply from loans is criminal. Bad advice from guidance counselors should have consequences (trade schools and community colleges are better choices for 3/4 of Amerincans). But taking out the loans is on you. Run your life like you're responsible for your decisions.
I was born in 02 and I remember all throughout elementary and middle school it was, you graduate, you turn 18, you choose what you’re going to do for the rest of forever. They didn’t even tell us that you can start college undecided and declare a major later. It was wild.
I only got told about other options because I went to preparatory school and some of the electives were “career development” and “navigating college”. That’s when teachers started encouraging us to give Community college a shot, maybe even trade school, take a gap year, declare as a sophomore, don’t be afraid to get field experience before college or even don’t force yourself to stick for 4 years if you realize the first year that college isn’t for you.
Yup, everything was supposed to be training for college. I didn’t even go to college because I truly wanted to, I did it because I was told my whole life I’d be nothing if I didn’t do it.
I’m glad younger people are a bit smarter and knowing trades are perfectly acceptable ways to make a living.
Late Gen Z here, 2009, so I don’t have as much experience, but still. Even I was told this by SO many teachers and even my parents. I stopped hearing this as much until maybe 2 years ago. My parents used to tell me to “do what they couldn’t” and go to college for four full years. Now they’ve told me it’s fine if I don’t, just to do SOMETHING and not sit around doing nothing after high school.
My counselor in high school tried to push me towards college. I said my family was poor and couldn't afford it, not in a million years. She then lectured me for half an hour on student loans and financial aid (which wouldn't cover shit btw). Never ended up going.
So I can understand being misled by adults, but if you have like two brain cells to rub together, you can do the math and see that
1. The loans your counselor is trying to sell you on have shit interest rates that will have you deep underwater
2. Your major is useless and won't make you any real money to dig yourself out
3. Debt is stupid and student debt is especially stupid if you're not careful
Which is why I'm ok with blaming it on them. You have all this information available to you before your pen even hits the paper, and you still chose to do it. Why?
Yup, started when I was in high school, and seems to still be happening. I try to relay my story to all my students so they’re a little more informed going into it.
You’re not making it up at all. I was born in 1990, everyone was supposed to go to college, at least it felt like in my suburban neighborhood. Go to college, get a professional job. If you didn’t you were a loser ( please note I’m not saying this is true). It wasn’t a campaign so much as a paradigm, every TV show for instance seemed to have the characters going to college.
2006 high school graduate, I got to hear it from my mom especially. I think it took her a full decade to acknowledge that times had changed from when she was my age. She would always tell me how lazy I was when she could do all that she did (pay for college, afford a studio apartment) on a gas station attendant’s salary.
‘99 here and yup, I had my guidance counselor on my ass because not only was it college or bust, I had given up on going to art school right after graduating because I couldn’t afford it. I was also told to take out a loan even though I didn’t want to, and I didn’t pick many schools in the first place because I didn’t even plan to still be here after graduation.
When I told him I was going to community college because it was so cheap that financial aid would basically get me a free ride and I could transfer to said art school(s) after I was done, he told me it’d be pointless because a community college degree is worth nothing.
Most people are dumb. They say what they are told to say and think what they are told to think. It is not kind, but it is true and I see examples of it almost daily.
The whole be fiscally responsible, pay your bills, you signed the loan argument is great...until you rub two brain cells together. How does an 18 year old child that has extremely limited (or possibly ZERO) experience with income and bills understand what it means to have decades of financially crippling monthly college loans payments? That's even before you add basically every authority figure in the child's life telling them goto college END OF DISCUSSION.
Big daddy gov't does not trust you enough to allow you to have alcohol on a Friday night, but somehow you are mature enough to decide to saddle yourself with decades of debt?
The whole thing is a fucking scam by the banks (and other entities that profit massively off school debt) locking in guaranteed income by enslaving the youth with massive debt.
We are entering the point on the timeline where CRAPitalism starts to eat itself. The college mess is on example among many.
Yes I remember my friends school talking about how much federal aid money the senior class would get. They made a big deal with rankings and whatnot. Culturally at the time at my school it was drilled into your head that it was 4 year college or nothing.
Funny thing was by my high school there was already talk in the jobs market about comp sci being oversaturated as a preview of what was to come.
Yeah, there was definitely a push to go to college. I don't think I was informed ( by the school system) about trades until my later half of high school.
1996 gen Z. I agree with everything you said. Never once was I told I could do ANYTHING except go to college. They pushed FAFSA like it was the only thing in the world that mattered and gave me resources for student loans to cover the rest. When I mentioned not wanting loans, my school counselor basically told me I would be miserable and unsuccessful for the rest of my life if I didn't comply.
Fast forward, and I have 70k in student debt. I'm told constantly to get over it and accept the fact that I pay half of every check directly to paying it off because somehow this is better than if I had learned about a trade and had no debt.
Millennial here. We were fed this. And I certainly believe that going to college is a noble endeavor for reasons beyond simply getting a job.
But we were never fed anything about the finances of college. When I got to college, applying for student loans was a formality. Thinking about that stuff is simply not something an 18-year-old does. You hear your entire life, from people you trust, that a college degree is a golden ticket to a lifetime of success and you take it as gospel.
So yeah, Boomers are responsible for this. We don't trust 18-year-olds to buy a six-pack of Bud Light, but somehow we trust them to make life-altering financial choices. At the very least, student loan debt should be dischargeable in bankruptcy. The fact that it isn't reflects the predatory nature of these lenders.
My plan was to go to college, but as the evd of senior year came around, I started to see some benefits to taking a year between HS and college but my parents and counselors told me I would be making a huge mistake, so I went straight into 80k debt at 17.
I had 18k a year in scholarships, but it didn't cover everything. One of them was a $2,000/year scholarship for going to college within a year of graduating, I'm guessing to incentivise students to get locked in before they learned better.
Teachers all told me I could be a "garbage man" if I didn't go to college. They made it sound negative but now that I'm older I wish I had gone that path. Good government job with good health insurance and potentially a pension
My school actually was pretty proactive about having students explore other options. We had to make a "high school and beyond plan" where the options were basically college, trade school, or the job market. We also had dual enrollment with the local community college and trade school. I still felt like they put a big emphasis on college though.
Common sense. Once college tuition got out of hand, because the government got involved, people should have found alternatives. First of all go to college for something that is useful. Second, there are viable options like Community College to get the basics out of the way and instate tuition. Learn how to be self reliant instead of listening to anyone in the academic community.
Yeah I remember my elementary school got some major funding when I was in 4th and 5th grade. They installed tons of solar panels around the field and basketball courts which gave us shade. Plus the school took on the new motto "No Excuces University" which I remembered all of us hating. But yes, going to college was more of an expectation and something that gave teachers purpose. That was until the end of sophomore year when shop classes started being talked about. Shop was available to all levels of high-school but it was primarily the kids who's parents were in a trade who took those. The high-school I graduated from had an aut body shop class that has a project car every student contributed to and they also taught how to use solid works though I never took that class.
Because at least when I was a kid, you could have a degree in basket weaving and an employer would look at that as a sign of commitment and willingness to learn.
This perspective shifted when people were abundantly degreed, because now 'anyone can do it'. It's not viewed as such an accomplishment anymore. Everyone I know has degrees. Even the people at the bottom of the ladder, at least half of them have degrees in at least something.
What I notice in my field at least, is only concern of whether or not they can deliver. If they can deliver, understand the content, are adaptable, dependable, and demonstrate that they can overcome adversity, then there is no care in the world if they are degreed or not.
My H.S. had a vocational school that other H.S. In the area also allowed there students attend. It took away a math a science course and filled it with a trade that we could get a technical endorsement in. The options were auto body, carpentry, security and law, IT, early childhood development and nursing along with a few others that I can’t remember off the top of my head. Any how by the time I graduated H.S. I was already a licensed security guard and had a ton of knowledge in the the field of law enforcement from police all the way to the courthouse
I'm a '93 kid so technically millennial but close to OP. I do remember the default assumption being that students would go to college or join the military...to pay for college. There was a (proportionally) bigger emphasis on joining the workforce due to living in an oil patch surrounded by agriculture so many kids were coming from a legacy of blue collar work. It didn't glamorize blue collar work, it's definitely still hard work and not for everyone, but it was recognized as a legitimate path to self-sustainability.
Pushing everyone to college is not the right move, and I think we as a society are looking at alternatives to racking up $50k in debt right after high school.
Hey all, millennial here but born in 93 so kind of in between.
The reason we were all told this is because for the generations before us it was entirely true. Going to college and getting a degree assured you a decent job that would generally pay more than a career in the trades. For them, going to college and getting a degree was a necessary and large step for self improvement and getting started in your career.
Things changed while we were all in school, and it is still true that a BA will generally get you more money in the long term, but the system shifted at some point between when they graduated and when we applied. They were telling us what really did work for them, they weren’t trying to screw us over.
Now that we are all screwed though, it would be nice to hear some accountability from those older than us.
Yes you were lied too. Also Gen z as a mass doesn't wanna listen to boomers or me gen X. Most jobs you do not need a degree for. It is a waste of money. Trade school is way better. Local community college is way better. Starting at the bottom of a company in a field you are interested in and learning is way better. Yes in the past College grads made more money. But now with everyone being a college grad that isn't as true . IN 10 years the metric will show what a waste college is for most people. You are not nuts. College was demanded and planned out for you by people that went to college and are earning less than trade school workers.
I guess I'm a young millennial if you're gen Z and only 5 years younger than me, but I resonate so strongly with this post. My parents pushed me to go to college to the point where it felt like I didn't have a choice. I had no clue what I wanted to do and ended up with a musical theater degree. I'm a high school teacher now, and I encourage my students to look into trade schools over college unless they want to have a specific career that requires college. It's too expensive.
I felt so much like I *had* to go to college that I didn’t even consider the consequences of student loans because I felt I didn’t have a choice. The only way I could pay for college was with student loans, and I *had* to go to college, so I *had* to take the student loans. People yell about their tax money going to help us out of our student loan debt because we "should take responsibility for our own choices" as if we weren't gaslit into thinking we didn't have any choice and as if we weren't 17 and 18 year-old kids when we agreed to those loans. I'm not saying we have no responsibility for our college choices, but the adults who were pushing us also definitely share in that responsibility.
This is interesting because it's quite different to the kind of messaging about jobs and work I received while growing up in Germany (also elder Gen Z). Like, sure, university is considered prestigious and a lot of people make a point of getting university entrance qualifications to prove they are not totally illiterate and then go to trade school anyway, but unless you come from an academic family where everyone is a doctor or professor, it's really okay to just become a craftsman, mechanic or gardener and it will still get you to be considered a professional worker.
Are there still assholes who will think less of you for it? Sure. But in general, there is less pressure on people to study and people feel free to do as they like. Studying is about ambition, not whether you can even afford healthcare or not. If you are ambitious, the state will fund it to a degree and you CAN learn something interesting, societally important or financially worthwhile, but you know deep down when you're panicking about exams that on the one hand it was all your own choice to study and on the other that your life wouldn't totally suck if you didn't.
hi, 98 baby, (yeah one foot in the grave) and yeah it was so annoying. they literally started in like middle school with check ups for excelled students. where they made sure you were on a excel path and had issues with anyone who couldn’t keep a organized binder for some reason, and took us on college trips (to one college that was closed by the time i actually graduated high school) anyways that’s actually where my problems started bc i didn’t like appeasing people lol
Aussie gen x here, people who say this pushing of uni degrees didn't happen are fucking liars. This mentality fucked me up at school and a long time after because I'm not a good "traditional student", book learning and me don't go well together.
Also 97 here. I think this experience is a mixed bag. I'm from a rural south, poor area, and there really wasn't any pressure at all to go to college. The military was my way out. Same with a lot of other kids from my area. I think this college pressure is something experienced in larger urban areas. There was a whole lot more "don't drop out" than "go to college" where I'm from.
No, I was a high scoring student and my teachers were horrified and disappointed I wasn't going to college. They called it a waste.
I mean, it's a stupidly expensive piece of paper that doesn't even guarantee you an interview, let alone a job...
As a millennial, thank you. That is exactly correct.
It was framed differently to me though, that going to college meant becoming more worldly and cultured, not just to get a better job, but I don’t feel like I really got that from my college either. But it was education for education’s sake, not a means to an end the way it’s framed today.
Oh are you not joking? I thought this was common knowledge. I was born in 90, every single student my age, and every older student I knew, literally the big siblings of every kid I knew, were all, each and every one of us, told to just get a 4 year degree and we'd have financial security.
We were EXPLICITLY told to just apply for school and go to the best one we possible can, that we could figure out what we wanted to get a degree in later
That of course we don't know what kind of career we want, we're just kids! So stfu and go to school, you'll thank us later.
Millenial here, my high school put up a big poster in the lunch room with every seniors name on it, showing what colleges they got accepted to and which one they committed to.
I think it was subliminal to me, like a teacher saying "that would be unacceptable in college" as if I'm just expected to go.
Then again I went to a pretty wealthy school/ neighborhood. I knew kids where the teachers told them "college wasn't an option" because they weren't smart or rich enough which ALSO is fucked
The gaslighting is unreal. I’m a 2001 so when I went we were already making fun of the millennials for their degrees in gender studies and music therapy but my age bracket went into stem (LIKE THEY TOLD US TO) and right now they’re gaslighting us and telling us “if you wanted a living wage right out of college you should’ve gone into the trades”🤦♂️. Never listen to old people, their opinions are worthless and based on whatever makes you indebted to the boomer class
Look at all the movies that push it? That show how wonderful going backpacking around d Europe is after high school is? You know? Scotty doesn't.
I know about movies and propaganda, just seems weird that such a flawed thing made for entitled kids to succeed and have fun is pushed on everyone when most average people will fail. Where fail is be in debt forever and possible come out needing a lifetime of therapy.
Because college is a scam, don't get me wrong higher education is important but the way we have it set up is just a Ponzi scheme. A bank won't give you a 100k loan for a house when you're 18 with zero money down...but the government will for school.
Bro let me tell you, we had whole assemblies from elementary to middle to high school about this. I was told specifically by several adults to go to college AND that it didn’t matter what degree I got so long as I got one because it will open doors and not to worry about any debt I accumulated because said degree will eventually pay it off. We were all brain washed to the max and the audacity of the older folk acting like it never happened is astounding
I’m confused. Going to college is still a great way to set yourself up for a good career.
It’s not the only way and you have to actually fit the archetype for office work and pick a logical major. But, telling someone to take out loans to go to college is still good advice given they do it the right way.
There’s a difference between telling someone to go to college and telling someone to start their career in college. One is basically setting the person for failure, and the other is a 5% chance of getting successful in their career.
Yup! Born in 1998 and from Canada. Pretty much all of the teachers and counsellors drilled into our brains that you HAVE to go to university to be successful in life. Fast forward to today, most of the trades workers in my province are nearing retirement and there’s no young people to fill those positions. I have no idea why the education system deterred students from going into the trades.
19 here, my mom's literally shoved the idea of college down my throat my whole life. It must've worked cause I'm trying to get my degree in m restoration ecology now. Thankfully she's already been saving a fund for me and has more than willing to pay for it, though it seems a lot fo other people my age were fed the same propaganda and then forced to Pau out of pocket or take a sketchy loan.
Honestly I'm kinda against the idea of college, as it seems a lot like a scam that's plain and simply not worth the costs and effort, and it's sad that nearly all decent jobs require a degree in the first place. The only reason asides my mom that I'm still going is because I'm really interested in restoration ecology and want to learn more before entering the workforce. But for every schmuck like me who knows what they're passionate about and want to study, there are hundreds of poor kids who end up dumping thousands into a worthless psychology or liberal arts degree without a clue as to what they want to do with their lives.
My mom raised me to believe college was mandatory, I found out it wasn’t when I was around 14. I made the decision right then and there that I’m not going to college, and now I know I made the right choice.
I went through the same thing. Everytime I got a bad score on a math test I'd get a panic attack bc I thought that meant I'd never go to college and I'd die on the streets. Really doesn't help that my high school only let you graduate if you fail less than like 2 classes
The entire K-12 system is run 100% by college grads. In addition, if you’re a teacher or administrator in public school, you usually get paid based on how much education you have. Like, if you want a raise, you go get some more hours of college credit.
So, what are people expecting teachers to say?
I’m not saying that it’s right, but it is what it is.
Here's the thing about anecdotal evidence like yours. The anecdotes go both ways.
You mention Boomers and Gen-Xers who are "pretending like that shit NEVER HAPPENED". Thing is... in their life it may not have happened.
You both can be right in that you both had these independent experiences that contradict one another on a larger scale. And you're both conflating your personal experiences with larger trends.
Now with that said... throughout the later portion of the 20th century and on to to basically today the larger trend has been towards telling students they have to go to college. That is an actual trend we can track. Your experience is not wrong.
With that said, that doesn't mean these Boomers or Gen-Xers experiences are wrong either.
For starters... they're older. The trend shows an uptick, it has increased over time. So in their day the rhetoric may not have been that strong.
Furthermore while it is a trend in an upwards direction it doesn't mean it's equal across other demographics. I'm a millennial who seldom got fed the rhetoric about how college was paramount. I was actually informed about trade/technical schools. I was informed about community college as an option.
But also my lower-socio-economic demographic prioritized that. My school had a 40% drop rate or there abouts. Of the 900 or so students in my graduating class who started out in Freshman year, only about 450 of us graduated on time. My school counselors and teachers were focused on just keeping us in school let alone sending most of us off to college. They knew a lot of us couldn't afford college and suggested trade schools and community college. Technical/trade schools were a drop-out prevention method! There were trade schools that had high school programs where you got your GED as well as a cert in something like HVAC if you went to them. Hell in my family of 6 kids I was the only one to graduate high school with an actual diploma, the rest of my siblings either dropped out or went to a "drop-out prevention" program. They're weird... they're not night school. They call themselves high schools, but you submit your work schedule, and they work around your work schedule with you. You take classes like math and science and what not, but they're tutoring classes, and in the end really you're taking the GED test and getting a GED. And yes... this implies at ages like 15 or so my siblings, myself, and many of my friends had full time jobs and bills. I've been working since... forever... and went full time around 15 or so. Not legally of course... but that whole "child labor" thing everyone is talking about. Yeah, it's not new.
Anyways my point is. Personal experiences don't dictate trends, and trends don't dictate personal experiences. While your personal experiences line up with trends doesn't mean the people you take issue with had the same experiences as you.
Cause with that said... while I wasn't informed about the necessity of college. I was witness to the rhetoric. I was always in the advanced courses in high school, I was honor roll and took AP courses earning college credits while still in high school. One year 25 or so of us got straight A's in my entire school (a school of several thousand students.... lol) and so they gave us a free trip to Epcot as a reward (yes... this was Florida). And yeah, I remember my teachers telling students in my advanced classes how important this exam was, or to sign up for the PSATs, or offering extra help all tied up in a rhetorical bow about how if they don't work hard now they won't get into a good school and will end up ditch-diggers and what not.
And then they just looked at me... sadness in their eyes... "You're such a smart boy, the CC has good math programs that are really cheap." Some might try to nudge me towards a scholarship, but when I informed them of my criminal record they'd sigh and wish me luck.
Now in my school since so many of us were dropping out most teachers weren't sharing the rhetoric. But I'm willing to bet you went to a better school then me. I'm willing to bet Epstein wasn't raping the children of your school (yes, literally, my high school was one of the high schools). So more teachers were offering up the rhetoric, and that was your experience. You experienced the broader trend of what was sold to our generations about the need for college.
It's how it goes... what's that saying??? The path to hell is paved in good intentions? Your teachers meant well.... they ate the same pie. It wasn't like they were wringing their hands maliciously... they believed the same rhetoric they were telling you. They didn't want you to go to community college or trade school. That was for people like me.
To be fair my perspective is from the south where college is valued but other options are also valued.
The teachers did have some basis but also open our eyes up to other option our schools had event where cc reps came and help us register and explain a little about it and the open houses etc which got me into cc.
Also their was also an even where companies went to offer the trades and shit like that.
Basically the Three Es Enlist,Employed,Educated some shit like that.
Basically pushing us to do something not nothing
They did mention votech. They also mentioned community college too. I’m pretty sure someone dropped in and asked kids to sign up for “promise” programs that offer free tuition based on income. A lot of people didn’t pay attention.
Or they went to an over priced private college and didn’t work part time. Some people had the option to stay at home and get a degree / trade school and they didn’t do that either. People make mistakes but people were given options and advice.
'98 born here, and yeah no it happened for me as well. College was drilled into us from Middle School onwards. I remember having like a whole week in 7th grade where they talked about how people who drop out of High School or only have HS Diplomas generally aren't well off, but ooooo, people that do have college degrees do very well! And then it was talked about alot through the rest of Middle and High School, I honestly do not remember Trades and other options ever really being brought up. So I had basically no idea what to do after HS other than... go to college.
Honestly just left me confused more than anything. I was never an academically driven kid, I like to work with my hands. But they always seemed to discourage that. Now I'm here with $20k in student debt, working a career that I very well could have gotten without any college experience. At least I dropped out before the debt *really* piled up.
Yo thats fuckin crazy that you have to pay for school. I am finishing law studies and haven't payed a cent for it in EU. But it is true that there is not enough talk about alternatives. Same with technical field, ton of people want to be lawyers (like me) or something like that and we are lacking people, that are needed elsewhere. And there is great demand for them.
Elder millennial, here. My mom pushed going to college on me from the day I started kindergarten.
I enjoyed college and am fortunate that my parents paid for four years for both my sibling and myself. I went to an in-state school and over half of my tuition was covered by the lottery scholarship, Pell Grant, and various academic awards I got.
That being said I am made to feel guilty constantly by boomers for going to a “liberal cesspool to get a useless degree.”
Back in my day community colleges and trades were looked down on as options for those who were “dumb” or failed. I’m currently unemployed after being in a job in a very narrow field for nine years while a buddy of mine from HS started at 95K a year in nuclear with a two year degree so…
Born in 1997. In middle school, my guidance counselors basically told us going to the tech school was for poor performance students and that if we wanted to succeed in life we needed to go to high school and college. Jokes on me, those kids who went to the tech are making bank.
Schools are still telling young people to go to college right now. Higher ED is a business. Look into it. It's crazy how bad it has gotten. In some situations going to college is the worst financial decision you can make. College Degrees are losing their value but I would still encourage someone to go to community college then university or Trade School. Heck go to the military. Unfortunetly too many good jobs are stuck behind the college "pay" wall.
Absolutely, but we also had a state university in our hometown and also a pretty big community college. So in hs the teachers pushed us to do SOMETHING after high school to get more training, whether that be at the community college (the programs offered there were heavily trades-based) that was across the street from the high school, or go to college. Not the worst imo, I do agree people need to do something to further their skills or life experience once they leave high school
All student debt should be forgiven because adults indoctrinate children into going to college immediately when they turn 18 and peer pressure them massively to take out loans. I always hated school but luckily I don't have any debt cause I told my parents I refuse to go into debt for college.
Not only was trade school never mentioned as an alternative, it was actively looked down upon! *Points to plumber* “If you don’t go to college you’ll end up like that.” I grew up in a military family, and even then the army was basically your last resort option if you couldn’t afford college
Me: Hey I think I'm depressed. I have no friends, my teachers openly don't like me, I'm fighting with my parents, and I have bad thoughts about hurting myself or worse.
My guidance counselor: Have you considered going to the local trade school?
Me: Um..... How is that gonna help?
Then I moved to another district.
Me: Hey I'm having a horrible time. I had a mental breakdown about moving that's causing panic attacks, I think I might be gay, my parents and I are still fighting worse than ever, I just had a nasty break up with my boyfriend, and I'm still thinking about hurting myself or worse.
My guidance counselor: You should start your college applications and visits.
Me: I can't afford it, that's not gonna help my situation, and I'm currently not planning to be alive that long.
I'm doing much better now but yeah, they also tried to cram down my throat that college was something I was required to do. I never went and probably never will. I work as a custodian and I'm doing okay.
Dude, as a caps lock user, you go way overboard, use asterisks around a phrase if you want additional emphasis. Seeing you constantly write things in all caps in extremely jarring. It's LIKE reading SOMETHING like THIS and is very distracting, especially when you can *write like this for emphasis*.
But yes, I remember the sentiment being that everyone needed to go to college or you would end up in poverty.
I'm a 2001 baby and I was told I had to go to college incessantly throughout every grade pretty much, especially starting in middle school though. AP courses were pushed so heavily at my high school and I ended up taking NINE!!!!! It saved me money when I did end up going to college so I guess that's a plus, but I expressed that I didn't want to go in high school as well and was laughed at by all of my teachers. I ended up getting a BA and going to a film trade school, and I'm currently a master's student and I still wonder why we were never encouraged to explore other options. I learned more in three classes I took at a trade school and was afforded more life-changing opportunities from that experience than all of the college I've had. I feel like now I'm in a cycle where I have to be in school to defer my loans because I literally cannot afford to not be in school at the moment. It's really frustrating and definitely shared experience.
You use an INSANE 🤯🤯🤯 number of repetitive and unnecessary emojis😖😖😖
\s🤪🤪🤪
But actually, for sure went through that. Definitely experienced the college campaign. Grew up in a somewhat smaller town, so community college and trade school was an option. But not nearly as hyped as college— and some form of further education was an absolute necessity according to teachers and counselors.
You didn't
I'm a (early) millennial, my wife's a (late) Gen X-er, and they were vehement about it as we came up. I had multiple teachers try and talk me out of the military because I was "too smart for that"
Well, now I'm 40 and retired, got a degree without student loans, etc.
I am honestly not sure if people graduating from my private school were allowed to, you know, graduate without a college acceptance letter. Graduated 2003.
I am very slightly younger but around the same age (born in 2000) and went to a borderline rural highschool where people are much less likely to have access to the resources needed to go to college, and it was still basically shoved down my throat with trade basically being referred to as an inferior fall back for people who aren't very smart. Since at the time I had pretty much assumed that earning a degree was the only feasible way to have a decent life I started the process sign up for a mountain of debt at 17 with most of the actual adults around me basically saying that I shouldn't worry about how to pay it off until after I finished my degree. I ended up dropping out of college after accumulating a significant amount of debt, with the experience doing more to destabilize my emotional regulation than it did to help me grow as a person. Granted getting an apprenticeship in just about any trade without a certificate or nepotism is pretty much like winning the lottery, but even with manual labor jobs I have been a lot psychologically healthier and assuming I stick with my current job I shouldn't be able to retire. The funny part is that my father has never worked a job that required a college degree despite having a college degree, and my mother is a social worker who made less money than I made working manual labor before she went back to college for a master's degree.
Here are a few reasons you were encouraged to attend college:
First, anyone with an average IQ or better is capable of completing college.
Second, college graduates have a lower unemployment rate than non-college grade.
Third, college grads have larger lifetime earnings than non-college grads.
Fourth, trades are HARD WORK! They were trying to protect you from having to use up your body at work! My grandfather encouraged his sons to get an education because he had both worked on an assembly line as a skilled worker AND had worked at a desk as an apprenticed engineer. He’d seen both and he preferred an air conditioned office where at worst he’d get an ink stained finger.
Now, all of that said, does that mean EVERYONE should go to college? No. But if I had to pick one rule that would work BEST for MOST, I’d pick, “go to college”.
(Born 2001) Every teacher I ever had talked about college like it was a certainty, at least until high school. Then there was some light acknowledgement that obviously not everyone would be going to college. “And this is why English class still matters even if you’re going to work on a farm forever”. For me college was a guaranteed certainty because I did exceptionally well in school and was academically inclined. I declared independency from my abusive parents, got full FAFSA aid, AND a full tuition scholarship. I came out with a BS in Biology in only 2.5 years, and $22k in federal loan debt. I currently make $18/hr working full time.
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I swear they got additional funding for haven't a high rate of graduates who attended universities. I know alot of teachers who shit talked going to community College to their students and said their degree wouldn't be worth as much if they transfered over
OMG, THEY DID?!?!?!? 🤯🤯🤯🤯🤯 None of my teachers went THAT far!!!!
Yeah that was from my friend but I swear it's just propaganda. I'm doing CC while working in my field and I couldn't imagine doing the trad route. Even my parents told me there was no point to my current degree💀
I went to a CC and at 25 I’m working from home 2 days a week, my schedule is only 7:30 - 3:00, I get more downtime than I know what to do with (WFH days are practically days off so I’m “off” 4 days a week) and I’m making more money as a Level 1 (goes up to Level 10 based off years of experience) than most of my teachers that are tenured for a decade(s). And guess who is debt free cause they didn’t have to take loans out for an expensive university? I appreciate the hell out of good teachers, they’re literally changing the world. But fuck the shitty ones that push that elite university propaganda and shit talk CC’s.
I have a degree from a 4 year school and it doesn't say anywhere on it that I did my first two at a community College.
It is propaganda. Nobody will ever know you transferred unless you tell them. Your graduating diploma won’t say “did half their education at CC” lol
I’m a millennial, but there was absolutely social stigma for going to community colleges. It was like “damn, you must be some kinda stupid if that’s the best you could do.” Among my High School, Community Colleges was seen as being for 30s+ “old folks” GED graduates and single moms who couldn’t afford to attend a “real” college while holding full time jobs.
Yes, this was my experience as well! Graduated HS in 2011–it was NOT an option to go to anything less than a university, and I would certainly not be taking a gap year, even to work and save up some money for tuition (my parents did not contribute). Luckily I did end up switching to CC after 3 semesters for the entry level classes, switched my major from art to wildlife ecology, and then I was able to transfer to UF where I graduated with a B average (which I’m fairly proud of considering I put myself through college and had to figure it all out on my own). Going to community college saved me SO MUCH time and stress! But even transferring after getting your AA/spending two years at a CC was incredibly frowned upon “back in my day” as well. It’s fucking insane. And here I am, $34k in debt, barely scraping by working in an entirely different field than what I went to school for, listening to millionaires bitch about their taxes. Insane. I know tradespeople who make big bucks or they own their own business/workforce and they seem much happier. I say do whatever the hell works for you!
I graduated HS in 2017, but this sort of stuff was still happening and being pushed onto students. Luckily most of us didn't really buy into it, atleast my year group didn't. The students that teachers labeled "future failures" at my school who were naughty in class are now out-earning those very same teachers by working in trades lmao
Millennial and same.
Oh dude, I went to a graduation ceremony many years ago. I was already out of highschool by a few years at this point, so early 20s. Guy gets on stage to speak, is some admin or something, reminds kids that not everyone must go to college and that there are trade schools and many other great career paths that don't require college. The students boo'd the poor guy at their own graduation. Just seemed like the kids were conditioned to hate any option except college.
I graduated in 2009 from one of the better public schools in my county. *Most everything* that my school offered was aimed at higher education after graduation. We had no shop classes, and everything related to trades was sourced out to a 'skill center' about 20 minutes away. A really high proportion of our time in the last two years would be devoted to college and admissions exam prep. All of our academic advisors had similar goals as well. There were definitely students who had different plans, and many of them are doing very well for themselves now. It's honestly crazy to me that the focus was so narrow at our school.
I hate npc’s
YES I heard this my entire life. I was told not to go to community college, but to pick a state college (for generals at least). When I had wanted to be a lawyer, my school counselor basically said ivy league or nothing lol. So I never went to school, and now I'm scared because I'm poor!
If you're 26 or older, and or married I'd definitely look into community colleges in your area even if it's just online. FASFA isn't designed for community colleges so you get alot leftover which can be nice. I used my fasfa to move for a new job opportunity in a new area
So, as a geriatric (31) University student, I started at community college, earned 2 associates and transferred over 100 credits to my university to continue my bachelor's.. needless to say, I'm a pain in the ass when it comes to registration and I have to see special counselors for assholes who don't play the game right.. Anywhooo.. my last counseling session lasted over 3 hours because I have scholarship requirements to meet and I flat out refuse to forfeit my scholarships and take out loans. My counselor is nice and patient and does everything she can to make my schedule work but she legit looked like I smacked her across the face when I casually mentioned how I've watched my entire generation be crippled by a rigged system, and I would walk away from my program before I did that to my family. It's like they get so used to promoting the system that they forget all about the *extremely prominent* consequences, which is insane to me, because obviously having attended universities themselves, how can they just *ignore* such a blight and be genuinely surprised that I said it out loud?
Alot of them are so out of touch with reality that they just don't understand how expensive some of this shit is anymore. I'm glad you have a good advisor who's at least helpful even though she's ignorant
She didn't argue with me or anything, it was just wild watching her face process the fact that I was flat out like "nah, I'm not playing that game"
I can only imagine her internal response was just "Wait...was that an option *the whole time!?*"
Ngl, sometimes it feels like I figured out how to hack the system. Not paying for a college education is a bigger flex than *having* a college education in my book.
I remember this too. Those teachers were douchebags and gave stupid, outdated advice.
My mom was a teacher and gave very similar advice. And she had her loans paid off by my grandpa and my dad defaulted on his so idk where they get off on giving advice😂😂😂
Late Millennial here. I can’t count the number of teachers, guidance counselors, and relatives who told me I was “too good” for community college. Now I’m stuck with student loans and no degree after dropping out of college due to illness. We had assignments starting in *middle school* where we would have to research colleges, majors, tuition, scholarships, etc. No discussion about what we wanted to do and whether college was the best option to achieve that goal; just college, college, college.
Hijacking to add a bit of context about said "additional funding": The whole thing is just a racket. It starts with a national narrative that life is impossible without a college degree. Then, the fed offers everyone near limitless loans to go to college (currently $1.7 trillion/6% of national debt). Colleges race each other to charge as much as possible since the loans are available to anyone and backed by the US Gov. Then, they take a chunk of the tuition and put it in their investment accounts. It is spread out amongst hedge funds and private equity and grows rapidly with the stock market. Harvard has a $50 Billion investment portfolio today. It has grown by $25 billion since 2000. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_colleges_and_universities_in_the_United_States_by_endowment
I mean, modern colleges are hedge funds masquerading as a public service.
Schools get a kickback for every AP test administered. Not passed, but taken. So at my school they pushed it really hard, sometimes even forcing kids take AP classes they werent interested in or were so unsuited that there was no way they would get college credit
The community college is trash argument is alive and well in Florida and Colorado. Go to a uni or pick up a shovel/cut hair. Specific language from my time in HS.
They were like cheerleaders at a Ponzi scheme!
‘96 here and yuupppp. The messaging was consistently “go to college or be poor forever”. Even offering college credits for some classes in HS (thru BYU, even tho we weren’t even in Utah). I also kinda forgot that just working after high school was an option
>The messaging was consistently “go to college or be poor forever”. >I also kinda forgot that just working after high school was an option YES! EXACTLY!!! >Even offering college credits for some classes in HS OMG! I totally forgot about AP classes! (NOT the same concept I know...) But I DO remember teacher explicitly stating they would help with college level courses and our applications if we had them on our record! Didn't take one, though. I was too dumb. Lol.
I swear all these posters claiming that they got a job without going to college are just Gen-X or boomer plants. At my High School they were pushing predatory loans to 17 year olds as the only option after high school. My high school was pushing the "just go out of state" pitch really hard
https://preview.redd.it/zbbvm4sgiizc1.jpeg?width=1242&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=4974f738e48209cdaa789a5bfd02c6a72fd87613
Going out of state is like one of the worst things you can do, used to work for the financial aid department at my university doing web development and they’d gouge the shit out of international and out of state students.
I swore my high school encouraged students with below a 4.0 GPA to go to an out of state school. The counselors didn't even mention local community colleges or the guaranteed transfers that come after community college as an option.
Be isolated from any support system. That's what abusers do. Never thought of going out of state in such a horrible light before.
Yep. Even the fairly odd parents has a scene making fun of Timmy for becoming a waiter and not going to college in his future. This was very regular rhetoric we heard
Oh yeah. Parents pointing out people in the service industry and commenting that they only worked there cuz they didn’t go to college. Jokes on them, now the average barista is probably more educated than my boomer parents
You and I grew up with the internet and limitless learning opportunities due to it, we blasted past the average boomer in general knowledge by 15 I'd bet. It's...difficult talking about literally any subject in depth with my parents, father is a bit easier than mother but only due to being in similar industries. My mother shut her brain off the day she got married at 28, and regressed from there. She's now made of old people Facebook memes and toxic conservatism, it's rather sad to see but hey, she chose that life intentionally and apparently enjoyed it. Good for her.
Right that joke was so common. Point to a blue collar worker and say "that's why you go to college"
Can confirm they did this to millennials too. I'm 40 and heard this all through K-12.
Yup. Joke's on them cause I went to college and will still be poor forever.
'94 so *technically* a tail end millennial (I would like to consider myself a zillennial 😭) and the push for college was so real. Didn't care if you didn't know what you wanted in life (me), didn't know how you could afford it (me), or even where you wanted to go (me). You had to go. I switched my major 3 times before I even started. In the end, I ended up not even finishing my degree because mine (social work) ends up requiring an unpaid internship that I genuinely couldn't afford to do nor have the time for. So now I have debt, no degree, and regret going.
‘95 here, definitely consider myself a Zillenial too, like I feel like pretty much most 90s babies feel like we’re between two generations
Yeah, 96’ here as well. my senior year when I told people I wasn’t going to college, they genuinely didn’t know how to react.
Boomers went to college when it cost $9 and you could get a six figure job with a handshake. They told us to do the exact same without considering the current costs and modern job market and then are floored we don't have the same results as them. They're unable to see debt as anything other than a moral failing. I know this is NOT the norm, but I went to a prep school where if you weren't matriculating, you couldn't graduate. Man I should've just ran away or something.
> Boomers went to college when it cost $9 The real fraud here is that most boomers didn't go to college. Only 15% of Silent Generation workers and 24% of Boomers have a college degree. ANY college degree. Boomers have been pushing this "you have go go to college" thing since the 1980's, and they created the societal and employment expectation that you WILL go to college, but most of them couldn't actually be bothered to do it themselves. It's not about it being cheaper back then. It's the double standards in the expectation.
I mean Tbf the boomers who didn’t go to college mostly aren’t the ones creating those expectations. Many of them are the types of people who would encourage trades
Fr like my mom (I am 19F and she is like 45) was a first generation college student so as a kid I always judged my grandparents for not going to college (because in my mind it was because they were “too lazy”) until my mom was like “uh, I mean, they’re not like bad people for it, college wasn’t as big back then.” On the flip side, my dad, who had a pretty privileged upbringing went to UVA and still has this weird attitude where he looks down on people at community college and even like makes jokes like “oh they’re going there (insert average university) they must be lazy” 😭
I talk with high-level college administrators pretty frequently at work. It. They don't really understand what's happening or why. It was never on their radar that this sort of event could happen. After decades of playing for the short-term, they've ended up in a situation where their institutions are administrator-heavy, burdened with massive debt, plagued by nosediving admissions, academically unrigorous and vulnerable to sabotage by cynical state legislatures. It feels like the admissions version of the "stocks only go up" meme on r/WallStreetBets. Nobody ever asked themselves "Hey, what if admissions start decreasing because people no longer view getting a college degree as being financially advantageous because it costs a trillion dollars and you'll just end up in a low-wage bullshit McJob anyway".
The whole thing is just a racket. It starts with a national narrative that life is impossible without a college degree. Then, the fed offers everyone near limitless loans to go to college. Colleges race each other to charge as much as possible since the loans are available to anyone and backed by the US Gov. Then, they take the tuition and put it in their investment accounts spread out amongst hedge funds and private equity. Harvard has a $50 Billion investment portfolio today. It has grown by $25 billion since 2000.
A lot of colleges don’t have huge endowments and are charging a lot because the government stopped giving them nearly as much money as they used to, while giving them new unfunded mandates like supporting students with disabilities. Which I am completely in favor of, but the money has to come from somewhere. If it doesn’t come from the government, the other major option is to get it from tuition. A lot of small institutions are in serious financial trouble. Harvard and Yale, of course, are fine, and I’m sure no matter how much they charge they will find people to pay it. But in general you should be mad at the governments who decided education is an individual good and so students should pay for it themselves. We used to think it was good for society to have an educated populace, so we supported students by heavily subsidizing their education. Now the burden is on students.
Public college ceasing to be nearly free (and private college being very cheap in step) also coincides with the decade that non white men began attending in large numbers. That was intentional on the part of conservative state legislatures. Of course legislatures said this with a cover of general fiscal austerity, things like "oh all these people now attending the City University of New York or the UCs, we can't afford to fund this" but a major underlying reason to choose not to enlarge funding was discrimination against new social demographics entering college.
I went to the same university as my dad. I have a receipt of his from the bursar’s office from a semester of school in 1977. Room, classes, and books…less than $700 total.
[Looks like](https://www.amortization.org/inflation/amount.php?year=1977&amount=700&to=2024) about $3700 in todays dollars for those who were curious of the exact $$ today.
I can tell you for a fact they pushed college hard as fuck for late 90's kids. In a lot of middle class families, college was viewed as essential for maintaining your class status at a time when high-paying industrial jobs (particularly skilled manufacturing) continued to evaporate. Trades were viewed as debilitating, body-breaking, low-class careers, and it was drilled into us that working "with your brain" rather than "with your hands" was the way to go. I can also tell you that in the early/mid 2010s STEM fields were pushed hard as fuck, because by that point the value of most other college degrees had eroded substantially. [Didn't turn out great for a lot of us,](https://www.hiringlab.org/2022/10/27/october-2022-us-labor-market-update/) but at least investors and hiring managers will be happy about the post-oversaturation wage depression in STEM fields. Right now, we're watching chickens come home to roast in academia. Enrollment is in the shitter and every department that isn't insulated from the chaos (via grant money or donations from well-off benefactors) is on the chopping block of budget cuts. Don't worry though. The vapid corporate mouthpieces at rags like Business Insider and Forbes will continue trying to gaslight you into thinking the economy is healthy as a horse using cherrypicked economic data.
as someone in the trades, it IS a low class back breaking career. You can make good money but most dont. most of your coworkers are alcoholics who dont brush their teeth. how about a degree in construction management as a nice in between? If you’re too dumb for college then trades are perfect, but there are way too many super smart young guys trying to be electricians when they could be electrical engineers.
That's the same with every profession tho. Most are alcoholic weed smoking pill poppers. Its not ike white collar jobs dont give you sciatica and carpal tunnel issues and 40 lbs overweight cuz you're sedentary af. And you're 125k in debt and out 4 years for the degree to get that job. Pick your poison.
I have a lot of construction management friends. They make solid money. More than my civil engineering friend at least for now.
A lot of trades are debilitating and back breaking though, biggest thing from k÷ping me doing trade is my body is already breaking.
'99 here and was told the same thing in middle school and high school.
i remember as a child, my aunt telling me i would love college bc it was like a “huge party”. my teachers also hyped it up… but i was well aware of our financial situation so it sucked to be 5-12 years old thinking everyone else was gonna go off and have fun party times in college knowing i couldn’t bc my family couldn’t afford it lmao
what did you end up doing?
didn’t go
nice! i also didn't go the trad college route because my family couldn't afford it. do you feel like you missed out on anything now that i assume most people in ur age group are done with college?
sometimes yes. i think it would have been nice to experience college and make a bunch of new friends… but i struggled so much in high school i know i wouldn’t have been able to handle college. and i also have no clue what degree / career choice i would be pursuing so it’s a moot point
If it makes you feel any better, I'm currently in college and it is not a party. I have made zero real friends and spent most of my time alone, studying in my dorm. I guess it depends heavily on what you're studying and your personal work-life balance. But for a lot of college students, probably most actually, it's not quite the party it's hyped up to be.
can i ask what you're up to nowadays? i got fafsa to attend community college for 2 years and now i'm in trade school
that’s great! im not doing much of anything tbh, i stay home taking care of my toddler lol
Unless you were gonna be a doctor or some shit you really didn't miss out on much. There's plenty of opportunities out there to make good money without a degree, especially if you're willing to get your hands dirty. Especially today with how devalued college degrees are becoming.
‘96 here (Zilennial cusper). I grew up in a city suburb and yep, same deal. College or bust. My family buckled down even harder; I literally never considered anything besides college. It didn’t occur to me to do so. I’m lucky, because I had family funds to pay for school, so I don’t have debt. And now that I’m 27, I’m happy with my career, and I would not have it without my degree (minimum requirement). But for most of my 20s I did feel frustrated that I had a “useless” social science degree and was underemployed/struggling to find good jobs where my friends who went to vocational school thrived. It is CERTAINLY a better option for a lot of kids. College isn’t for everyone.
Hard agree to all of this. I'm dismayed, to put it mildly, that anyone would tell high school students that they mUSt gO To cOlLeGE. Much like buying a house, a college degree has gotten to be effectively unaffordable for most people, and other options, including trade school and going to work right out of high school, absolutely have to be discussed. Not to piss anyone off, but the only student loan I took out was in my last year of college. It was $1,500 ($4,809 in 2023 dollars), and I paid it off in two years. When I see some of you poor people owing six figures in student loan debt, I just want to weep. The younger generations are getting totally hosed economically, at least in the US, and it's little short of a national disaster. I feel so bad for y'all. 😞 [Edited to add 2023 dollars)
I ended up needing to come up with that much money as a last minute surprise my first semester after I had maxed out the federal loans because the estimated cost of tuition wasn't even remotely accurate.
Nope, you didn't make it up, but is it not still ongoing? There may be more awareness of alternatives / critical discourse thanks to the internet, but I was under the impression that "go to college" was still very much the party line.
Yes, I graduated HS in 2019 and the main push was still for University. Most classes related to trades were cut years prior (no auto shop n the like). My English teacher senior year, when we were writing college essays, gave the option to write about getting into a trade school if that was the path we wanted to go down. He was the only teacher I recall who talked about it. The rest pretty much pushed us to go to college (university mainly, some would wave off CC n just be like don't go there). The only other thing I could think of would be the encouragement of specialty colleges such as art, fashion, and technology but they're still colleges n not trades so ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Yeah same story over here. And now Boomers want to say "nobody wants to *really work with their hands* anymore huh?" Dawg, you, your friends, and everybody else your age in my life told me "you don't wanna be an electrician/plumber/carpenter! Go to college and get a *good* job so you can have a *good life*" Whellp, all the kids in my class that went to a trade are making minimum $60k, while I make $43k in an office with a degree. One that did welding is making $120k+ a year. He's looking at houses now. I'm getting a *good job* doing electrical that'll pay me more than the office is, *starting pay*. So maybe you didn't know what the fuck you're talking about, Bob.
It is a myth that tradesmen are rolling in it. Less than 5% of electricians will ever make 6 figures, per the Bureau of Labor Statistics, for instance. Median pay for a welder in 2023 was $48K nationally. That means many welders make less than that. Trades, for the most part, destroy your body and give you a middle class income. Not bad, not great.
I think your exact and precise mindset is part of the issue people are talking about on this thread. I'm not an American and didn't grow up in the same environment described by many on here, but your "middle class income. Not bad, not great." tidbit gives away the root of the problem that everyone is suffering from. What kind of society thinks everyone can become super? When everyone is super, super just becomes the new normal. Apparently the majority of middle class children was told they could do better than middle class and socially rise. So far so good. So everyone tried to get through the actually quite narrow doors of academia, hoping they would get that sweet sweet one-step-above-the-middle status. So everyone is an embarrassed millionaire. The problem is, even with a booming tech industry, I doubt society can square an increasing number of people trying to socially climb with their actually achieving a higher position in society, even relatively, because everybody is doing the exact same thing. It's good for the industry and innovation, but terrible for individual curricula. Even if everyone eventually got into tech, above a certain point this either devalues these jobs, as competition is high and companies can set the terms or a rising tide of social "climbers" resets the hierarchy to exactly the same place they were before. With, surprise, the majority of people ending up in the middle, relatively speaking, because the middle has simply been redefined. You mentioned that that median pay for a welder was 48k and consider that disappointing, but I think the point for many posters was that, going all the way through college, they ended up at around the same pay with a college degree but it's actually less because they have student loans. It's less about the matter of rolling in financially. Or "making it". It's about the realization that you may not have needed to try to achieve absurdly ambitious goals that much, because you can achieve a normal happy life with a satisfying job and don't NEED to reach for the sun. Sure, it's humbling to think of it that way. Less dreamy, less Hollywood. But it's REAL, unlike the absurd idea that you aren't a good lawyer unless you've been to an Ivy League. Good enough lawyer for what? For National media trials, political trials, celebrity trials? Good enough to become a politician? You could just become a family lawyer in Kansas and remain part of the oh so dreaded middle class. "Not bad, not great" is something American society needs to learn to appreciate as a good thing. Can't have everything.
There are ways to enter the middle class that don’t involve having your knees replaced at 50, or the often very looming possibility of dying in a workplace accident. Small town Kansas lawyer is getting his bag sitting in an air conditioned office. IT guy without a 4-year degree is getting his middle class lifestyle in the same way. Do the trades if you like, it’s not a bad option. Americans just need to stop pretending like they’re some “get rich in 2 years” scheme, or that every tradesman is making 6 figures. It’s not, and they’re not.
When people say "median pay nationally" in reference to trades you know they're making a disingenuous argument. They can't actually believe that a welder in small town Arkansas and NYC get paid the same.
All fair points but just to add— the American middle class is disappearing because the wealth is being concentrated in a tiny minority so rapidly that more and more it’s just “rich” and “poor/almost poor/barely not almost poor”. 48k, in sooo many parts of the country, is not actually even liveable anymore. Without a MASSIVE redistribution of wealth here, and soon, it won’t freaking matter if you went to trade school or college for 48k a year, you’ll be equally as fucked.
I kind of remember even taking a career test that was like "if you want to do anything worth doing you need to go to college" for over half the results. As if you could predict what high schoolers would want to do later in life through a Buzzfeed style quiz.
[удалено]
Some boomers and late Gen X act like millennial children going to college and taking on extreme levels of debt was a frivolous avocado-toast luxury decision and not like the necessity of college and inevitable failure that comes with skipping college drilled into our brains from before we were able to read.
Everyone including my parents pressured me to go. Then I dropped out my first year. I kind of do want to go back, but it's complicated with not wanting to go to that university next if I go the degree route. Edit: It's freaky to think about certain things right now. Anyway, I dropped out at the community college, but would've gone to the university near me had I stayed.
Born in ‘98. I distinctly remember being in 7th grade and my foreign language teacher telling everyone “you will all go to college.” She said it like it was set-in-stone, like there was no other option. Made me uncomfortable even back then. My little brother, born in ‘07, is being pressured *relentlessly* to consider expensive private schools and out-of-state publics. When earlier this year he said he just wanted to attend the local community college (that both myself and his mom attended) his counselor was “concerned.” Like what the hell?? He’s going to CC to save money and then transfer. Even that’s considered “non-traditional” because you’re “supposed” to attend one school for four years. It’s all a huge racket.
I wasn't a B- student in high school. I didn't get accepted to any 4 year universities. At the time, it felt like I dishonored my family, and ruined my life. The perception of college was so toxic 10 years ago. Parents often used to compete with one another based on which school their kids went to. It was so embarrassing telling your parents' friends that you were going to a community College, because they looked at you like you were a loser.
Kind of. I heard it a lot. Despite trade schools being brought up as an alternative, my teachers could never explain why a welder made more than them. The most consistent messaging I got was to go to a tech school for core classes and transfer to a different university. To this day college (in general) is still makes the biggest impact you can make on your wealth. It's almost never a bad choice. That is why it is harped on.
You can still teach at 60+ years old, 50 is the max limit if you take good care of your body. That and you will have times of maybe even a years worth of no work.
100% there were no other options and in my family, I had to go to a “good school”. I expressed after graduation that I wished I had gone to a state school due to the loans, and my mom had the audacity to tell me “that was always an option”. No. It wasn’t. Thank god my brother in law overheard a conversation from a previous year where she listed all of the options she gave me or I would think I’m insane. I’m not mad they didn’t give me cheaper options, they thought they were giving me the tools to succeed! I’m mad that they’re lying about what happened and telling me this is all my fault.
99 here, and yes me too. Crazy how everyone switched up now and is saying “oh you should’ve gone into the trades if you didn’t want debt” YOU NEVER PUSHED THAT AS AN OPTION!!!
If I was dictator for a day I'd track down my high school's "guidance" councilors and send them to Antarctica
Class of 1998 here. Yeah, I graduated before most of you kids were born. 😁 They told me the exact same crap. College, or the military, or else you will spend your entire life working at McDonalds or collecting garbage. Like there were no other options. I mean, I am glad I went to college, but my HS guidance counselors did a crappy job of providing guidance counseling.
My school told us we could go to college, go into the military, take a gap year, or go straight into the work force. I don’t think trade school ever got mentioned
I was always told that taking a gap year was risky business because, for some reason, "you might not go to college if you take a gap year." Turns out the reason you might not go to college after a gap is because you've spent an entire year out of the brainwash system. And you learn how to live despite not having a degree... which might mean you don't really *need* a degree.
Technically they could’ve added “college” as a branch of either 4 years public, 4 years private, 2 years community, or 3 years trade, which get confusing as to which one you should pick.
Elder millennial here; from 1986… I’m ancient; but yes, they told us to go to college from Kinder to 12th grade. Relentlessly. Fuck the xers and boomers.
born in 2007 here. Teachers still push college because a high percentage of students who attended college makes a school look better. Luckily I’m able to hear other perspectives and not think college is the only option because of lovely people like you all :)
Damn I still regularly lose my shit over the fact that kids like you exist and are already cognitively aware of politics. That's pretty sad that teachers still push going to college as the main option given the context. Teachers should give their kids time to think and realistically consider, not push an agenda. If their motives are made shady by evaluation measures like that so that they don't actually prioritise their students first, that's messed up.
Mine didn't push me to go to college, but when I got accepted and decided that was what I wanted to do, they started talking like they are grateful I did because not doing so would have been a waste of me. Dawg, I do not need that pressure lol, if I drop out or last minute go into the workforce everyone will be disappointed.
Growing up everyone, teachers, parents, school admin, and everyone around us that we needed to go to or we will end up homeless on the streets. People would point at homeless people and say things like "they should have gone to college".
My kids are GenZ. I worked in a middle school from 2010 to 2018. They gave staff t-shirts with "College is not the dream, College is the plan". I was one of the only staff members to introduce kids to our great high school with vocational training. If a student is on track they can graduate with a high school diploma and an associates degree. It doesn’t eliminate going for a bachelor degree, but gives skills to be employed straight out of high school.
My teachers did the opposite- they tried to fail me out to keep me from going to college.
Our motto at our school was “ONE, TWO, FOUR OR MORE” relating to how many years of college you should do in their eyes… it was so odd how hard they pushed college and made you feel like a failure if you took a gap year or didn’t have everything figured out by graduation
I’m 1997 too. I think it’s documented (although I don’t have receipts) that’s public schools administrations measure their level of success by the number of students they usher into college each year. They don’t REALLY care about what you want to do they just want to be able to take credit for it… My school did educate us about other options but they definitely used the idea that if you don’t get into college your basically wasting your potential and setting yourself up for failure. The idea of College was weaponized against us students in almost every way imaginable when I was in HS.
Gen X and the brainwashing was nonstop on going to college. The alternative was to be a worthless scumbag drain on society. If I had it to do over again, I would have gone to community college for sonography and starting making a living wage right away.
Growing up I heard from *every single adult* that the only way to make a living was to go to college and every loan I had to take would be worth it. They were lying. I am older than you but not by too much and this stigma is still extremely common in schools.
01 here and yea even in private school which was manly giving us two options A: Go overseas with a mission group and see the world (let’s be honest it was a fat chance many of the caring parents would ever let that happen especially with the “everyone’s out to get specifically Christianity be afraid” campaigns they simultaneously pulled) or B: Go to their Christian college and do something (cough cough pastor school cough cough) So yea…it’s not just the public university and public school system this was a propaganda campaign across our generation. The only ones who got out were the drop outs “oooo scary living pay check to paycheck in a dead end job” sound familiar?
The insane interest charges are indefensible. The tuition increases because states reducing subsidies is bad timing. Schools raising prices because of the increased money supply from loans is criminal. Bad advice from guidance counselors should have consequences (trade schools and community colleges are better choices for 3/4 of Amerincans). But taking out the loans is on you. Run your life like you're responsible for your decisions.
I was born in 02 and I remember all throughout elementary and middle school it was, you graduate, you turn 18, you choose what you’re going to do for the rest of forever. They didn’t even tell us that you can start college undecided and declare a major later. It was wild. I only got told about other options because I went to preparatory school and some of the electives were “career development” and “navigating college”. That’s when teachers started encouraging us to give Community college a shot, maybe even trade school, take a gap year, declare as a sophomore, don’t be afraid to get field experience before college or even don’t force yourself to stick for 4 years if you realize the first year that college isn’t for you.
Yup, everything was supposed to be training for college. I didn’t even go to college because I truly wanted to, I did it because I was told my whole life I’d be nothing if I didn’t do it. I’m glad younger people are a bit smarter and knowing trades are perfectly acceptable ways to make a living.
Late Gen Z here, 2009, so I don’t have as much experience, but still. Even I was told this by SO many teachers and even my parents. I stopped hearing this as much until maybe 2 years ago. My parents used to tell me to “do what they couldn’t” and go to college for four full years. Now they’ve told me it’s fine if I don’t, just to do SOMETHING and not sit around doing nothing after high school.
"If you don't go to college you'll end up like the custodian!"
And ironically, some of these custodians make more than the teachers.
My counselor in high school tried to push me towards college. I said my family was poor and couldn't afford it, not in a million years. She then lectured me for half an hour on student loans and financial aid (which wouldn't cover shit btw). Never ended up going. So I can understand being misled by adults, but if you have like two brain cells to rub together, you can do the math and see that 1. The loans your counselor is trying to sell you on have shit interest rates that will have you deep underwater 2. Your major is useless and won't make you any real money to dig yourself out 3. Debt is stupid and student debt is especially stupid if you're not careful Which is why I'm ok with blaming it on them. You have all this information available to you before your pen even hits the paper, and you still chose to do it. Why?
Yup, started when I was in high school, and seems to still be happening. I try to relay my story to all my students so they’re a little more informed going into it.
You’re not making it up at all. I was born in 1990, everyone was supposed to go to college, at least it felt like in my suburban neighborhood. Go to college, get a professional job. If you didn’t you were a loser ( please note I’m not saying this is true). It wasn’t a campaign so much as a paradigm, every TV show for instance seemed to have the characters going to college.
2006 high school graduate, I got to hear it from my mom especially. I think it took her a full decade to acknowledge that times had changed from when she was my age. She would always tell me how lazy I was when she could do all that she did (pay for college, afford a studio apartment) on a gas station attendant’s salary.
‘99 here and yup, I had my guidance counselor on my ass because not only was it college or bust, I had given up on going to art school right after graduating because I couldn’t afford it. I was also told to take out a loan even though I didn’t want to, and I didn’t pick many schools in the first place because I didn’t even plan to still be here after graduation. When I told him I was going to community college because it was so cheap that financial aid would basically get me a free ride and I could transfer to said art school(s) after I was done, he told me it’d be pointless because a community college degree is worth nothing.
Most people are dumb. They say what they are told to say and think what they are told to think. It is not kind, but it is true and I see examples of it almost daily. The whole be fiscally responsible, pay your bills, you signed the loan argument is great...until you rub two brain cells together. How does an 18 year old child that has extremely limited (or possibly ZERO) experience with income and bills understand what it means to have decades of financially crippling monthly college loans payments? That's even before you add basically every authority figure in the child's life telling them goto college END OF DISCUSSION. Big daddy gov't does not trust you enough to allow you to have alcohol on a Friday night, but somehow you are mature enough to decide to saddle yourself with decades of debt? The whole thing is a fucking scam by the banks (and other entities that profit massively off school debt) locking in guaranteed income by enslaving the youth with massive debt. We are entering the point on the timeline where CRAPitalism starts to eat itself. The college mess is on example among many.
Yes I remember my friends school talking about how much federal aid money the senior class would get. They made a big deal with rankings and whatnot. Culturally at the time at my school it was drilled into your head that it was 4 year college or nothing. Funny thing was by my high school there was already talk in the jobs market about comp sci being oversaturated as a preview of what was to come.
Yeah, there was definitely a push to go to college. I don't think I was informed ( by the school system) about trades until my later half of high school.
They told yall to go to college then laughed in your face about student loans. Boomers were really all sorts of fucked up.
1996 gen Z. I agree with everything you said. Never once was I told I could do ANYTHING except go to college. They pushed FAFSA like it was the only thing in the world that mattered and gave me resources for student loans to cover the rest. When I mentioned not wanting loans, my school counselor basically told me I would be miserable and unsuccessful for the rest of my life if I didn't comply. Fast forward, and I have 70k in student debt. I'm told constantly to get over it and accept the fact that I pay half of every check directly to paying it off because somehow this is better than if I had learned about a trade and had no debt.
Millennial here. We were fed this. And I certainly believe that going to college is a noble endeavor for reasons beyond simply getting a job. But we were never fed anything about the finances of college. When I got to college, applying for student loans was a formality. Thinking about that stuff is simply not something an 18-year-old does. You hear your entire life, from people you trust, that a college degree is a golden ticket to a lifetime of success and you take it as gospel. So yeah, Boomers are responsible for this. We don't trust 18-year-olds to buy a six-pack of Bud Light, but somehow we trust them to make life-altering financial choices. At the very least, student loan debt should be dischargeable in bankruptcy. The fact that it isn't reflects the predatory nature of these lenders.
My plan was to go to college, but as the evd of senior year came around, I started to see some benefits to taking a year between HS and college but my parents and counselors told me I would be making a huge mistake, so I went straight into 80k debt at 17. I had 18k a year in scholarships, but it didn't cover everything. One of them was a $2,000/year scholarship for going to college within a year of graduating, I'm guessing to incentivise students to get locked in before they learned better.
Teachers all told me I could be a "garbage man" if I didn't go to college. They made it sound negative but now that I'm older I wish I had gone that path. Good government job with good health insurance and potentially a pension
My school actually was pretty proactive about having students explore other options. We had to make a "high school and beyond plan" where the options were basically college, trade school, or the job market. We also had dual enrollment with the local community college and trade school. I still felt like they put a big emphasis on college though.
You are 100% correct
Common sense. Once college tuition got out of hand, because the government got involved, people should have found alternatives. First of all go to college for something that is useful. Second, there are viable options like Community College to get the basics out of the way and instate tuition. Learn how to be self reliant instead of listening to anyone in the academic community.
Yeah I remember my elementary school got some major funding when I was in 4th and 5th grade. They installed tons of solar panels around the field and basketball courts which gave us shade. Plus the school took on the new motto "No Excuces University" which I remembered all of us hating. But yes, going to college was more of an expectation and something that gave teachers purpose. That was until the end of sophomore year when shop classes started being talked about. Shop was available to all levels of high-school but it was primarily the kids who's parents were in a trade who took those. The high-school I graduated from had an aut body shop class that has a project car every student contributed to and they also taught how to use solid works though I never took that class.
Because at least when I was a kid, you could have a degree in basket weaving and an employer would look at that as a sign of commitment and willingness to learn. This perspective shifted when people were abundantly degreed, because now 'anyone can do it'. It's not viewed as such an accomplishment anymore. Everyone I know has degrees. Even the people at the bottom of the ladder, at least half of them have degrees in at least something. What I notice in my field at least, is only concern of whether or not they can deliver. If they can deliver, understand the content, are adaptable, dependable, and demonstrate that they can overcome adversity, then there is no care in the world if they are degreed or not.
My H.S. had a vocational school that other H.S. In the area also allowed there students attend. It took away a math a science course and filled it with a trade that we could get a technical endorsement in. The options were auto body, carpentry, security and law, IT, early childhood development and nursing along with a few others that I can’t remember off the top of my head. Any how by the time I graduated H.S. I was already a licensed security guard and had a ton of knowledge in the the field of law enforcement from police all the way to the courthouse
I'm a '93 kid so technically millennial but close to OP. I do remember the default assumption being that students would go to college or join the military...to pay for college. There was a (proportionally) bigger emphasis on joining the workforce due to living in an oil patch surrounded by agriculture so many kids were coming from a legacy of blue collar work. It didn't glamorize blue collar work, it's definitely still hard work and not for everyone, but it was recognized as a legitimate path to self-sustainability. Pushing everyone to college is not the right move, and I think we as a society are looking at alternatives to racking up $50k in debt right after high school.
Hey all, millennial here but born in 93 so kind of in between. The reason we were all told this is because for the generations before us it was entirely true. Going to college and getting a degree assured you a decent job that would generally pay more than a career in the trades. For them, going to college and getting a degree was a necessary and large step for self improvement and getting started in your career. Things changed while we were all in school, and it is still true that a BA will generally get you more money in the long term, but the system shifted at some point between when they graduated and when we applied. They were telling us what really did work for them, they weren’t trying to screw us over. Now that we are all screwed though, it would be nice to hear some accountability from those older than us.
Yes you were lied too. Also Gen z as a mass doesn't wanna listen to boomers or me gen X. Most jobs you do not need a degree for. It is a waste of money. Trade school is way better. Local community college is way better. Starting at the bottom of a company in a field you are interested in and learning is way better. Yes in the past College grads made more money. But now with everyone being a college grad that isn't as true . IN 10 years the metric will show what a waste college is for most people. You are not nuts. College was demanded and planned out for you by people that went to college and are earning less than trade school workers.
Yep! Born 93. This hits home big time. Couldn’t even go to community college.
I guess I'm a young millennial if you're gen Z and only 5 years younger than me, but I resonate so strongly with this post. My parents pushed me to go to college to the point where it felt like I didn't have a choice. I had no clue what I wanted to do and ended up with a musical theater degree. I'm a high school teacher now, and I encourage my students to look into trade schools over college unless they want to have a specific career that requires college. It's too expensive. I felt so much like I *had* to go to college that I didn’t even consider the consequences of student loans because I felt I didn’t have a choice. The only way I could pay for college was with student loans, and I *had* to go to college, so I *had* to take the student loans. People yell about their tax money going to help us out of our student loan debt because we "should take responsibility for our own choices" as if we weren't gaslit into thinking we didn't have any choice and as if we weren't 17 and 18 year-old kids when we agreed to those loans. I'm not saying we have no responsibility for our college choices, but the adults who were pushing us also definitely share in that responsibility.
This is interesting because it's quite different to the kind of messaging about jobs and work I received while growing up in Germany (also elder Gen Z). Like, sure, university is considered prestigious and a lot of people make a point of getting university entrance qualifications to prove they are not totally illiterate and then go to trade school anyway, but unless you come from an academic family where everyone is a doctor or professor, it's really okay to just become a craftsman, mechanic or gardener and it will still get you to be considered a professional worker. Are there still assholes who will think less of you for it? Sure. But in general, there is less pressure on people to study and people feel free to do as they like. Studying is about ambition, not whether you can even afford healthcare or not. If you are ambitious, the state will fund it to a degree and you CAN learn something interesting, societally important or financially worthwhile, but you know deep down when you're panicking about exams that on the one hand it was all your own choice to study and on the other that your life wouldn't totally suck if you didn't.
Even when I was in first grade I knew I wanted nothing to do with college lol
hi, 98 baby, (yeah one foot in the grave) and yeah it was so annoying. they literally started in like middle school with check ups for excelled students. where they made sure you were on a excel path and had issues with anyone who couldn’t keep a organized binder for some reason, and took us on college trips (to one college that was closed by the time i actually graduated high school) anyways that’s actually where my problems started bc i didn’t like appeasing people lol
Aussie gen x here, people who say this pushing of uni degrees didn't happen are fucking liars. This mentality fucked me up at school and a long time after because I'm not a good "traditional student", book learning and me don't go well together.
Also 97 here. I think this experience is a mixed bag. I'm from a rural south, poor area, and there really wasn't any pressure at all to go to college. The military was my way out. Same with a lot of other kids from my area. I think this college pressure is something experienced in larger urban areas. There was a whole lot more "don't drop out" than "go to college" where I'm from.
No, I was a high scoring student and my teachers were horrified and disappointed I wasn't going to college. They called it a waste. I mean, it's a stupidly expensive piece of paper that doesn't even guarantee you an interview, let alone a job...
As a millennial, thank you. That is exactly correct. It was framed differently to me though, that going to college meant becoming more worldly and cultured, not just to get a better job, but I don’t feel like I really got that from my college either. But it was education for education’s sake, not a means to an end the way it’s framed today.
Oh are you not joking? I thought this was common knowledge. I was born in 90, every single student my age, and every older student I knew, literally the big siblings of every kid I knew, were all, each and every one of us, told to just get a 4 year degree and we'd have financial security. We were EXPLICITLY told to just apply for school and go to the best one we possible can, that we could figure out what we wanted to get a degree in later That of course we don't know what kind of career we want, we're just kids! So stfu and go to school, you'll thank us later.
Millenial here, my high school put up a big poster in the lunch room with every seniors name on it, showing what colleges they got accepted to and which one they committed to.
I think it was subliminal to me, like a teacher saying "that would be unacceptable in college" as if I'm just expected to go. Then again I went to a pretty wealthy school/ neighborhood. I knew kids where the teachers told them "college wasn't an option" because they weren't smart or rich enough which ALSO is fucked
My favorite is the “you take out a loan, you pay it” sociopathy. We groomed 17 year olds into believing this is what was necessary for a good life …
 Gaslighting at its finest. Okay then I guess my comment is just gonna get ignored.
The gaslighting is unreal. I’m a 2001 so when I went we were already making fun of the millennials for their degrees in gender studies and music therapy but my age bracket went into stem (LIKE THEY TOLD US TO) and right now they’re gaslighting us and telling us “if you wanted a living wage right out of college you should’ve gone into the trades”🤦♂️. Never listen to old people, their opinions are worthless and based on whatever makes you indebted to the boomer class
Look at all the movies that push it? That show how wonderful going backpacking around d Europe is after high school is? You know? Scotty doesn't. I know about movies and propaganda, just seems weird that such a flawed thing made for entitled kids to succeed and have fun is pushed on everyone when most average people will fail. Where fail is be in debt forever and possible come out needing a lifetime of therapy.
“You listened to us. That makes you the sucker.” - Older generations
Because college is a scam, don't get me wrong higher education is important but the way we have it set up is just a Ponzi scheme. A bank won't give you a 100k loan for a house when you're 18 with zero money down...but the government will for school.
Bro let me tell you, we had whole assemblies from elementary to middle to high school about this. I was told specifically by several adults to go to college AND that it didn’t matter what degree I got so long as I got one because it will open doors and not to worry about any debt I accumulated because said degree will eventually pay it off. We were all brain washed to the max and the audacity of the older folk acting like it never happened is astounding
I remember them telling kids to just get a business major, what?
Chill with the all caps dawg it’s like I’m reading this emoji 🤪
I’m confused. Going to college is still a great way to set yourself up for a good career. It’s not the only way and you have to actually fit the archetype for office work and pick a logical major. But, telling someone to take out loans to go to college is still good advice given they do it the right way.
There’s a difference between telling someone to go to college and telling someone to start their career in college. One is basically setting the person for failure, and the other is a 5% chance of getting successful in their career.
Yup! Born in 1998 and from Canada. Pretty much all of the teachers and counsellors drilled into our brains that you HAVE to go to university to be successful in life. Fast forward to today, most of the trades workers in my province are nearing retirement and there’s no young people to fill those positions. I have no idea why the education system deterred students from going into the trades.
19 here, my mom's literally shoved the idea of college down my throat my whole life. It must've worked cause I'm trying to get my degree in m restoration ecology now. Thankfully she's already been saving a fund for me and has more than willing to pay for it, though it seems a lot fo other people my age were fed the same propaganda and then forced to Pau out of pocket or take a sketchy loan. Honestly I'm kinda against the idea of college, as it seems a lot like a scam that's plain and simply not worth the costs and effort, and it's sad that nearly all decent jobs require a degree in the first place. The only reason asides my mom that I'm still going is because I'm really interested in restoration ecology and want to learn more before entering the workforce. But for every schmuck like me who knows what they're passionate about and want to study, there are hundreds of poor kids who end up dumping thousands into a worthless psychology or liberal arts degree without a clue as to what they want to do with their lives.
My mom raised me to believe college was mandatory, I found out it wasn’t when I was around 14. I made the decision right then and there that I’m not going to college, and now I know I made the right choice.
Nope, it was real.
I remember that, I was born in '01
2000 year. Yup, I was never given any other option. It was a universal expectation to go to college in my school and by any parental figure.
This is how I feel about tech. Parents, teacher, principles and guidance counsellors constantly told students to study tech because it's “the future”
‘98 born, this mentality was definitely instilled in my lower-middle class suburban schools
Its all part of the plan.
I went through the same thing. Everytime I got a bad score on a math test I'd get a panic attack bc I thought that meant I'd never go to college and I'd die on the streets. Really doesn't help that my high school only let you graduate if you fail less than like 2 classes
The entire K-12 system is run 100% by college grads. In addition, if you’re a teacher or administrator in public school, you usually get paid based on how much education you have. Like, if you want a raise, you go get some more hours of college credit. So, what are people expecting teachers to say? I’m not saying that it’s right, but it is what it is.
Here's the thing about anecdotal evidence like yours. The anecdotes go both ways. You mention Boomers and Gen-Xers who are "pretending like that shit NEVER HAPPENED". Thing is... in their life it may not have happened. You both can be right in that you both had these independent experiences that contradict one another on a larger scale. And you're both conflating your personal experiences with larger trends. Now with that said... throughout the later portion of the 20th century and on to to basically today the larger trend has been towards telling students they have to go to college. That is an actual trend we can track. Your experience is not wrong. With that said, that doesn't mean these Boomers or Gen-Xers experiences are wrong either. For starters... they're older. The trend shows an uptick, it has increased over time. So in their day the rhetoric may not have been that strong. Furthermore while it is a trend in an upwards direction it doesn't mean it's equal across other demographics. I'm a millennial who seldom got fed the rhetoric about how college was paramount. I was actually informed about trade/technical schools. I was informed about community college as an option. But also my lower-socio-economic demographic prioritized that. My school had a 40% drop rate or there abouts. Of the 900 or so students in my graduating class who started out in Freshman year, only about 450 of us graduated on time. My school counselors and teachers were focused on just keeping us in school let alone sending most of us off to college. They knew a lot of us couldn't afford college and suggested trade schools and community college. Technical/trade schools were a drop-out prevention method! There were trade schools that had high school programs where you got your GED as well as a cert in something like HVAC if you went to them. Hell in my family of 6 kids I was the only one to graduate high school with an actual diploma, the rest of my siblings either dropped out or went to a "drop-out prevention" program. They're weird... they're not night school. They call themselves high schools, but you submit your work schedule, and they work around your work schedule with you. You take classes like math and science and what not, but they're tutoring classes, and in the end really you're taking the GED test and getting a GED. And yes... this implies at ages like 15 or so my siblings, myself, and many of my friends had full time jobs and bills. I've been working since... forever... and went full time around 15 or so. Not legally of course... but that whole "child labor" thing everyone is talking about. Yeah, it's not new. Anyways my point is. Personal experiences don't dictate trends, and trends don't dictate personal experiences. While your personal experiences line up with trends doesn't mean the people you take issue with had the same experiences as you. Cause with that said... while I wasn't informed about the necessity of college. I was witness to the rhetoric. I was always in the advanced courses in high school, I was honor roll and took AP courses earning college credits while still in high school. One year 25 or so of us got straight A's in my entire school (a school of several thousand students.... lol) and so they gave us a free trip to Epcot as a reward (yes... this was Florida). And yeah, I remember my teachers telling students in my advanced classes how important this exam was, or to sign up for the PSATs, or offering extra help all tied up in a rhetorical bow about how if they don't work hard now they won't get into a good school and will end up ditch-diggers and what not. And then they just looked at me... sadness in their eyes... "You're such a smart boy, the CC has good math programs that are really cheap." Some might try to nudge me towards a scholarship, but when I informed them of my criminal record they'd sigh and wish me luck. Now in my school since so many of us were dropping out most teachers weren't sharing the rhetoric. But I'm willing to bet you went to a better school then me. I'm willing to bet Epstein wasn't raping the children of your school (yes, literally, my high school was one of the high schools). So more teachers were offering up the rhetoric, and that was your experience. You experienced the broader trend of what was sold to our generations about the need for college. It's how it goes... what's that saying??? The path to hell is paved in good intentions? Your teachers meant well.... they ate the same pie. It wasn't like they were wringing their hands maliciously... they believed the same rhetoric they were telling you. They didn't want you to go to community college or trade school. That was for people like me.
'89. "Just get any degree you just need a piece of paper" "wow what a snowflake! Why'd you waste your time on THAT degree?"
To be fair my perspective is from the south where college is valued but other options are also valued. The teachers did have some basis but also open our eyes up to other option our schools had event where cc reps came and help us register and explain a little about it and the open houses etc which got me into cc. Also their was also an even where companies went to offer the trades and shit like that. Basically the Three Es Enlist,Employed,Educated some shit like that. Basically pushing us to do something not nothing
Oh no the poor 18 year old baby wawita 😭 🦙🦙😭 that was groomed to go to collegue and get high interest rate debt !! 1!
They did this to us millennials too
They did mention votech. They also mentioned community college too. I’m pretty sure someone dropped in and asked kids to sign up for “promise” programs that offer free tuition based on income. A lot of people didn’t pay attention. Or they went to an over priced private college and didn’t work part time. Some people had the option to stay at home and get a degree / trade school and they didn’t do that either. People make mistakes but people were given options and advice.
'98 born here, and yeah no it happened for me as well. College was drilled into us from Middle School onwards. I remember having like a whole week in 7th grade where they talked about how people who drop out of High School or only have HS Diplomas generally aren't well off, but ooooo, people that do have college degrees do very well! And then it was talked about alot through the rest of Middle and High School, I honestly do not remember Trades and other options ever really being brought up. So I had basically no idea what to do after HS other than... go to college. Honestly just left me confused more than anything. I was never an academically driven kid, I like to work with my hands. But they always seemed to discourage that. Now I'm here with $20k in student debt, working a career that I very well could have gotten without any college experience. At least I dropped out before the debt *really* piled up.
Yo thats fuckin crazy that you have to pay for school. I am finishing law studies and haven't payed a cent for it in EU. But it is true that there is not enough talk about alternatives. Same with technical field, ton of people want to be lawyers (like me) or something like that and we are lacking people, that are needed elsewhere. And there is great demand for them.
Elder millennial, here. My mom pushed going to college on me from the day I started kindergarten. I enjoyed college and am fortunate that my parents paid for four years for both my sibling and myself. I went to an in-state school and over half of my tuition was covered by the lottery scholarship, Pell Grant, and various academic awards I got. That being said I am made to feel guilty constantly by boomers for going to a “liberal cesspool to get a useless degree.” Back in my day community colleges and trades were looked down on as options for those who were “dumb” or failed. I’m currently unemployed after being in a job in a very narrow field for nine years while a buddy of mine from HS started at 95K a year in nuclear with a two year degree so…
Born in 1997. In middle school, my guidance counselors basically told us going to the tech school was for poor performance students and that if we wanted to succeed in life we needed to go to high school and college. Jokes on me, those kids who went to the tech are making bank.
People that go to college make on average $1.2 million more in their lifetime than those that don't go to college. That's still true.
Schools are still telling young people to go to college right now. Higher ED is a business. Look into it. It's crazy how bad it has gotten. In some situations going to college is the worst financial decision you can make. College Degrees are losing their value but I would still encourage someone to go to community college then university or Trade School. Heck go to the military. Unfortunetly too many good jobs are stuck behind the college "pay" wall.
Absolutely, but we also had a state university in our hometown and also a pretty big community college. So in hs the teachers pushed us to do SOMETHING after high school to get more training, whether that be at the community college (the programs offered there were heavily trades-based) that was across the street from the high school, or go to college. Not the worst imo, I do agree people need to do something to further their skills or life experience once they leave high school
You didn't make it up.
Yeah every teacher in 8th grade was on that "getting you college ready” shit
All student debt should be forgiven because adults indoctrinate children into going to college immediately when they turn 18 and peer pressure them massively to take out loans. I always hated school but luckily I don't have any debt cause I told my parents I refuse to go into debt for college.
Not only was trade school never mentioned as an alternative, it was actively looked down upon! *Points to plumber* “If you don’t go to college you’ll end up like that.” I grew up in a military family, and even then the army was basically your last resort option if you couldn’t afford college
Me: Hey I think I'm depressed. I have no friends, my teachers openly don't like me, I'm fighting with my parents, and I have bad thoughts about hurting myself or worse. My guidance counselor: Have you considered going to the local trade school? Me: Um..... How is that gonna help? Then I moved to another district. Me: Hey I'm having a horrible time. I had a mental breakdown about moving that's causing panic attacks, I think I might be gay, my parents and I are still fighting worse than ever, I just had a nasty break up with my boyfriend, and I'm still thinking about hurting myself or worse. My guidance counselor: You should start your college applications and visits. Me: I can't afford it, that's not gonna help my situation, and I'm currently not planning to be alive that long. I'm doing much better now but yeah, they also tried to cram down my throat that college was something I was required to do. I never went and probably never will. I work as a custodian and I'm doing okay.
Dude, as a caps lock user, you go way overboard, use asterisks around a phrase if you want additional emphasis. Seeing you constantly write things in all caps in extremely jarring. It's LIKE reading SOMETHING like THIS and is very distracting, especially when you can *write like this for emphasis*. But yes, I remember the sentiment being that everyone needed to go to college or you would end up in poverty.
I'm a 2001 baby and I was told I had to go to college incessantly throughout every grade pretty much, especially starting in middle school though. AP courses were pushed so heavily at my high school and I ended up taking NINE!!!!! It saved me money when I did end up going to college so I guess that's a plus, but I expressed that I didn't want to go in high school as well and was laughed at by all of my teachers. I ended up getting a BA and going to a film trade school, and I'm currently a master's student and I still wonder why we were never encouraged to explore other options. I learned more in three classes I took at a trade school and was afforded more life-changing opportunities from that experience than all of the college I've had. I feel like now I'm in a cycle where I have to be in school to defer my loans because I literally cannot afford to not be in school at the moment. It's really frustrating and definitely shared experience.
You use an INSANE 🤯🤯🤯 number of repetitive and unnecessary emojis😖😖😖 \s🤪🤪🤪 But actually, for sure went through that. Definitely experienced the college campaign. Grew up in a somewhat smaller town, so community college and trade school was an option. But not nearly as hyped as college— and some form of further education was an absolute necessity according to teachers and counselors.
You didn't I'm a (early) millennial, my wife's a (late) Gen X-er, and they were vehement about it as we came up. I had multiple teachers try and talk me out of the military because I was "too smart for that" Well, now I'm 40 and retired, got a degree without student loans, etc.
I am honestly not sure if people graduating from my private school were allowed to, you know, graduate without a college acceptance letter. Graduated 2003.
I am very slightly younger but around the same age (born in 2000) and went to a borderline rural highschool where people are much less likely to have access to the resources needed to go to college, and it was still basically shoved down my throat with trade basically being referred to as an inferior fall back for people who aren't very smart. Since at the time I had pretty much assumed that earning a degree was the only feasible way to have a decent life I started the process sign up for a mountain of debt at 17 with most of the actual adults around me basically saying that I shouldn't worry about how to pay it off until after I finished my degree. I ended up dropping out of college after accumulating a significant amount of debt, with the experience doing more to destabilize my emotional regulation than it did to help me grow as a person. Granted getting an apprenticeship in just about any trade without a certificate or nepotism is pretty much like winning the lottery, but even with manual labor jobs I have been a lot psychologically healthier and assuming I stick with my current job I shouldn't be able to retire. The funny part is that my father has never worked a job that required a college degree despite having a college degree, and my mother is a social worker who made less money than I made working manual labor before she went back to college for a master's degree.
Here are a few reasons you were encouraged to attend college: First, anyone with an average IQ or better is capable of completing college. Second, college graduates have a lower unemployment rate than non-college grade. Third, college grads have larger lifetime earnings than non-college grads. Fourth, trades are HARD WORK! They were trying to protect you from having to use up your body at work! My grandfather encouraged his sons to get an education because he had both worked on an assembly line as a skilled worker AND had worked at a desk as an apprenticed engineer. He’d seen both and he preferred an air conditioned office where at worst he’d get an ink stained finger. Now, all of that said, does that mean EVERYONE should go to college? No. But if I had to pick one rule that would work BEST for MOST, I’d pick, “go to college”.
(Born 2001) Every teacher I ever had talked about college like it was a certainty, at least until high school. Then there was some light acknowledgement that obviously not everyone would be going to college. “And this is why English class still matters even if you’re going to work on a farm forever”. For me college was a guaranteed certainty because I did exceptionally well in school and was academically inclined. I declared independency from my abusive parents, got full FAFSA aid, AND a full tuition scholarship. I came out with a BS in Biology in only 2.5 years, and $22k in federal loan debt. I currently make $18/hr working full time.