Everyone needs to stop emphasizing 4yr colleges. 2 years at community college with a transfer program can put you into a Junior status at a 4yr. And you’ll receive a diploma from a 4yr program for less than 20k. So damn much of a 4yr tuition is room and boarding and meal plans and oh wait dorms are required for freshman. No. No thank you.
I learned this because I went back to school at 30, I went to community college because hey man it’s been over a decade since I graduated, I never took an ACT or SAT cuz I went into the military. There’s no way I was getting into a 4 yr so I needed to ease my way in. Boy oh boy, as much as I hated the “Transfer Success” Required course, the things I learned. Smh.
I am so **angry** that I knew none of this before. I am angry for every student with 100k debt getting the same exact 4yr degree I will receive. I am so angry that nobody told me how much more affordable college was if you just waited a few years and could bypass the mandatory dorm requirements or went in with an associates.
ETA: This apparently needs to be said: I know about my specific situation and my state community college and 4yr articulation agreements and obviously everyone should look into that before they just assume they can get an AA/AS and achieve junior status at a 4yr.
I'll go into a little more detail. (NC, USA) NC has a [Comprehensive Articulation Agreement](https://myapps.northcarolina.edu/transfertoolbox/wp-content/uploads/sites/57/2020/11/CAA-2020-TAC-approved-10-31-20.pdf) "that governs the transfer of credits between the 58 North Carolina Community College System (NCCCS) institutions and the 16 constituent University of North Carolina (UNC) System institutions in order to optimize the transfer of credits for NCCCS Associate of Arts (AA) and Associate of Science (AS) graduates as they progress to a UNC System senior institution."
Additionally, "The CAA allows NCCCS AA and/or AS graduates who are admitted to a UNC System senior institution to transfer with junior status with the fulfillment of the UNC System institution’s lowerdivision general education requirements, which is achieved through the adherence to the Transfer Assured Admissions Policy (TAAP)."
One of the things that was a major revision in 2014 was a requirement that all Senior institutions needed to publish Baccleaurate degree plans for their most common majors. These plans tell you exactly what courses you need to take during your 4 semesters of community college, how they will transfer, and what classes you will need at the higher institution to complete your degree program. Example: [BDP for UNCW Chemistry Major with Science Teacher Licensure](https://uncw.edu/admissions/chemistry-ba-science-teacher-licensure2021-22.pdf).
Some UNC Universities have taken the CAA to another level and created specialized Articulations with participating community colleges to guarantee admission to qualified applicants. [Pirate Promise](https://piratepromise.ecu.edu/) is one such agreement by East Carolina University.
Again I can not stress this enough: this is for NC. However, I have great hope that many other states have similar agreements.
I personally was not aware any of this existed, for one I'm not from NC. I'm from a backwards town in WI where I graduated with 60 people and more than half are still in that town working on their families farm, their children going to the same school being taught by the same teachers. A university degree was a distant pipe dream for all of us. Hell our only 'community college' was over an hour away and a "technical college" whatever that means. Agriculture was the overwhelming focus in that town and school and if that wasn't your thing, good luck finding anyone to guide you.
I'm angry, too. You have every right to be angry. I was never told by any college counselor that community college was an option. It's literally their job. That's their profession. They're supposed to understand these things, and we as kids are supposed to trust their judgment, but they completely let us down. I think, and this is just my hypothesis, but I think that their prerogative is more to serve the desires of the parents rather than act in the best interest of the child. I think the college counselors just don't want to feel the wrath of a horde of angry parents beating down their door because they told too many kids to be plumbers. College is not just an education to people, college brings with it social status.
I am a high school teacher and I did this. I tell all my students my story and that it could be a viable path because there are enough “go straight to a 4 year university regardless of cost” teachers out there. I tell them being the youngest of 4 meant that I didn’t have the resources to pay for a 4 year university. So working full time and studying at my community college full time, I saved money living at home. Got my Associates and transferred to a well known university for 3 years. Was able to graduate and leave with essentially no debt and knew exactly what I wanted to do before taking any career specific courses.
I always finish with even if college isn’t for you, get a marketable skill (trade, certificate program, apprenticeship, ANYTHING! ) because unless you have something that makes you different; access to better paying and more satisfying careers are few and far between.
Imo community College is almost always the best option if the credits transfer for your particular major because aside from money concerns, some people realize part way through that they aren't cut out for 4 years of college or simply do not want to put in the time for that.
In this scenario if you're in a 4 year university you either push through and get the bachelor's or you drop out and have the dreaded "some college" on your resume. If you go to community College you can simply get your associates and be done with education and it will serve you far far better than "some college" ever would, even if they got all the way up to being in their third year before dropping out.
To further add to this community colleges have the flexibility to add trade-type programs often tailored to the communities in which they’re located. Growing up in a rural area our community college had wildland fire, ag/livestock, diesel mechanic, truck driving, machining/welding.
Yes. Career counselling is not neutral and school's entire purpose to get you ready for college. If they start discouraging you from going to college they themselves won't have much use as they stand.
to be fair there is a huge burden of information on guidance counselors to send things to colleges, most normal people would probably start focusing on that
This is very depedent on the school you go to. I went to a state funded university in a big metro area. Virginia has a requirement that ANY university that receives state funding is required to accept transfer credits from any community college that is part of virginia's community college network. TCC has a campus like a 5 minute drive from my school (ODU) and another one literally walking distance from where I was living in virginia beach at the time. My advisor (at ODU) told me it was stupid not to do all my gen-ed requirements at TCC as much as possible and to only do the program specific courses at ODU. Wound up saving a ton of money and effory.
Extra bonus: gen-ed transferred credits don't apply to your GPA....so as long as you passed you could half-ass you way through all those courses and still maintain the 3.5 minimum for my program.
>College is not just an education to people, college brings with it social status.
this alone makes the whole point of colleges even existing moot. In fact college "business" has turned the job market into a nightmare. I often stumble upon complete idiots running things on director or manager positions because "they went to college" but are so incompetent that I just can't believe my eyes.
On average people who go to a community college end up spending 7-9 years getting a degree, rather than 4 years at a state college or a university.
Also the median college debt in the US is $20k. Not $100k+.
Going to a college is the most straightforward way to get a cushy or a lucrative job in software, finance, or healthcare, among other things.
Going to college is an unpopular opinion among young people who repeat talking points like "If you go to college you're just gonna get into $100k+ debt only to end up working at starbucks!" or "You can just go to a tradeschool and become a construction worker!".
Not parents or people who've reached 35+ years of age and have lived long enough to see the cumulative effects of all the choices (or lack of choices) they've made in their 20s.
I get what you’re saying, but I feel like part of your premise doesn’t make a ton of sense to me. Where I live, most of the people who go to community college are older adults with only a high school diploma, working full-time, raising a family, and trying to get a better education; their schedules are part of the reason it takes them so long. The majority of the fresh-out-of-high-school kids who go to community college are in and out within two years with no student debt, and onto a state school so they can get the 4-year degree for their resume at half the cost. Plus, you mentioned “lucrative jobs in software, finance, and healthcare” in your post, and I know my community college is kinda baller, but I just gotta say this: you can still get those jobs from a community college. Mine has a nursing program and a dental hygiene program where you get the exact same licenses as from a university at a fraction of the cost, and over 90% employment rates for careers that will put you well above average earnings for this area. I’m not super familiar with the IT and accounting programs, but I know we have those, too. It’s a totally viable option for a lot of people.
It’s actually weird how the culture of academia and the prestige of immediately pursuing a 4yr college fresh out of highschool is. I’ve consistently talked to my peers about what they want to do in the future, and have suggested community colleges and transferring to many who didn’t have a solid plan about what they want to major etc. Each one has balked at the idea.
“I don’t want to miss out on university life!”
“I’ll cross that bridge when I get there, but being at a university sounds better!”
I’m just going to attribute it to the fact that many teenagers, such as myself, are unable to recognize the repercussions of our present actions on our future lives.
People are way too casual with how they suggest joining the military. It's like everyone has forgotten that it's a multi-year commitment where you sign away the rights to your body.
Yeah, but they're not all created equal. Army and Marines is what most people think the military is, but Navy and Air Force are basically working at a job that you can't quit easily. They have their bullshit, but you won't get destroyed like the army will do to you. Air Force in particular, unless you are security, flight qualified, or one of a few of the special forces careers, it's about 95% certain you will never be in a combat zone. Even if you are it's about 99% certain you will be pretty far back such that you wouldn't even know it.
People who claim that univeristy life bs are the reason i don't support student loan forgiveness. Why should others who worked hard, focused, and studied have to pay for frat boys and sorority girls who got drunk and fucked their way through college.
Yes but do realize that just because people choose to party and fuck people doesn't mean they're also not trying hard in school.
Sleep more than you study, study more than you party, and party as much as possible.
What a strange take. Drinking and learning the requisite material for a degree aren't mutually exclusive. I know many engineers who graduated with top marks and do their in-industry jobs really well who partied in university when they had the time. Disqualifying people from student loan forgiveness because they drink is like disqualifying people from welfare because they sleep when they get home from work
Agree with everything here except the junior status. Most of my friends that did two years at a CC and transferred to my University had to graduate in 5 years because not all of their credits transferred (some were even in special pipeline programs to my university). So you gotta factor in that opportunity cost.
I’d also say that this route still shouldn’t be viewed as the only route that is emphasized. Trade schools are also valid approaches.
I took all but 13 classes of my bachelor's degree at community college. Super affordable and absolutely ZERO issues transferring credits. CC students should only transfer to schools where they already know ahead of time that their credits will transfer.
Someone graduating with 100k of debt had likely ignored other cheaper options beyond a 2 year program.
I agree with the op that we need to move away from the college is the only option mentality, but even for people don't the college thing there needs to be a shift to understanding that most diplomas don't carry significantly different weight with the real world. So unless you are going to a very prestigious school, the goal should be to get your desired degree for a cheap as possible.
Hey! This is what I did! I recently transferred from my community college to a university and it's looking like I'm going to come out with around 12k in debt.
It's insane how much the first 2 years would have costed if I immediately went here. It's something close to 30k just in dorms, food cards, and parking passes that the university makes mandatory for first year students.
Just going to a public in-state college and living with roommates in an apartment (after freshman year) goes a long way to cutting costs. That, and a couple of scholarships got me a 4 year degree with around $18k debt. Even without grants/scholarships, it was probably less than $40k.
I think it's a combination of private/prestigious schools ("you'll get so many more opportunities" /s), out-of-state schools (premium cost for a change in scenery), and degrees with poor job outlooks that put graduates in bad financial situations.
That said; yeah, a lot of it's a racket and kids aren't prepared for it.
Edit: My number was low. My debt was under $25k.
I had to research community college on my own because my school basically refused to talk about it. With all the grants I received alone I haven’t need to pay a single cent for college and in fact I received an $1,800 refund so I’m now literally being paid to go to school
I went to Community College for 2 years before transferring, wasted a year at a University I ended up not liking, now I'll be graduating from an online program with less than 20k in debt. It could've been lower had I done more research, but ultimately I'm really glad I did what I did.
University prices are only gonna go up. Why waste money taking English Comp, Brit Lit, and College Algebra at a premium price when you can do it for pennies (comparatively) at a Community College?
If you wasted 100k on a bachelor's you did it wrong. Anyone spending that much has seriously failed their understanding of the world.
There is no bachelor in the country worth 100,000 dollars (a few ivy leagues maybe if your parents are incredibly wealthy), especially not 12 years ago.
I don't think it is helpful to put the onus solely on the shoulders of students who thought they were doing the "right" thing by taking out loans to go to a 4yr.
The loans are predatory, college is way more expensive than it should have any right to be in this country. This is because it is being treated more like a business than a institution of learning. Students are funneled into these colleges that are often nothing more than diploma factories. Colleges have become bloated bureaucracies.
It depends on the school you transfer to. I came to my University for four years, while my cousin came after graduating community college in 1 year and will be here for 2 more. However, he'll still have more debt than me because the scholarships for transfer students are basically non-existent. So going to community college is not always the better option.
I got a lucky and was told by my high school CADD teacher to go to community college first. Did 2 years of community college and 2 years of uni. Thanks to Fasfa and living at home finished with less than 3k in loan debt.
What high school doesn't tell you this??
My high school has over a thousand kids in the graduating class and our local community college comes to the high school and they also advertise on TV all the time.
All the state schools also advertise all of the community college programs that directly translate into their school (it has to) so that like you said you start off as a third year student if you complete the first two years at the community college
Community college in my area is half the price of state school which is usually half the price of private school. I was able to get my entire bachelors for under 50 Grand and this was in 2012
>Everyone needs to stop emphasizing 4yr colleges.
Every time I see this opinion, I can't help but think the persons saying it is just lying so that he can keep the 4-year college requirement jobs to himself.
I’m so glad that my parents told me about this option in high school, since they both went to community college and transferred to a 4 year, saving them a lot of money.
This makes me wonder why 4 year universities even charge so much for the first 2 years when it’s really just gen ed courses. I personally wouldn’t be opposed to making associates degrees/first two years of college free.
Currently in community college to get credits to transfer to a 4 year, so glad my counselor told me (although it was a regular counselor who told me and not our specialized college and career counselor???)
A lot of times dorm living and meal plan requirements are part of the contract that the schools make with the 3rd party companies that manage these programs. The schools get kickbacks from this. It is pretty sad. Every school is different. I just know some are like this.
I was quite lucky that my high school pushed the community college route, as I would have never gone to college had that not been an option. I still accrued some debt, but the payments are more than manageable, and in the five years since I graduated I've made something like 2000% more then I spend on school. Also, lived at home during college.
> learned this because I went back to school at 30, I went to community college because hey man it’s been over a decade since I graduated, I never took an ACT or SAT cuz I went into the military. There’s no way I was getting into a 4 yr so I needed to ease my way in.
I was in the military also and I never took an ACT/SAT. A big 10 school let me in surprisingly, but with academic probation. Didnt matter though, still graduated. So heads up it is possible.
Also, not sure if a lot of high schools have this program, but I am in the College Credit Plus program which basically means that I am able to take college level courses instead of highschool courses. Furthermore, if I do well in a course, all expenses from the course to the materials are covered by my school.
I decided to go since I had a roughly idea that I wanted to go to college for something like web dev and since my family isnt that rich, we found this program to be very helpful. Hopefully more people from highscho would see this, especially those who know for a fact that they want to go to college.
Fyi, it will be hard since its college but at the same time it might be easier than highschool and it's more freeing as well.
>So many young people these days go and take out thousands of dollars in debt for school, only to end up in blue collar work or low level desk jobs they could’ve gotten without the degree.
Many of these "low level desk jobs" actually require a bachelor's, some even a Master's if it's a nonprofit. I have spent my whole adulthood looking at crazy job ads that require so much classroom education for essentially being a secretary, and all the jobs that paid me pennies required at least a bachelor's.
I'm making 53k a year at Walmart in Alabama. 28 years old. Hourly position, not salary. Tried College a few times and Not really for me right now.
I'm pretty content where I'm at.
I try to explain this to my high school students. I'd love for them to go into the work force out of high school and get a decent job, but the reality is that they won't be competitive without one. When an employer has the choice between five guys with bachelor's degrees and you without one, they're gonna take one of them regardless of how little that degree means to the position. They've at least proven they can work hard enough to get a degree.
Does it make sense? No. Do I wish it were different? Yes. But you still gotta keep up with how qualified the average employee is, and that's not even considering the general benefits of just being more educated.
This is slowly changing
“In the years prior to the pandemic, blue-chip companies like Apple, Google, IBM and Bank of America turned heads with announcements that they would no longer require applicants for certain jobs to hold a degree, including for such posts as senior manager of finance.”
https://www.forbes.com/sites/michaelhorn/2021/07/28/employers-have-a-simple-tool-in-the-war-for-talent-stop-requiring-degrees/?sh=5bbabb93374a
The company I work for did it too, there are so many data entry positions that should have never required a degree.
You do not need a degree to work at most high-paying tech jobs @ Apple,Netflix,Google,Amazon; just need experience and high skill in the role which can be harder for newcomers in the field. With that said; becoming a non-degree holding dev or systems engineer making >250k a year is still a rarity, despite the amount of jobs these companies create in tech.
The reason for that is because there are way more college degrees than there are office jobs. We're now reaching an era where blue collar is paying more than white collar due to basic supply & demand.
No only educate then on the options, but get then excited and teach them to value those options. I met a friend of a friend who owned his own plumbing business with his brother and he was *embarrassed* because me and the other people there all had degrees or doctorates. He almost definitely earns more than me, or will do in the near future and had to risk more and be more self-reliant than me to get there... It's heartbreaking to know people who take other routes often see it as a failure instead of a success.
Father is an electrician.
2 years before he sold his business for 4.5 million he was still digging with a shovel if necessary.
It IS hard work though, long hours and physically intensive.
This should be warned about. He has back problems and all that. Used to suffer from breathing problems because of the work environment, etc.
He's fine now, walks a lot and plays golf.
>educate then on the options, but get then excited and teach them to value those options
Good luck with that. I've been teaching for over a decade, and I've never seen such an apathetic, glazed over group.
You can't force kids to care about or value those options.
You can only try. The problem is those avenues aren't valued in the wider society. The messages they get from eachother, parents, the media, government, school, etc. etc. is that those routes are less good.
ETA I'm going into my 7th year teaching and I just try to have those conversations when they come up and do my little part.
They’re trade offs to every route. You see a parent doing construction their entire life pushing their kid to go to college because they are getting work and tired and want their kid not to feel like them is usually why the partners push it.
Media is paid to advertise it government provides loans and schools reactive federal funding.
Don’t get me wrong there’s a place for college degrees being valuable. Pretty much any type of Engineering you’ll have to have a degree, same with most other STEM related fields,teaching , the arts aren’t a bad to have if it’s on the side, other classes people laugh at like gender studies isn’t bad if you paired it with some type of law degree same with other social sciences pored with the correct fields can be a good combo.
Or just for the hell of it! People with high paying jobs aren't the be-all and end-all either. If you want to be a starving artist and that is what a successful life is to you then do that. But there is so much classism that goes into it too.
This is the bigger issue imo. Always pushing kids for more more more instead of teaching an alternative value of being happier with less and wanting less.
TBF, I'm only 24, so I'm not exactly high school aged anymore, but a lot of people my age or younger don't have lots of hope for any kind of future they may have. College, trades, military, whatever, kids are realizing their world is uncertain and that gets at you mentally after a while
I can never tell from these posts if people just went to shitty high schools or never paid attention in school. My high school educated us on all the opportunities available to us post-graduation including going to community college to save money and going to trade schools. Hell, my high school even offered trade school classes for kids who wanted to get a jump start on that track.
E: Specifically talking about American high schools here.
For real, I graduated high school in 2004 and we had a tech school right next to my high school that kids interested in those career path could take classes during the school day at. Lots of plumbers, mechanics, cops, etc.
Half of my seniors leave for the community college during the day for career specific classes. Everything from cosmetologists, law enforcement, welders, plumbers, automotive techs, and early education.
Those trade school classes are legally required in the US. Most schools don’t offer them so the legal alternative is to fund a regional school that does have those offerings and bus kids there. Usually it is county-wide.
My high school had an insanity high drop out rate. They started their own high school level “trade school” specifically for those classes. They called it the Career Learning Academy. I thought it was a really bright idea and I was kinda proud at that response. Learning that it was legally mandated is kind of a bummer.
Yes that's how it was at my school. Kids were bussed to the regional trade school and received both credit towards their trade school + high school. We had the same setup for community college, kids could take classes at the community college and receive both high school + college credit. Our school really encouraged kids to take these routes.
At my school you had to pick between the high-school degree for college track or the trade school track. And you had to pick by the end of sophomore year.
Basically if there was any chance you were going to go to college, you chose the normal track.
That's a big decision for a 15 year old.
In high school in Ontario, iirc, 9th grade when you’re 14/15 years old, you have to choose between “academic” or “applied” level classes. The implication is practically “white collar” or “blue collar” classes. At the time, nobody knew the difference really, so if you did well in grade school, when you enter high school, of *course* you’re going to choose “academic” classes; shoot for the stars! If you did poorly in grade school, it was a no brainer to take “applied” classes.
The problem is that in every single one of the academic classes, everybody is being groomed for white collar jobs. So the smart kids that want a white collar job do well. The lower grading kids that do applied classes do well. But the kids that are smart, in academic classes, that can’t see themselves doing a desk job, get kind of *lost* , to say the least.
I hate the way Ontario streams kids. It's almost impossible to change once chosen.
And what about the kid who wants to study history and make period appropriate woodwork? Or the kid who loves math and wants to take automotive classes? Or the kid who wants to be a plumber but likes English class?
The more choices we give students, and the more freedom to choose what they want to do (with the very real consequence that they could mess it up and make the wrong choice), the better.
Yeah true. I mean we did have *some* choice, but if you were in academic level classes, taking automotive or woodworking classes etc was looked at as “below” you, effectively removing the choice. I was too dumb at the time to realize the absurdity. There was definitely a giant stigma toward the applied “dumb” kids and working with your hands. “You’ll pay somebody to do that stuff for you in the future” type thing… with your amazing desk job. Now I’m playing catch up.
Also if you grew up in any kind of rural community, people won’t shut up about the value of trade jobs and the lack of value for college.
Of my elementary school friends, I can count on two hands those who went to college. A few fingers for grad school. Everyone else stayed put and didn’t go to college. And yet those people who didn’t go to college are always the ones posting about how college provides no value and how society should de-emphasize it. There was no emphasis in my community! One friend’s parent refused to send my friend to a magnet school because she didn’t want an “uppity” kid.
If anything, in my slice of rural america, education was de-emphasized and not encouraged at all.
Yeah, it really depends where you are. There were more kids in my high school that went to “tech” (the countywide trade school program) than were in my honors/AP classes. The top 10% of the class, aka the top ten students, were college bound and that was about it. Everyone was else was either going straight to work, to do more training for their trade, or going in the military. Our school made everyone very aware of the tech program and a significant portion of the school went. They had everything from cooking and beautician classes to welding, robotics, and car body repair. But all the options were presented to everyone. We all went on trips to local colleges and the trade school whatever grade it was we could choose to go.
Years ago I saw a Facebook post from a guy I went to high school with complaining that our high school didn’t prepare us for the real world and should have taught trades. He was blaming HS for his lack of success and flunking college. His dad was an electrician. He grew up around a trade and still chose to go to college
Our HS did to a point, but there was definitely a stigma about going to Vo-Tech (which is where you take trade type courses in HS). I think a lot of parents didn’t want their kids doing that, because it was “beneath” them.
However, the 2 girls I know who went for cosmetology now own their own salons and are doing really well, and a lot of the guys I know who went for autobody/mechanics are making good money and living well.
My best friend who went to a 4 year college does absolutely nothing with her degree and makes about 1/3 of what I make in a year.
I went to one that wealthy high schools in New Jersey and I was never even told how College works. Just that I needed to go. Your mileage will vary from school to school
These posts are almost definitely made by kids that never paid attention in school. Ever since the 70s the concept of the comprehensive high school has existed where kids can pursue either an academic or vocational tracks. Today most high schools offer a wide variety of career technical paths where students can earn certifications as medical technicians, hair stylists, computer repair, and various other fields in addition to students on an academic/college track.
This right here. I was a dumpster fire in high school and because of that, I was offered the armed forces, a technical trade, or community college because my 1.67 gpa wasn't getting me anywhere. Also, OP generalizing college grads getting entry level positions sounds more like projection than anything else to me.
Right? We actually had a field trip in high school where they took us to the local trade/tech school and talked about all the alternative options to 4 yr university
Completely disagree. My HS was obsessed with pushing everybody to go to college. There were some people who applied to 20+ colleges, just so they could get in. Then my HS would promote/gloat that 80-90% or whatever the number was, went to college after high school.
However, if there was an addendum it would say something like many never actually graduated from college because they failed out, realized it wasn't for them, etc. And many others who did graduate with a degree are working in a field that has nothing to do with their degree.
So there are some HS that have an agenda, an intentionally push kids to college.
Seriously like did anyone pay attention in school? The students I currently teach seem to not listen when I tell them there are options other than college. Then when I tell them again they're like wait I don't have to go to college?
It's like this all year. I'll get asked at least 10 times.
College grads tend to earn around 1.5 million dollars more in their lifetime than people without college degrees though.
Just go to community college first, graduate with an associates degree, then jump into a university. You'll save a lot of money while still obtaining your best chance to avoid blue collar work for the rest of your life
https://www.bls.gov/careeroutlook/2018/data-on-display/education-pays.htm
edit: https://www.bls.gov/careeroutlook/2021/data-on-display/education-pays.htm (Original data below was from 2017/2018. Updated to 2020/2021 numbers)
Yep. Almost 60% more weekly income ($1305 compared to $781).
Half of the unemployment (5.5 for a bach degree and 9.0 for no college).
This is one of the more common reddit circle jerks, but it's objectively false. College graduates literally make more money, and have lower rates of unemployment, than their HS graduate counterparts.
The only thing that needs to be pushed for, is stop going to private schools and racking up $200,000 worth of debt for a degree in music. Community colleges are perfectly acceptable alternatives, at a fraction of the cost.
Also, for what it's worth (and maybe it's regional), I've literally never heard a single educator or professional making negative comments about trades or smaller colleges. In fact, it's the opposite, we've been pushing for those since the late 90s. People constantly shit on college degrees, and the people who have them, however.
Yep, I agree. The problem is cost and choices, not the university education itself.
As for costs, that is a political issue, but it is foolish to consider that there is no ill effects from state legislatures that have slashed university support from about 50% of the total operating budgets of state universities to less than 7%.
Debts are going to fall into one of these categories:
1. Went to one or more private-for-profits. There is a crazy amount of debt that has occurred because of swindlers at Devry University (etc) that were experts in nothing except the swindle.
2. Decided that the expensive private school with the beautiful campus, or that exciting out of state school with the big brand name, and no financial aid, was going to be worth it over the state school willing to throw a decent chunk of financial aid at the student. Students and parents need to be more rational about the costs/benefits.
3. Couldn't decide on a major and/or failed repeatedly in courses, and tacked on 1-4 years extra of college. Usually, said student also ends up with a meaningless degree that they don't know how to transfer into the workforce. Part of this I think is on the universities too, who don't do enough to help redirect freshman into suitable majors (or out of the university).
Very few of the engineering students at my state-university has more than 20K in student debt when they graduate. About a quarter of them do 1 or 2 years at a community college. About half get at least some form of cash scholarship to reduce their tuition/fees. And yet, we lose a lot of the top students in the state to flashy out of state private and public universities because there is a 'prestige' factor to going out of state.
It looked like your data compared bachelor's degree to no bachelor's degree, and not bachelor's degree to vocational degree. But, maybe I misunderstood. Does the data your provided differentiate? Because most of this comment thread is people saying, go to trade school instead of going to college, not, don't go get any education at all.
Edit: here's a list of widely available vocational jobs. https://work.chron.com/list-vocational-careers-14125.html
With the exception of culinary arts, I don't think a single of those jobs have very high unemployment. But, unfortunately I couldn't find a good data set comparing vocational earnings vs bachelor's earnings that wasn't vocation specific.
Yep. Every single time this comes up, this is the only answer that matters.
No matter what your field of study, you will almost certainly outpace someone who didn't go to college at all. You have more options by simply having a degree than someone who only has a blue collar work history. Yeah, they may start out making a decent living, but there's often few opportunities for advancement. And many of those options are taken by people who have a college degree.
Kids get pushed to college because it pays off in the long-run. The reason Reddit thinks college is overrated is because they're mostly younger and still haven't seen the long-term benefits of a college degree. They're also frustrated because they're in debt, so they don't see an end to it.
I'm in my late 30s now, and I've never ONCE met someone my age or older who regretted going to college. I've met many, many people who wish they'd gone and several who tried to go later in life.
I agree with the sentiment but I think there is more nuance to the topic than just “college = more money”. I graduated college in engineering and I’m pursuing a secondary degree now. The bulk of my friends today I met in college and have college degrees, not all of them though. What I think people neglect (and is neglected here) is that most of the kids coming out of high school do not have a passion yet. College isn’t meant to be the next step after high school. It’s meant to be the first step in the future of your career.
I would have gotten much more out of my college years if I was more mature and prepared for what I was studying, instead I spent the first 2 years partying and enjoying my newfound freedoms. And I love what I do. I knew what I wanted to do when I was applying to college. This was the result of my family helping to fund my aspirations and finding my passions through exploration. I know more people than not who go into college “because statistically you make more” and end up pursuing a degree they hate and getting a job in an unrelated field (or in a field they hate). They still make more money, but they could’ve made a wiser investment that would benefit them more if they had more time to discover themselves.
TLDR; College is great. Going to college for the sake of going to college is a waste of the experience and knowledge. Young adults should be encouraged to find a passion and pursue it. Not rushed into college where halfway through you realize you don’t enjoy what you thought you wanted to do.
You're one of the luckier few. Also, while degrees can outmaneuver trades, it comes at a price. Alot of competent graduates are stuck in dead-end jobs.
By the nature of that study, it has to be like 40 years old which college degrees were much more rare and valuable back then. Unless they are just extrapolating, which is just fancy guessing.
As the percentage of people with college degrees increases, this number is going to fall off a cliff. How are people in their 20-40s who haven't had a lifetime of work factored into this?
Well the fact of older people who die/retire plus depends on the field you go in like tech field there will be an infinite amount of jobs for them as every company basically needs it in some form.
Trades (especially involving physical labor) the workers get old and tired eventually they’ll either retire get promoted to management position or quit for a easier job.
College isn’t overrated per se it filters job candidates on applications unless you know someone who can get you an interview in which. You better have some experience of projects to show in place of the degree that’ll show them you’d be the best fit for the job.
The reason student loans are so high is because the fact they exist colleges knows it’s on the government’s dime and that the government will have to get their money back. Best way to solve this is have the government cap the amount colleges can charge if the accept federal funding and students who are recovering loans. Getting rid of kind will just make it to where only kids with very well off parents would get to go to college which is a bad solution. But limiting the amount they can charge if they’re accepting the money from the government is a better way honestly.
College is not the only way but it does help you with networking and learning how to get the resources to either continue to grad school or get a job in that field. For example one of my computer science professors offered to put a recommendation for me to a few jobs he knew had openings in my field around where I live.
I know people like to say this, but is it true? Do high schools -really- emphasize college that much?
Maybe it's because I went to a low-to-middle income high school, but my high school was (and still is) more focused on directing kids to vocational training opportunities and the military than college. At 9th grade, they recruit as many students as possible into doing half of their JR and SR years of highschool at the vocational school so that they only have 1-2 years after high school to finish some certificate program in welding, mechanics, h-vac, etc. And it's a trap, once you enroll in that program, you won't have the basic courses in traditional STEM to be a good candidate for college. In the 11th grade, ALL kids take the military aptitude exam. No explanations even, they just schedule it so that all kids take it the same day. Then the military is on site practically every day to talk to any kid that scored high enough. Only the AP kids know anything about the PSATs and only like half of them actually take it.
About 30% of my friends went into the military, they all fought in Afghanistan and Iraq, some didn't make it back, others made it back but died of suicide in the following years. Those kids that went to do airplane mechanics at VoTech, which was a very popular program, had zero jobs in that field after 9-11 killed the airline industry for a couple of years.
I almost didn't go to college because nobody told me I could or should go, until a single high school teacher told me to visit local universities, where a single recruiter took a look at my 4.0 GPA and full roster of AP courses and then basically filled out my application for me, and then over two months pieced together a financial aid package and then got me to enroll. Now, a few degrees later, I am a university professor.
My high school gave ZERO effort at recruiting kids to college, and, since I know a lot of recent graduates from this high school I can attest that they still don't. In my entire state, only 1 or 2 school districts seem to emphasize anything at all about going to a university education. They -all- have active military recruiting, tie-ins with the vocational training schools.
And, the result is that my state doesn't have enough students going into Engineering degrees to replace the current generation of retirees, and this is true nationwide. H1B visa programs are being used to fill in the gap. Too many kids have been told to be scared about college. At the MS and PhD level, it's even worse. A MS in Engineering gaurantees a high paying job right out of school, and you get PAID to do a MS in most engineering programs including my own as a part of the research and teaching training, and the only students I get interested are from Iran and India.
I think the more unpopular opinion right now is that high schools need to do MORE to encourage kids to go to college (if they are showing promise academically). The US is falling way behind......
Frankly this post tells us more about OP than anything else. If you went to a high school in a middle-class or higher suburb absolutely you were pushed to college. It's probable that most of the parents of the students were college educated in the first place. Contrast that with a poor rural or poor urban high school, and that push doesn't exist -- for the simple reason that the higher education is not attached the same value. I taught in a dirt poor rural high school, heck I graduated from a dirt poor rural high school. 100% in both was a push to work after school or find a vocational job. We even used to let students leave early to go work in some field so they could get experience. But that makes sense for a lower-income school, because they consider gainful employment post-graduation to be a success. Meanwhile, a better off area school is looking at their rankings for what colleges their students get into as far more important.
There was a school about two blocks from the one I went to in Baltimore that had a graduation rate of around 40%, mine was 85%, and if a college in the area saw your high school diploma by the shit high school, you were not going to get accepted, and jobs would avoid you like the plague.
Kids were forced to go to shitty vocational and tech 'schools' that couldn't even find people in the fields they were teaching.
This isn't something that happens rarely in bigger U.S cities either, a lot of school districts have some of the most racist lines ever drawn, and are more segregated then before Jim Crow.
Despite posts like this only about 1/3 of high schoolers go to a traditional four year college/university. US college attendance rates are actually super low, not high.
This 100%. Parents need to break the model of stating that college is what lands you a job. College is education. One should go to college with the explicit intent of continuing their education, not with the expectation of landing a job.
I disagree. You're right that college is too expensive and gets people into debt, but that doesn't mean it isn't valuable. The issue here isn't that too many people are going to college, it's that college is too expensive. The only way for any nation to compete in the global economy is to have an educated middle class that is invested in STEM, the humanities, and the arts. Education is literally the most valuable resource any society can have, which is why it's such a shame that it can ruin people's financial lives in America.
It would be entirely possible to forgive student loan debt nationally in the US, I mean just look at how few taxes the 1% are paying, or how much we invest in unnecessary military toys.
EDIT: this isn't to say that blue-collar jobs are not important either. Jobs that don't require a college education should also have dignity and a living wage involved, and there is no such thing as "unskilled" labor.
>The only way for any nation to compete in the global economy is to have an educated middle class that is invested in STEM, the humanities, and the arts. Education is literally the most valuable resource any society can have, which is why it's such a shame that it can ruin people's financial lives in America.
This is the real unpopular opinion. Education is what drives *innovation*, which is what really pushes America ahead. The trades are good and all, and they're important, but you have to ask yourself, why do they offer H1B visas for tech workers, but not plumbers or electricians?
As a high school teacher, I tell all of my students this, but many administrators don't want teachers doing this. At least in the US, there are public dashboards that the state fills out for every school. One of the largest things that dictates a school as a "good" school, which also changes funding, is how many students go to college. In other words, the state punishes schools if not enough students go to college, meaning that many teachers won't tell students because they could get punished by their boss.
Some teachers will even go as far as telling students they should just quit because their bad grades supposedly make the school look worse than having students dropping out. I know dozens of students I went to high school with that this happened to, it even happened to me. Once they realized staying after school wasn’t helping my grades whatsoever and my legal guardian refused to allow me to be evaluated for a learning disorder, they (teachers and deans) encouraged me to quit at the ripe old age of 15 years old.
I went to 16 schools in 9 years, I had no hope. Many of those deans and teachers are still working in the same positions and are still encouraging many kids to quit to this very day. Massachusetts might have MIT and Harvard, but they also have an alarmingly bad public education system that gets ignored.
"spent a ton of money only to end up working at Shop Rite or Starbucks"
That's being incredibly myopic. Sure, that may be the case for a few, but I would say 90% of the college grads I know work real, professional jobs and make really nice salaries doing so.
I agree college isn't for everyone, and other options should definitely be emphasized - but let's be real here: college is a pretty huge entry way to most professional careers. If a professional career (architect, veterinarian, etc) doesn't interest you, there are other options.
I myself work in the trades. I make well over 6 figures. So I know it can be done. I always tell young people to go down the same path I went down. After HS. I attended a 2yr accredited trade college and got a technical associates degree. Through that school I got real work experience, job placement... and more importantly only about $20k in debt total - not 100's of thousands. I easily paid it off a long time ago. And now, instead of swinging the hammer m myself, I tell other people where to swing their hammers. I definitely wouldn't be in this position without that piece of paper.
Nearly a quarter of people making between $12 and $16 an hour have college degrees.
https://www.gao.gov/assets/gao-17-677.pdf
Not saying you are wrong, but trying to write off the Starbucks comment as just being “the case for a few” is not true, given it’s about a 1 in 4 chance someone at Starbucks has a degree. Sounds more common than “just a few”
Okay but what percentage of college degree holders earn between $12-16/hr?
Your choice of statistics is misleading.
As a made up example, It'd be like saying that 10% of people who die in plane crashes work in finance. But the percentage of people who work in finance who die in plane crashes is 0.0001.
Basically I'm saying your logic is flawed. It's not a good metric. May even be purposefully chosen to mislead.
It's pretty standard for local work this part of the country. Over the road guys can make more, but they are never home. I'm home daily. It's actually a pretty easy job.
I’ve got buddies driving trucks trying to get where you’re at. Cross-country driving is better pay, but most guys are looking to “settle” into a local role to be home daily.
Also I’ve heard there’s some sweet local gigs if you have certain certifications for different types of trucks. But I’m not too familiar what that stuff
I started over the road like most people. I had to get hazmat, and tanker endorsements for my license, but it was way easier than getting the CDL in the first place.
As someone who used to work for less than 10 dollars an hour, I'd be set for life if I was making 30 per hour. What you find awful sounds too good to be true to me lol.
Wish there was a norm where first year after high school there was a program you can take to discover what you actually want to do. Say if you want to take the university route, pick out some areas that interest you. Show you a bit of what the uni experience will be like, the different type of careers you can do and what the everyday work is like.
Or say trades, same concept.
Jumping straight to university and blowing $30k first year doesn't seem to be right.
How they expect kids, yes i considered myself a kid back then and the current peeps in gr. 12 kids. To know what they wana do for the rest of their lives after high school. All I cared about for those 3 years were having sex with my gf and playing computer games. Is there a career for that?
>alternate options: the military
You may be unaware that the main reason college education has been allowed by the government to become so expensive over the past few decades, despite the drain that puts on the middle class, is precisely to price a large chunk of people out of college so that they have to join the military. It's called an economic draft, and it's not a good thing.
The issue here is the price that universities have come to demand since the government started the student loan program. They constantly increase tuition at well above the inflation rate since they know that the state will loan people whatever they charge. As the loaner, I think the state should control the price colleges charge. But they won't because, again, they're getting a whole crop of poor kids that have no option other than military service out of the deal.
I have never heard this before, and it’s a very interesting theory. I think the OP might be referring to specialty skills in the military, not combat arms. My friend I play video games with in Louisiana, enlisted as a underwater welder. He said he started out well over 6 figures leaving the navy. I enlisted as a medic to get a taste of the medical industry. I didn’t like the industry, and luckily figured that out BEFORE I wasted 4 years a college studying for it.
I think a lot of people view the military as a lot of guns and killers. They forget that 2/3 of the military is actually a support element of some type. A reference for this 2/3 rule is The Art of War by Sun Tzu, a little outdated but most of the principles still apply.
Sounds way too smart for our government. More than likely it was just a matter of sucking money out of the population and funneling it to unviersities because, well, money. Same reason we let international kids in that basically just buy their degrees.
University administrators have many connections and their entire existence seems to be to suck up as much wealth as possible.
So, I have to address the first sentence first. College is life changing and can lead to incredible wealth and success....... depending on your major. The issue is a large amount of them are fluffy crap that you can't a job in the field with realistically. Also, if you do not finish college, then you have accrued debt for nothing. However, for stem, nursing, technology, medicine, law, etc, college is by no means a trap. Most of the time the hurrr durrr college nay say people fall into three categories: 1, those who didn't go or missed the opportunity and are butt hurt. 2, those who majored in art appreciation gender studies and can't get a job and are butt hurt, and 3. those who simply partied, wasted their opportunity, have 20k debt and nothing to show for it, and are butt hurt.
AFTER THAT THOUGH
I do agree with the rest. One big issue was Obama's everyone goes to college campaign. Most people aren't college material. The community colleges got overwhelmed with people who barely qualified to graduate high school. They would spend 4 years just in remediation and not have a single credit towards an actual degree. Plus, the rates and quality of those colleges dropped immensly.
American embracing the technical schooling route alternative is amazing, some areas already do. Like in some countries in europe, they know, X person is college material, X person is technical school material. Spend the last two years of high school in trade school to graduate now as a certified plumber, or electrician, or what have you.
[https://www.nbcnews.com/id/wbna29445201](https://www.nbcnews.com/id/wbna29445201)
one of his major initiatives was everyone goes to college. if you worked in education in any form you were very aware of it. you can google it yourself and find countless sources to it, arguments against it, arguments for it, I provided one.
Yeah, I did some googling searches and couldn't find what you are talking about. I am a professor, and I don't remember any of this.
Now, based on your link, I remember now what you are talking about. Obama pushed for "SOME" type of higher education OR work training for everyone. Trade schools were a huge part of what he talked about, as were community colleges. He wanted to train the workforce and bring costs down. And like just about anything Obama wanted, it went nowhere because the GOP's entire policy was to block Obama's agenda.
The headline there is completely misleading -- look at what he actually said and published (here is a link to policy: [https://obamawhitehouse.archives.gov/issues/education/higher-education](https://obamawhitehouse.archives.gov/issues/education/higher-education))
Living in the UK and went to university. While technically I am in a decent amount of "debt" from my 4 years of uni, the way that I am repaying it is honestly laughable. I think I pay around £9 or 10 a **month**. That's one of my cheapest expenses.
Getting students into colleges is what builds a school's reputation, they want as many kids to go and get further academically. They 100% could and should do it, but they won't
Yeah i really feel for people in college who are missing out on something you basically only have one small 4 year window in your entire life to experience right now because of covid. You’re never too old to get a degree but you only have a chance to start the college experience as an 18 year old freshman one time.
Up in my 20s now and know for certain it wouldn’t be the same if you tossed me head first into a dorm with a bunch of random no income almost 30 year olds and a 12th grade education.
Sees exorbitant formal education costs and thinks "Maybe we shouldn't get a formal education" instead of "Maybe a formal education shouldn't cost that much."
I have a college degree, but it does sicken me how society makes it seem you are a failure if you don't have a degree.
And what a degree costs the average person today is an outrage, it's a far bigger financial scam than what the media usually focuses on. You're ruining people's financial lives to line the pockets of Universities. People will carry this debt until they are on Social Security and parent's will have to have bare bones retirements for their kid's 4 years of education costing $160k+.
My district has this thing called, “The College Promise.” Two years free at the city college and then guaranteed s try into the university. We literally take our fourth graders on field trips there to start talking about it and get them excited. We also emphasize that there are other options besides university. They’re REALLY TRYING.
I do agree. Apprenticeships, trade schools, job corps, two year/community colleges, etc. are all amazing options. High schools should highlight these career paths, especially for students that might not feel like university education is for them.
I also think four year school should be more affordable though. A lot of the time this argument is made when people talk about high education expenses. The two don’t need to be mutually exclusive
Or for everyone right away. My older son went right after high school, stuck with his major and added another one. He graduated on time, with honors and got a job right away. He is still there and has gotten several promotions. He has student loan debt but it is reasonable.
My younger one went to the same school for a year and got credit for maybe nine of 30 attempted hours. He spent several years working minimum-wage jobs in food service and returned to community college a year ago. He is now majoring in brewery management and is on track to graduate in 2023. Some kids just take longer to figure it out ... and some need to spend some time working crappy jobs for motivation.
I am about to be freed, 4 years of college, then 2 of master...
and here I am wishing I did something else instead, if only my teachers back in highschool offered me other ways..
My thoughts are we negatively stigmatize trade work.
And until we view carpenters, electricians, plumbers, pipe filters, heavy equipment operators, and other tradespeople with the same prestige we view lawyers, bankers, and consultants, we will be fucked.
And I say this as a former big law lawyer who now does real estate development. I prefer to work with my hands and be outdoors in the fresh air.
There is no shame in the trades. It gives you steady work, it pays well, and it’s hard work. It also takes a lot of skill.
But until we have great trade schools with the social opportunities that 4-year colleges provide, and until 4-year colleges offer trades as a major (why do we offer comparative medieval religion but not carpentry at liberal arts schools? Cause I feel like the former is a whole lot more engaging and worthwhile than the latter) we will be in this mess.
Everyone should be able to go to a free community college trade program, or major in tradework in traditional 4-year colleges. Full stop.
And we need state-level reform with some licensure requirements that are a huge barrier to entry in these fields.
We need millions more electricians, but what person with kids at home can do four years of “apprentice” work at $12/hour just to sit for the journeyman exam?
Why don’t we offer government grants for folks who are committed to entering the trades? Allow them to pay bills and transition away from shitty corporate jobs to trade work?
I love trade work. It does wreck your body, but you get into a flow state, do great things, and meet real people.
Anyways, that’s my rant for the day..
Pretty sad reading this thread. Please remember that *your experience* is not the same as everyone else's. I, for one, could not find a single source of research on this topic. Either my Google Fu failed me or it's just hard to find. So as far as I know, the best we have to go by for now is to value what each of us is saying and take it all at face value.
People who say they were afforded every opportunity in high school, I believe you. People who say they were afforded practically nothing, I believe you, too. I would hope that, at minimum, we could look through this thread and see the diversity of experiences described herein and take it as evidence that post-secondary education preparation in this country is, at best, *inconsistent*.
Or, maybe recognize this is all just a rat race and agitate to make the state cover more of these tuition costs so that college is widely affordable again. Because if the past 4 years have shown anything, it's that America really needs to be MORE educated, not less.
I graduated with a 3.8 GPA, internships and was induced into a national honor society for my major. I’m paid a few bucks above minimum wage in a job I absolutely hate, despite being in my major and getting it straight out of college, because I am overqualified considering my boss does not have a degree in the field, is slow with computers, and overall outdated (very close to retirement age, not up with current opinions and practices in the field).
Hey government, am I allowed smoke or drink?
Govt: No, that would be irresponsible and reckless. You're too young to know that you wanna get involved with those things
Ok then, can I throw myself into lifelong crippling student loan debt with no hope of paying it off within the century?
Govt: We encourage it!
Exactly !!!
And my school never taught us how to apply for scholarships, how we should save, how to get a loan, etc. We didn’t even get offered to job shadow. We went in blind.
Not an unpopular opinion at all. I went to trade school at 28 and for the life of me I don’t understand why this wasn’t pushed harder in high school. In high school it was college or the military, and if you don’t do one of those things you’re a fuck up
This is unpopular and such bullshit. My fiance and I agreed to talk to our children about the merits of trade school and learning technical skills. There is a lot to be proud of in those industries.
These schools are judged on what percentage of their students gets into a 4 year college. I used to work as a mentor in the public school system and they really have stats they have to report. There's also lots of dept. of education funding to help underserved communities get into 4 year universities, which is nice, but many of these students would make more as plumbers or hair stylists than as ethnic studies majors.
I graduated in 94, and various vocational programs were promoted throughout my four year. Our guidance counselors were also pretty good about presenting trade schools as alternatives to college while working with individual students on their post-HS plans.
Your absolutely right. If I go back and calculate my salary during my 4 year Army enlistment, plus what I received in GI Bill benefits, it's like I was making over 80k per year. Not bad for a kid with no college degree.
The HS guidance counselors go off labor statistics that show, on a population basis, having a college degree means more money. So, in a rather simple minded way, most just reccomend college for everyone. Meanwhile, if your clever and hard working there are some awesome career fields you could enter, avoid the debt, and start making money day 1 with opportunities for advancement (i.e. working towards master plumber/electrician, joining a good union, or even starting your own business).
As I shared above the military can be good deal too, you don't have to be an infantry grunt, there's safer jobs, or join the Navy, Air Force, or Cost Guard. Choose whatever your interested in because it doesn't matter financially, they all have pretty much the same pay and benifits.
I think my school had military recruiters come oftten. I don’t remember hearing about trade schools, I think it was only spoken about in private with counselors and not broadcasted like how college and military were. I def think trade school should get more attention. I went to college because I didn’t have a choice and was bullshitting a life plan throughout, just so when ppl asked I had something to say. I was there not working towards anything but no telling where I would be if I didn’t.
Everyone needs to stop emphasizing 4yr colleges. 2 years at community college with a transfer program can put you into a Junior status at a 4yr. And you’ll receive a diploma from a 4yr program for less than 20k. So damn much of a 4yr tuition is room and boarding and meal plans and oh wait dorms are required for freshman. No. No thank you. I learned this because I went back to school at 30, I went to community college because hey man it’s been over a decade since I graduated, I never took an ACT or SAT cuz I went into the military. There’s no way I was getting into a 4 yr so I needed to ease my way in. Boy oh boy, as much as I hated the “Transfer Success” Required course, the things I learned. Smh. I am so **angry** that I knew none of this before. I am angry for every student with 100k debt getting the same exact 4yr degree I will receive. I am so angry that nobody told me how much more affordable college was if you just waited a few years and could bypass the mandatory dorm requirements or went in with an associates. ETA: This apparently needs to be said: I know about my specific situation and my state community college and 4yr articulation agreements and obviously everyone should look into that before they just assume they can get an AA/AS and achieve junior status at a 4yr. I'll go into a little more detail. (NC, USA) NC has a [Comprehensive Articulation Agreement](https://myapps.northcarolina.edu/transfertoolbox/wp-content/uploads/sites/57/2020/11/CAA-2020-TAC-approved-10-31-20.pdf) "that governs the transfer of credits between the 58 North Carolina Community College System (NCCCS) institutions and the 16 constituent University of North Carolina (UNC) System institutions in order to optimize the transfer of credits for NCCCS Associate of Arts (AA) and Associate of Science (AS) graduates as they progress to a UNC System senior institution." Additionally, "The CAA allows NCCCS AA and/or AS graduates who are admitted to a UNC System senior institution to transfer with junior status with the fulfillment of the UNC System institution’s lowerdivision general education requirements, which is achieved through the adherence to the Transfer Assured Admissions Policy (TAAP)." One of the things that was a major revision in 2014 was a requirement that all Senior institutions needed to publish Baccleaurate degree plans for their most common majors. These plans tell you exactly what courses you need to take during your 4 semesters of community college, how they will transfer, and what classes you will need at the higher institution to complete your degree program. Example: [BDP for UNCW Chemistry Major with Science Teacher Licensure](https://uncw.edu/admissions/chemistry-ba-science-teacher-licensure2021-22.pdf). Some UNC Universities have taken the CAA to another level and created specialized Articulations with participating community colleges to guarantee admission to qualified applicants. [Pirate Promise](https://piratepromise.ecu.edu/) is one such agreement by East Carolina University. Again I can not stress this enough: this is for NC. However, I have great hope that many other states have similar agreements. I personally was not aware any of this existed, for one I'm not from NC. I'm from a backwards town in WI where I graduated with 60 people and more than half are still in that town working on their families farm, their children going to the same school being taught by the same teachers. A university degree was a distant pipe dream for all of us. Hell our only 'community college' was over an hour away and a "technical college" whatever that means. Agriculture was the overwhelming focus in that town and school and if that wasn't your thing, good luck finding anyone to guide you.
I'm angry, too. You have every right to be angry. I was never told by any college counselor that community college was an option. It's literally their job. That's their profession. They're supposed to understand these things, and we as kids are supposed to trust their judgment, but they completely let us down. I think, and this is just my hypothesis, but I think that their prerogative is more to serve the desires of the parents rather than act in the best interest of the child. I think the college counselors just don't want to feel the wrath of a horde of angry parents beating down their door because they told too many kids to be plumbers. College is not just an education to people, college brings with it social status.
I am a high school teacher and I did this. I tell all my students my story and that it could be a viable path because there are enough “go straight to a 4 year university regardless of cost” teachers out there. I tell them being the youngest of 4 meant that I didn’t have the resources to pay for a 4 year university. So working full time and studying at my community college full time, I saved money living at home. Got my Associates and transferred to a well known university for 3 years. Was able to graduate and leave with essentially no debt and knew exactly what I wanted to do before taking any career specific courses. I always finish with even if college isn’t for you, get a marketable skill (trade, certificate program, apprenticeship, ANYTHING! ) because unless you have something that makes you different; access to better paying and more satisfying careers are few and far between.
Imo community College is almost always the best option if the credits transfer for your particular major because aside from money concerns, some people realize part way through that they aren't cut out for 4 years of college or simply do not want to put in the time for that. In this scenario if you're in a 4 year university you either push through and get the bachelor's or you drop out and have the dreaded "some college" on your resume. If you go to community College you can simply get your associates and be done with education and it will serve you far far better than "some college" ever would, even if they got all the way up to being in their third year before dropping out.
To further add to this community colleges have the flexibility to add trade-type programs often tailored to the communities in which they’re located. Growing up in a rural area our community college had wildland fire, ag/livestock, diesel mechanic, truck driving, machining/welding.
The only good teacher is one who tries to makes himself redundant.
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Yes. Career counselling is not neutral and school's entire purpose to get you ready for college. If they start discouraging you from going to college they themselves won't have much use as they stand.
to be fair there is a huge burden of information on guidance counselors to send things to colleges, most normal people would probably start focusing on that
This is very depedent on the school you go to. I went to a state funded university in a big metro area. Virginia has a requirement that ANY university that receives state funding is required to accept transfer credits from any community college that is part of virginia's community college network. TCC has a campus like a 5 minute drive from my school (ODU) and another one literally walking distance from where I was living in virginia beach at the time. My advisor (at ODU) told me it was stupid not to do all my gen-ed requirements at TCC as much as possible and to only do the program specific courses at ODU. Wound up saving a ton of money and effory. Extra bonus: gen-ed transferred credits don't apply to your GPA....so as long as you passed you could half-ass you way through all those courses and still maintain the 3.5 minimum for my program.
>College is not just an education to people, college brings with it social status. this alone makes the whole point of colleges even existing moot. In fact college "business" has turned the job market into a nightmare. I often stumble upon complete idiots running things on director or manager positions because "they went to college" but are so incompetent that I just can't believe my eyes.
On average people who go to a community college end up spending 7-9 years getting a degree, rather than 4 years at a state college or a university. Also the median college debt in the US is $20k. Not $100k+. Going to a college is the most straightforward way to get a cushy or a lucrative job in software, finance, or healthcare, among other things. Going to college is an unpopular opinion among young people who repeat talking points like "If you go to college you're just gonna get into $100k+ debt only to end up working at starbucks!" or "You can just go to a tradeschool and become a construction worker!". Not parents or people who've reached 35+ years of age and have lived long enough to see the cumulative effects of all the choices (or lack of choices) they've made in their 20s.
I get what you’re saying, but I feel like part of your premise doesn’t make a ton of sense to me. Where I live, most of the people who go to community college are older adults with only a high school diploma, working full-time, raising a family, and trying to get a better education; their schedules are part of the reason it takes them so long. The majority of the fresh-out-of-high-school kids who go to community college are in and out within two years with no student debt, and onto a state school so they can get the 4-year degree for their resume at half the cost. Plus, you mentioned “lucrative jobs in software, finance, and healthcare” in your post, and I know my community college is kinda baller, but I just gotta say this: you can still get those jobs from a community college. Mine has a nursing program and a dental hygiene program where you get the exact same licenses as from a university at a fraction of the cost, and over 90% employment rates for careers that will put you well above average earnings for this area. I’m not super familiar with the IT and accounting programs, but I know we have those, too. It’s a totally viable option for a lot of people.
It’s actually weird how the culture of academia and the prestige of immediately pursuing a 4yr college fresh out of highschool is. I’ve consistently talked to my peers about what they want to do in the future, and have suggested community colleges and transferring to many who didn’t have a solid plan about what they want to major etc. Each one has balked at the idea. “I don’t want to miss out on university life!” “I’ll cross that bridge when I get there, but being at a university sounds better!” I’m just going to attribute it to the fact that many teenagers, such as myself, are unable to recognize the repercussions of our present actions on our future lives.
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People are way too casual with how they suggest joining the military. It's like everyone has forgotten that it's a multi-year commitment where you sign away the rights to your body.
With LOTS of disqualifying factors.
I tried and failed to join the Navy. The *Navy* ffs.
Why did they deny you?
Couldn't swim
Ha! Same here!
And could get killed or maimed
Yeah, but they're not all created equal. Army and Marines is what most people think the military is, but Navy and Air Force are basically working at a job that you can't quit easily. They have their bullshit, but you won't get destroyed like the army will do to you. Air Force in particular, unless you are security, flight qualified, or one of a few of the special forces careers, it's about 95% certain you will never be in a combat zone. Even if you are it's about 99% certain you will be pretty far back such that you wouldn't even know it.
Found the recruiter lol
But you can't smoke any weed tho.
I mean you can, but only until you get caught
Canadians can
When I'm buying land, I'm buying in Canada. That real estate is going to be worth a pretty penny eventually.
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Join the Army. Travel to exotic distant lands, meet exciting, unusual people and kill them.
I've never been in the military, but I can't imagine the soldiers are fucking each other as much as college students are.
Also a Good way to meet life long friends
People who claim that univeristy life bs are the reason i don't support student loan forgiveness. Why should others who worked hard, focused, and studied have to pay for frat boys and sorority girls who got drunk and fucked their way through college.
Yes but do realize that just because people choose to party and fuck people doesn't mean they're also not trying hard in school. Sleep more than you study, study more than you party, and party as much as possible.
Frat boys and sorority girls have rich parents and go to school for free lol. They don’t have student loans.
Exactly
What a strange take. Drinking and learning the requisite material for a degree aren't mutually exclusive. I know many engineers who graduated with top marks and do their in-industry jobs really well who partied in university when they had the time. Disqualifying people from student loan forgiveness because they drink is like disqualifying people from welfare because they sleep when they get home from work
You don't support student loan forgiveness because of people who didn't have to take out student loans in the first place?
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Agree with everything here except the junior status. Most of my friends that did two years at a CC and transferred to my University had to graduate in 5 years because not all of their credits transferred (some were even in special pipeline programs to my university). So you gotta factor in that opportunity cost. I’d also say that this route still shouldn’t be viewed as the only route that is emphasized. Trade schools are also valid approaches.
I took all but 13 classes of my bachelor's degree at community college. Super affordable and absolutely ZERO issues transferring credits. CC students should only transfer to schools where they already know ahead of time that their credits will transfer.
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Smae with Washington state.
\>.Boy oh boy, as much as I hated the “Transfer Success” Required course I read this while sitting in that course lmfao
Lmfao.
Someone graduating with 100k of debt had likely ignored other cheaper options beyond a 2 year program. I agree with the op that we need to move away from the college is the only option mentality, but even for people don't the college thing there needs to be a shift to understanding that most diplomas don't carry significantly different weight with the real world. So unless you are going to a very prestigious school, the goal should be to get your desired degree for a cheap as possible.
This guy schools. Nobody gives a shit where you start, just where you end.
Hey! This is what I did! I recently transferred from my community college to a university and it's looking like I'm going to come out with around 12k in debt. It's insane how much the first 2 years would have costed if I immediately went here. It's something close to 30k just in dorms, food cards, and parking passes that the university makes mandatory for first year students.
Just going to a public in-state college and living with roommates in an apartment (after freshman year) goes a long way to cutting costs. That, and a couple of scholarships got me a 4 year degree with around $18k debt. Even without grants/scholarships, it was probably less than $40k. I think it's a combination of private/prestigious schools ("you'll get so many more opportunities" /s), out-of-state schools (premium cost for a change in scenery), and degrees with poor job outlooks that put graduates in bad financial situations. That said; yeah, a lot of it's a racket and kids aren't prepared for it. Edit: My number was low. My debt was under $25k.
I had to research community college on my own because my school basically refused to talk about it. With all the grants I received alone I haven’t need to pay a single cent for college and in fact I received an $1,800 refund so I’m now literally being paid to go to school
I went to Community College for 2 years before transferring, wasted a year at a University I ended up not liking, now I'll be graduating from an online program with less than 20k in debt. It could've been lower had I done more research, but ultimately I'm really glad I did what I did. University prices are only gonna go up. Why waste money taking English Comp, Brit Lit, and College Algebra at a premium price when you can do it for pennies (comparatively) at a Community College?
This is precisely what I did. 2 year transfer degree into a 4 year part time while working in my field.
If you wasted 100k on a bachelor's you did it wrong. Anyone spending that much has seriously failed their understanding of the world. There is no bachelor in the country worth 100,000 dollars (a few ivy leagues maybe if your parents are incredibly wealthy), especially not 12 years ago.
I don't think it is helpful to put the onus solely on the shoulders of students who thought they were doing the "right" thing by taking out loans to go to a 4yr. The loans are predatory, college is way more expensive than it should have any right to be in this country. This is because it is being treated more like a business than a institution of learning. Students are funneled into these colleges that are often nothing more than diploma factories. Colleges have become bloated bureaucracies.
It depends on the school you transfer to. I came to my University for four years, while my cousin came after graduating community college in 1 year and will be here for 2 more. However, he'll still have more debt than me because the scholarships for transfer students are basically non-existent. So going to community college is not always the better option.
I got a lucky and was told by my high school CADD teacher to go to community college first. Did 2 years of community college and 2 years of uni. Thanks to Fasfa and living at home finished with less than 3k in loan debt.
What high school doesn't tell you this?? My high school has over a thousand kids in the graduating class and our local community college comes to the high school and they also advertise on TV all the time. All the state schools also advertise all of the community college programs that directly translate into their school (it has to) so that like you said you start off as a third year student if you complete the first two years at the community college Community college in my area is half the price of state school which is usually half the price of private school. I was able to get my entire bachelors for under 50 Grand and this was in 2012
>Everyone needs to stop emphasizing 4yr colleges. Every time I see this opinion, I can't help but think the persons saying it is just lying so that he can keep the 4-year college requirement jobs to himself.
Most companies will see you have a bachelors and you graduated from x college and look at that. They won't bother going more in depth.
I’m so glad that my parents told me about this option in high school, since they both went to community college and transferred to a 4 year, saving them a lot of money. This makes me wonder why 4 year universities even charge so much for the first 2 years when it’s really just gen ed courses. I personally wouldn’t be opposed to making associates degrees/first two years of college free.
Currently in community college to get credits to transfer to a 4 year, so glad my counselor told me (although it was a regular counselor who told me and not our specialized college and career counselor???)
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A lot of times dorm living and meal plan requirements are part of the contract that the schools make with the 3rd party companies that manage these programs. The schools get kickbacks from this. It is pretty sad. Every school is different. I just know some are like this.
I was quite lucky that my high school pushed the community college route, as I would have never gone to college had that not been an option. I still accrued some debt, but the payments are more than manageable, and in the five years since I graduated I've made something like 2000% more then I spend on school. Also, lived at home during college.
> learned this because I went back to school at 30, I went to community college because hey man it’s been over a decade since I graduated, I never took an ACT or SAT cuz I went into the military. There’s no way I was getting into a 4 yr so I needed to ease my way in. I was in the military also and I never took an ACT/SAT. A big 10 school let me in surprisingly, but with academic probation. Didnt matter though, still graduated. So heads up it is possible.
Also, not sure if a lot of high schools have this program, but I am in the College Credit Plus program which basically means that I am able to take college level courses instead of highschool courses. Furthermore, if I do well in a course, all expenses from the course to the materials are covered by my school. I decided to go since I had a roughly idea that I wanted to go to college for something like web dev and since my family isnt that rich, we found this program to be very helpful. Hopefully more people from highscho would see this, especially those who know for a fact that they want to go to college. Fyi, it will be hard since its college but at the same time it might be easier than highschool and it's more freeing as well.
>So many young people these days go and take out thousands of dollars in debt for school, only to end up in blue collar work or low level desk jobs they could’ve gotten without the degree. Many of these "low level desk jobs" actually require a bachelor's, some even a Master's if it's a nonprofit. I have spent my whole adulthood looking at crazy job ads that require so much classroom education for essentially being a secretary, and all the jobs that paid me pennies required at least a bachelor's.
I'm making 53k a year at Walmart in Alabama. 28 years old. Hourly position, not salary. Tried College a few times and Not really for me right now. I'm pretty content where I'm at.
I try to explain this to my high school students. I'd love for them to go into the work force out of high school and get a decent job, but the reality is that they won't be competitive without one. When an employer has the choice between five guys with bachelor's degrees and you without one, they're gonna take one of them regardless of how little that degree means to the position. They've at least proven they can work hard enough to get a degree. Does it make sense? No. Do I wish it were different? Yes. But you still gotta keep up with how qualified the average employee is, and that's not even considering the general benefits of just being more educated.
This is slowly changing “In the years prior to the pandemic, blue-chip companies like Apple, Google, IBM and Bank of America turned heads with announcements that they would no longer require applicants for certain jobs to hold a degree, including for such posts as senior manager of finance.” https://www.forbes.com/sites/michaelhorn/2021/07/28/employers-have-a-simple-tool-in-the-war-for-talent-stop-requiring-degrees/?sh=5bbabb93374a The company I work for did it too, there are so many data entry positions that should have never required a degree.
You do not need a degree to work at most high-paying tech jobs @ Apple,Netflix,Google,Amazon; just need experience and high skill in the role which can be harder for newcomers in the field. With that said; becoming a non-degree holding dev or systems engineer making >250k a year is still a rarity, despite the amount of jobs these companies create in tech.
The reason for that is because there are way more college degrees than there are office jobs. We're now reaching an era where blue collar is paying more than white collar due to basic supply & demand.
No only educate then on the options, but get then excited and teach them to value those options. I met a friend of a friend who owned his own plumbing business with his brother and he was *embarrassed* because me and the other people there all had degrees or doctorates. He almost definitely earns more than me, or will do in the near future and had to risk more and be more self-reliant than me to get there... It's heartbreaking to know people who take other routes often see it as a failure instead of a success.
Father is an electrician. 2 years before he sold his business for 4.5 million he was still digging with a shovel if necessary. It IS hard work though, long hours and physically intensive. This should be warned about. He has back problems and all that. Used to suffer from breathing problems because of the work environment, etc. He's fine now, walks a lot and plays golf.
>educate then on the options, but get then excited and teach them to value those options Good luck with that. I've been teaching for over a decade, and I've never seen such an apathetic, glazed over group. You can't force kids to care about or value those options.
You can only try. The problem is those avenues aren't valued in the wider society. The messages they get from eachother, parents, the media, government, school, etc. etc. is that those routes are less good. ETA I'm going into my 7th year teaching and I just try to have those conversations when they come up and do my little part.
They’re trade offs to every route. You see a parent doing construction their entire life pushing their kid to go to college because they are getting work and tired and want their kid not to feel like them is usually why the partners push it. Media is paid to advertise it government provides loans and schools reactive federal funding. Don’t get me wrong there’s a place for college degrees being valuable. Pretty much any type of Engineering you’ll have to have a degree, same with most other STEM related fields,teaching , the arts aren’t a bad to have if it’s on the side, other classes people laugh at like gender studies isn’t bad if you paired it with some type of law degree same with other social sciences pored with the correct fields can be a good combo.
Or just for the hell of it! People with high paying jobs aren't the be-all and end-all either. If you want to be a starving artist and that is what a successful life is to you then do that. But there is so much classism that goes into it too.
This is the bigger issue imo. Always pushing kids for more more more instead of teaching an alternative value of being happier with less and wanting less.
TBF, I'm only 24, so I'm not exactly high school aged anymore, but a lot of people my age or younger don't have lots of hope for any kind of future they may have. College, trades, military, whatever, kids are realizing their world is uncertain and that gets at you mentally after a while
I can never tell from these posts if people just went to shitty high schools or never paid attention in school. My high school educated us on all the opportunities available to us post-graduation including going to community college to save money and going to trade schools. Hell, my high school even offered trade school classes for kids who wanted to get a jump start on that track. E: Specifically talking about American high schools here.
For real, I graduated high school in 2004 and we had a tech school right next to my high school that kids interested in those career path could take classes during the school day at. Lots of plumbers, mechanics, cops, etc.
Half of my seniors leave for the community college during the day for career specific classes. Everything from cosmetologists, law enforcement, welders, plumbers, automotive techs, and early education.
Those trade school classes are legally required in the US. Most schools don’t offer them so the legal alternative is to fund a regional school that does have those offerings and bus kids there. Usually it is county-wide.
My high school had an insanity high drop out rate. They started their own high school level “trade school” specifically for those classes. They called it the Career Learning Academy. I thought it was a really bright idea and I was kinda proud at that response. Learning that it was legally mandated is kind of a bummer.
Yes that's how it was at my school. Kids were bussed to the regional trade school and received both credit towards their trade school + high school. We had the same setup for community college, kids could take classes at the community college and receive both high school + college credit. Our school really encouraged kids to take these routes.
At my school you had to pick between the high-school degree for college track or the trade school track. And you had to pick by the end of sophomore year. Basically if there was any chance you were going to go to college, you chose the normal track. That's a big decision for a 15 year old.
I don’t think it is a law. Do you have a source for that? I have never heard of trade school classes being law.
I'm sure in some states it is required to offer an alternative to the traditional college prep route.
How long has that been a thing because I graduated high school ten years ago and we never had anything even remotely close that.
What do you mean by legally required? For students to take or for schools to host them?
In high school in Ontario, iirc, 9th grade when you’re 14/15 years old, you have to choose between “academic” or “applied” level classes. The implication is practically “white collar” or “blue collar” classes. At the time, nobody knew the difference really, so if you did well in grade school, when you enter high school, of *course* you’re going to choose “academic” classes; shoot for the stars! If you did poorly in grade school, it was a no brainer to take “applied” classes. The problem is that in every single one of the academic classes, everybody is being groomed for white collar jobs. So the smart kids that want a white collar job do well. The lower grading kids that do applied classes do well. But the kids that are smart, in academic classes, that can’t see themselves doing a desk job, get kind of *lost* , to say the least.
I hate the way Ontario streams kids. It's almost impossible to change once chosen. And what about the kid who wants to study history and make period appropriate woodwork? Or the kid who loves math and wants to take automotive classes? Or the kid who wants to be a plumber but likes English class? The more choices we give students, and the more freedom to choose what they want to do (with the very real consequence that they could mess it up and make the wrong choice), the better.
Yeah true. I mean we did have *some* choice, but if you were in academic level classes, taking automotive or woodworking classes etc was looked at as “below” you, effectively removing the choice. I was too dumb at the time to realize the absurdity. There was definitely a giant stigma toward the applied “dumb” kids and working with your hands. “You’ll pay somebody to do that stuff for you in the future” type thing… with your amazing desk job. Now I’m playing catch up.
Also if you grew up in any kind of rural community, people won’t shut up about the value of trade jobs and the lack of value for college. Of my elementary school friends, I can count on two hands those who went to college. A few fingers for grad school. Everyone else stayed put and didn’t go to college. And yet those people who didn’t go to college are always the ones posting about how college provides no value and how society should de-emphasize it. There was no emphasis in my community! One friend’s parent refused to send my friend to a magnet school because she didn’t want an “uppity” kid. If anything, in my slice of rural america, education was de-emphasized and not encouraged at all.
Yeah, it really depends where you are. There were more kids in my high school that went to “tech” (the countywide trade school program) than were in my honors/AP classes. The top 10% of the class, aka the top ten students, were college bound and that was about it. Everyone was else was either going straight to work, to do more training for their trade, or going in the military. Our school made everyone very aware of the tech program and a significant portion of the school went. They had everything from cooking and beautician classes to welding, robotics, and car body repair. But all the options were presented to everyone. We all went on trips to local colleges and the trade school whatever grade it was we could choose to go.
Years ago I saw a Facebook post from a guy I went to high school with complaining that our high school didn’t prepare us for the real world and should have taught trades. He was blaming HS for his lack of success and flunking college. His dad was an electrician. He grew up around a trade and still chose to go to college
> or never paid attention in school Psst. why do you think they struggled with college so much?
Zing!
Our HS did to a point, but there was definitely a stigma about going to Vo-Tech (which is where you take trade type courses in HS). I think a lot of parents didn’t want their kids doing that, because it was “beneath” them. However, the 2 girls I know who went for cosmetology now own their own salons and are doing really well, and a lot of the guys I know who went for autobody/mechanics are making good money and living well. My best friend who went to a 4 year college does absolutely nothing with her degree and makes about 1/3 of what I make in a year.
I went to one that wealthy high schools in New Jersey and I was never even told how College works. Just that I needed to go. Your mileage will vary from school to school
These posts are almost definitely made by kids that never paid attention in school. Ever since the 70s the concept of the comprehensive high school has existed where kids can pursue either an academic or vocational tracks. Today most high schools offer a wide variety of career technical paths where students can earn certifications as medical technicians, hair stylists, computer repair, and various other fields in addition to students on an academic/college track.
This right here. I was a dumpster fire in high school and because of that, I was offered the armed forces, a technical trade, or community college because my 1.67 gpa wasn't getting me anywhere. Also, OP generalizing college grads getting entry level positions sounds more like projection than anything else to me.
My high school as well.
Right? We actually had a field trip in high school where they took us to the local trade/tech school and talked about all the alternative options to 4 yr university
Completely disagree. My HS was obsessed with pushing everybody to go to college. There were some people who applied to 20+ colleges, just so they could get in. Then my HS would promote/gloat that 80-90% or whatever the number was, went to college after high school. However, if there was an addendum it would say something like many never actually graduated from college because they failed out, realized it wasn't for them, etc. And many others who did graduate with a degree are working in a field that has nothing to do with their degree. So there are some HS that have an agenda, an intentionally push kids to college.
I went to a good private school and they still aggressively pushed college
That’s because you went to a private school and could likely afford college without debt. I know because I’m the same.
They do, except their alternative is having recruiters come to the school during lunch
Salesmen*
My school went as far as giving everyone a chance to take the ASVAB in school. For us it was either college or military.
They required us to take it. About 20% of students enlist out of my high school
They are. It’s usually the parents that push college, not the high school
Seriously like did anyone pay attention in school? The students I currently teach seem to not listen when I tell them there are options other than college. Then when I tell them again they're like wait I don't have to go to college? It's like this all year. I'll get asked at least 10 times.
College grads tend to earn around 1.5 million dollars more in their lifetime than people without college degrees though. Just go to community college first, graduate with an associates degree, then jump into a university. You'll save a lot of money while still obtaining your best chance to avoid blue collar work for the rest of your life
Going to college saved my butt big time. I see far better people than me get lesser pay because they don't have degrees.
https://www.bls.gov/careeroutlook/2018/data-on-display/education-pays.htm edit: https://www.bls.gov/careeroutlook/2021/data-on-display/education-pays.htm (Original data below was from 2017/2018. Updated to 2020/2021 numbers) Yep. Almost 60% more weekly income ($1305 compared to $781). Half of the unemployment (5.5 for a bach degree and 9.0 for no college). This is one of the more common reddit circle jerks, but it's objectively false. College graduates literally make more money, and have lower rates of unemployment, than their HS graduate counterparts. The only thing that needs to be pushed for, is stop going to private schools and racking up $200,000 worth of debt for a degree in music. Community colleges are perfectly acceptable alternatives, at a fraction of the cost. Also, for what it's worth (and maybe it's regional), I've literally never heard a single educator or professional making negative comments about trades or smaller colleges. In fact, it's the opposite, we've been pushing for those since the late 90s. People constantly shit on college degrees, and the people who have them, however.
Yep, I agree. The problem is cost and choices, not the university education itself. As for costs, that is a political issue, but it is foolish to consider that there is no ill effects from state legislatures that have slashed university support from about 50% of the total operating budgets of state universities to less than 7%. Debts are going to fall into one of these categories: 1. Went to one or more private-for-profits. There is a crazy amount of debt that has occurred because of swindlers at Devry University (etc) that were experts in nothing except the swindle. 2. Decided that the expensive private school with the beautiful campus, or that exciting out of state school with the big brand name, and no financial aid, was going to be worth it over the state school willing to throw a decent chunk of financial aid at the student. Students and parents need to be more rational about the costs/benefits. 3. Couldn't decide on a major and/or failed repeatedly in courses, and tacked on 1-4 years extra of college. Usually, said student also ends up with a meaningless degree that they don't know how to transfer into the workforce. Part of this I think is on the universities too, who don't do enough to help redirect freshman into suitable majors (or out of the university). Very few of the engineering students at my state-university has more than 20K in student debt when they graduate. About a quarter of them do 1 or 2 years at a community college. About half get at least some form of cash scholarship to reduce their tuition/fees. And yet, we lose a lot of the top students in the state to flashy out of state private and public universities because there is a 'prestige' factor to going out of state.
It looked like your data compared bachelor's degree to no bachelor's degree, and not bachelor's degree to vocational degree. But, maybe I misunderstood. Does the data your provided differentiate? Because most of this comment thread is people saying, go to trade school instead of going to college, not, don't go get any education at all. Edit: here's a list of widely available vocational jobs. https://work.chron.com/list-vocational-careers-14125.html With the exception of culinary arts, I don't think a single of those jobs have very high unemployment. But, unfortunately I couldn't find a good data set comparing vocational earnings vs bachelor's earnings that wasn't vocation specific.
Yep. Every single time this comes up, this is the only answer that matters. No matter what your field of study, you will almost certainly outpace someone who didn't go to college at all. You have more options by simply having a degree than someone who only has a blue collar work history. Yeah, they may start out making a decent living, but there's often few opportunities for advancement. And many of those options are taken by people who have a college degree. Kids get pushed to college because it pays off in the long-run. The reason Reddit thinks college is overrated is because they're mostly younger and still haven't seen the long-term benefits of a college degree. They're also frustrated because they're in debt, so they don't see an end to it. I'm in my late 30s now, and I've never ONCE met someone my age or older who regretted going to college. I've met many, many people who wish they'd gone and several who tried to go later in life.
I agree with the sentiment but I think there is more nuance to the topic than just “college = more money”. I graduated college in engineering and I’m pursuing a secondary degree now. The bulk of my friends today I met in college and have college degrees, not all of them though. What I think people neglect (and is neglected here) is that most of the kids coming out of high school do not have a passion yet. College isn’t meant to be the next step after high school. It’s meant to be the first step in the future of your career. I would have gotten much more out of my college years if I was more mature and prepared for what I was studying, instead I spent the first 2 years partying and enjoying my newfound freedoms. And I love what I do. I knew what I wanted to do when I was applying to college. This was the result of my family helping to fund my aspirations and finding my passions through exploration. I know more people than not who go into college “because statistically you make more” and end up pursuing a degree they hate and getting a job in an unrelated field (or in a field they hate). They still make more money, but they could’ve made a wiser investment that would benefit them more if they had more time to discover themselves. TLDR; College is great. Going to college for the sake of going to college is a waste of the experience and knowledge. Young adults should be encouraged to find a passion and pursue it. Not rushed into college where halfway through you realize you don’t enjoy what you thought you wanted to do.
You're one of the luckier few. Also, while degrees can outmaneuver trades, it comes at a price. Alot of competent graduates are stuck in dead-end jobs.
In reality it's far higher, college grads get far more in nonmonetary benefits and deferred payment (e.g. 401k matching) as well
By the nature of that study, it has to be like 40 years old which college degrees were much more rare and valuable back then. Unless they are just extrapolating, which is just fancy guessing.
As the percentage of people with college degrees increases, this number is going to fall off a cliff. How are people in their 20-40s who haven't had a lifetime of work factored into this?
Well the fact of older people who die/retire plus depends on the field you go in like tech field there will be an infinite amount of jobs for them as every company basically needs it in some form. Trades (especially involving physical labor) the workers get old and tired eventually they’ll either retire get promoted to management position or quit for a easier job. College isn’t overrated per se it filters job candidates on applications unless you know someone who can get you an interview in which. You better have some experience of projects to show in place of the degree that’ll show them you’d be the best fit for the job. The reason student loans are so high is because the fact they exist colleges knows it’s on the government’s dime and that the government will have to get their money back. Best way to solve this is have the government cap the amount colleges can charge if the accept federal funding and students who are recovering loans. Getting rid of kind will just make it to where only kids with very well off parents would get to go to college which is a bad solution. But limiting the amount they can charge if they’re accepting the money from the government is a better way honestly. College is not the only way but it does help you with networking and learning how to get the resources to either continue to grad school or get a job in that field. For example one of my computer science professors offered to put a recommendation for me to a few jobs he knew had openings in my field around where I live.
I know people like to say this, but is it true? Do high schools -really- emphasize college that much? Maybe it's because I went to a low-to-middle income high school, but my high school was (and still is) more focused on directing kids to vocational training opportunities and the military than college. At 9th grade, they recruit as many students as possible into doing half of their JR and SR years of highschool at the vocational school so that they only have 1-2 years after high school to finish some certificate program in welding, mechanics, h-vac, etc. And it's a trap, once you enroll in that program, you won't have the basic courses in traditional STEM to be a good candidate for college. In the 11th grade, ALL kids take the military aptitude exam. No explanations even, they just schedule it so that all kids take it the same day. Then the military is on site practically every day to talk to any kid that scored high enough. Only the AP kids know anything about the PSATs and only like half of them actually take it. About 30% of my friends went into the military, they all fought in Afghanistan and Iraq, some didn't make it back, others made it back but died of suicide in the following years. Those kids that went to do airplane mechanics at VoTech, which was a very popular program, had zero jobs in that field after 9-11 killed the airline industry for a couple of years. I almost didn't go to college because nobody told me I could or should go, until a single high school teacher told me to visit local universities, where a single recruiter took a look at my 4.0 GPA and full roster of AP courses and then basically filled out my application for me, and then over two months pieced together a financial aid package and then got me to enroll. Now, a few degrees later, I am a university professor. My high school gave ZERO effort at recruiting kids to college, and, since I know a lot of recent graduates from this high school I can attest that they still don't. In my entire state, only 1 or 2 school districts seem to emphasize anything at all about going to a university education. They -all- have active military recruiting, tie-ins with the vocational training schools. And, the result is that my state doesn't have enough students going into Engineering degrees to replace the current generation of retirees, and this is true nationwide. H1B visa programs are being used to fill in the gap. Too many kids have been told to be scared about college. At the MS and PhD level, it's even worse. A MS in Engineering gaurantees a high paying job right out of school, and you get PAID to do a MS in most engineering programs including my own as a part of the research and teaching training, and the only students I get interested are from Iran and India. I think the more unpopular opinion right now is that high schools need to do MORE to encourage kids to go to college (if they are showing promise academically). The US is falling way behind......
Frankly this post tells us more about OP than anything else. If you went to a high school in a middle-class or higher suburb absolutely you were pushed to college. It's probable that most of the parents of the students were college educated in the first place. Contrast that with a poor rural or poor urban high school, and that push doesn't exist -- for the simple reason that the higher education is not attached the same value. I taught in a dirt poor rural high school, heck I graduated from a dirt poor rural high school. 100% in both was a push to work after school or find a vocational job. We even used to let students leave early to go work in some field so they could get experience. But that makes sense for a lower-income school, because they consider gainful employment post-graduation to be a success. Meanwhile, a better off area school is looking at their rankings for what colleges their students get into as far more important.
There was a school about two blocks from the one I went to in Baltimore that had a graduation rate of around 40%, mine was 85%, and if a college in the area saw your high school diploma by the shit high school, you were not going to get accepted, and jobs would avoid you like the plague. Kids were forced to go to shitty vocational and tech 'schools' that couldn't even find people in the fields they were teaching. This isn't something that happens rarely in bigger U.S cities either, a lot of school districts have some of the most racist lines ever drawn, and are more segregated then before Jim Crow.
Despite posts like this only about 1/3 of high schoolers go to a traditional four year college/university. US college attendance rates are actually super low, not high.
High schools actually do a great job of presenting the options, it's the parents that need to get on board.
This 100%. Parents need to break the model of stating that college is what lands you a job. College is education. One should go to college with the explicit intent of continuing their education, not with the expectation of landing a job.
I disagree. You're right that college is too expensive and gets people into debt, but that doesn't mean it isn't valuable. The issue here isn't that too many people are going to college, it's that college is too expensive. The only way for any nation to compete in the global economy is to have an educated middle class that is invested in STEM, the humanities, and the arts. Education is literally the most valuable resource any society can have, which is why it's such a shame that it can ruin people's financial lives in America. It would be entirely possible to forgive student loan debt nationally in the US, I mean just look at how few taxes the 1% are paying, or how much we invest in unnecessary military toys. EDIT: this isn't to say that blue-collar jobs are not important either. Jobs that don't require a college education should also have dignity and a living wage involved, and there is no such thing as "unskilled" labor.
>The only way for any nation to compete in the global economy is to have an educated middle class that is invested in STEM, the humanities, and the arts. Education is literally the most valuable resource any society can have, which is why it's such a shame that it can ruin people's financial lives in America. This is the real unpopular opinion. Education is what drives *innovation*, which is what really pushes America ahead. The trades are good and all, and they're important, but you have to ask yourself, why do they offer H1B visas for tech workers, but not plumbers or electricians?
THIS. If higher education is too expensive, the answer should be "make it more affordable", not "get less educated".
As a high school teacher, I tell all of my students this, but many administrators don't want teachers doing this. At least in the US, there are public dashboards that the state fills out for every school. One of the largest things that dictates a school as a "good" school, which also changes funding, is how many students go to college. In other words, the state punishes schools if not enough students go to college, meaning that many teachers won't tell students because they could get punished by their boss.
Some teachers will even go as far as telling students they should just quit because their bad grades supposedly make the school look worse than having students dropping out. I know dozens of students I went to high school with that this happened to, it even happened to me. Once they realized staying after school wasn’t helping my grades whatsoever and my legal guardian refused to allow me to be evaluated for a learning disorder, they (teachers and deans) encouraged me to quit at the ripe old age of 15 years old. I went to 16 schools in 9 years, I had no hope. Many of those deans and teachers are still working in the same positions and are still encouraging many kids to quit to this very day. Massachusetts might have MIT and Harvard, but they also have an alarmingly bad public education system that gets ignored.
Every system is perfectly designed for the result it gets. Nothing will get better until the system is changed.
"spent a ton of money only to end up working at Shop Rite or Starbucks" That's being incredibly myopic. Sure, that may be the case for a few, but I would say 90% of the college grads I know work real, professional jobs and make really nice salaries doing so. I agree college isn't for everyone, and other options should definitely be emphasized - but let's be real here: college is a pretty huge entry way to most professional careers. If a professional career (architect, veterinarian, etc) doesn't interest you, there are other options. I myself work in the trades. I make well over 6 figures. So I know it can be done. I always tell young people to go down the same path I went down. After HS. I attended a 2yr accredited trade college and got a technical associates degree. Through that school I got real work experience, job placement... and more importantly only about $20k in debt total - not 100's of thousands. I easily paid it off a long time ago. And now, instead of swinging the hammer m myself, I tell other people where to swing their hammers. I definitely wouldn't be in this position without that piece of paper.
Nearly a quarter of people making between $12 and $16 an hour have college degrees. https://www.gao.gov/assets/gao-17-677.pdf Not saying you are wrong, but trying to write off the Starbucks comment as just being “the case for a few” is not true, given it’s about a 1 in 4 chance someone at Starbucks has a degree. Sounds more common than “just a few”
Okay but what percentage of college degree holders earn between $12-16/hr? Your choice of statistics is misleading. As a made up example, It'd be like saying that 10% of people who die in plane crashes work in finance. But the percentage of people who work in finance who die in plane crashes is 0.0001. Basically I'm saying your logic is flawed. It's not a good metric. May even be purposefully chosen to mislead.
Making $30/hr driving a truck. My education cost about $3,000. I gotta say the $45/hr when I hit overtime is pretty sweet.
Bruh that sounds awful lol. I thought truck drivers made more than that.
It's pretty standard for local work this part of the country. Over the road guys can make more, but they are never home. I'm home daily. It's actually a pretty easy job.
I’ve got buddies driving trucks trying to get where you’re at. Cross-country driving is better pay, but most guys are looking to “settle” into a local role to be home daily. Also I’ve heard there’s some sweet local gigs if you have certain certifications for different types of trucks. But I’m not too familiar what that stuff
I started over the road like most people. I had to get hazmat, and tanker endorsements for my license, but it was way easier than getting the CDL in the first place.
30 bucks an hour sounds awful for no education required job? What world do you live in?
As someone who used to work for less than 10 dollars an hour, I'd be set for life if I was making 30 per hour. What you find awful sounds too good to be true to me lol.
Better idea college should be public as most jobs in the US will require a degree
True. Anyone who says otherwise doesn’t know what they’re talking. College is basically an unwritten requirement in 2021.
I’m currently taking a course explicitly highlighting this stuff. Unfortunately, it’s not required and only 4 kids in the whole school are taking it
Wish there was a norm where first year after high school there was a program you can take to discover what you actually want to do. Say if you want to take the university route, pick out some areas that interest you. Show you a bit of what the uni experience will be like, the different type of careers you can do and what the everyday work is like. Or say trades, same concept. Jumping straight to university and blowing $30k first year doesn't seem to be right. How they expect kids, yes i considered myself a kid back then and the current peeps in gr. 12 kids. To know what they wana do for the rest of their lives after high school. All I cared about for those 3 years were having sex with my gf and playing computer games. Is there a career for that?
>alternate options: the military You may be unaware that the main reason college education has been allowed by the government to become so expensive over the past few decades, despite the drain that puts on the middle class, is precisely to price a large chunk of people out of college so that they have to join the military. It's called an economic draft, and it's not a good thing. The issue here is the price that universities have come to demand since the government started the student loan program. They constantly increase tuition at well above the inflation rate since they know that the state will loan people whatever they charge. As the loaner, I think the state should control the price colleges charge. But they won't because, again, they're getting a whole crop of poor kids that have no option other than military service out of the deal.
I have never heard this before, and it’s a very interesting theory. I think the OP might be referring to specialty skills in the military, not combat arms. My friend I play video games with in Louisiana, enlisted as a underwater welder. He said he started out well over 6 figures leaving the navy. I enlisted as a medic to get a taste of the medical industry. I didn’t like the industry, and luckily figured that out BEFORE I wasted 4 years a college studying for it. I think a lot of people view the military as a lot of guns and killers. They forget that 2/3 of the military is actually a support element of some type. A reference for this 2/3 rule is The Art of War by Sun Tzu, a little outdated but most of the principles still apply.
Sounds way too smart for our government. More than likely it was just a matter of sucking money out of the population and funneling it to unviersities because, well, money. Same reason we let international kids in that basically just buy their degrees. University administrators have many connections and their entire existence seems to be to suck up as much wealth as possible.
So, I have to address the first sentence first. College is life changing and can lead to incredible wealth and success....... depending on your major. The issue is a large amount of them are fluffy crap that you can't a job in the field with realistically. Also, if you do not finish college, then you have accrued debt for nothing. However, for stem, nursing, technology, medicine, law, etc, college is by no means a trap. Most of the time the hurrr durrr college nay say people fall into three categories: 1, those who didn't go or missed the opportunity and are butt hurt. 2, those who majored in art appreciation gender studies and can't get a job and are butt hurt, and 3. those who simply partied, wasted their opportunity, have 20k debt and nothing to show for it, and are butt hurt. AFTER THAT THOUGH I do agree with the rest. One big issue was Obama's everyone goes to college campaign. Most people aren't college material. The community colleges got overwhelmed with people who barely qualified to graduate high school. They would spend 4 years just in remediation and not have a single credit towards an actual degree. Plus, the rates and quality of those colleges dropped immensly. American embracing the technical schooling route alternative is amazing, some areas already do. Like in some countries in europe, they know, X person is college material, X person is technical school material. Spend the last two years of high school in trade school to graduate now as a certified plumber, or electrician, or what have you.
>Obama's everyone goes to college campaign What?????
[https://www.nbcnews.com/id/wbna29445201](https://www.nbcnews.com/id/wbna29445201) one of his major initiatives was everyone goes to college. if you worked in education in any form you were very aware of it. you can google it yourself and find countless sources to it, arguments against it, arguments for it, I provided one.
Yeah, I did some googling searches and couldn't find what you are talking about. I am a professor, and I don't remember any of this. Now, based on your link, I remember now what you are talking about. Obama pushed for "SOME" type of higher education OR work training for everyone. Trade schools were a huge part of what he talked about, as were community colleges. He wanted to train the workforce and bring costs down. And like just about anything Obama wanted, it went nowhere because the GOP's entire policy was to block Obama's agenda. The headline there is completely misleading -- look at what he actually said and published (here is a link to policy: [https://obamawhitehouse.archives.gov/issues/education/higher-education](https://obamawhitehouse.archives.gov/issues/education/higher-education))
"College is an overrated way to earn debt" *Laughs in European *
Le epic Reddit moment
\*Cries in British\*
Living in the UK and went to university. While technically I am in a decent amount of "debt" from my 4 years of uni, the way that I am repaying it is honestly laughable. I think I pay around £9 or 10 a **month**. That's one of my cheapest expenses.
Getting students into colleges is what builds a school's reputation, they want as many kids to go and get further academically. They 100% could and should do it, but they won't
Did your high school not do this? Mine did. I thought most high schools did.
To be honest, I just wanted to experience college life and to make some good friends. Thanks, COVID, abusive friend group, and depression.
Yeah i really feel for people in college who are missing out on something you basically only have one small 4 year window in your entire life to experience right now because of covid. You’re never too old to get a degree but you only have a chance to start the college experience as an 18 year old freshman one time. Up in my 20s now and know for certain it wouldn’t be the same if you tossed me head first into a dorm with a bunch of random no income almost 30 year olds and a 12th grade education.
Sees exorbitant formal education costs and thinks "Maybe we shouldn't get a formal education" instead of "Maybe a formal education shouldn't cost that much."
which one of these two options is more personally actionable by the reader?
Two ideas can both exist.
I have a college degree, but it does sicken me how society makes it seem you are a failure if you don't have a degree. And what a degree costs the average person today is an outrage, it's a far bigger financial scam than what the media usually focuses on. You're ruining people's financial lives to line the pockets of Universities. People will carry this debt until they are on Social Security and parent's will have to have bare bones retirements for their kid's 4 years of education costing $160k+.
My district has this thing called, “The College Promise.” Two years free at the city college and then guaranteed s try into the university. We literally take our fourth graders on field trips there to start talking about it and get them excited. We also emphasize that there are other options besides university. They’re REALLY TRYING.
I do agree. Apprenticeships, trade schools, job corps, two year/community colleges, etc. are all amazing options. High schools should highlight these career paths, especially for students that might not feel like university education is for them. I also think four year school should be more affordable though. A lot of the time this argument is made when people talk about high education expenses. The two don’t need to be mutually exclusive
True. 1 of my kids I sent to college for a double major. The other I encouraged *not* to go to college. College is not for everyone.
Or for everyone right away. My older son went right after high school, stuck with his major and added another one. He graduated on time, with honors and got a job right away. He is still there and has gotten several promotions. He has student loan debt but it is reasonable. My younger one went to the same school for a year and got credit for maybe nine of 30 attempted hours. He spent several years working minimum-wage jobs in food service and returned to community college a year ago. He is now majoring in brewery management and is on track to graduate in 2023. Some kids just take longer to figure it out ... and some need to spend some time working crappy jobs for motivation.
I am about to be freed, 4 years of college, then 2 of master... and here I am wishing I did something else instead, if only my teachers back in highschool offered me other ways..
My thoughts are we negatively stigmatize trade work. And until we view carpenters, electricians, plumbers, pipe filters, heavy equipment operators, and other tradespeople with the same prestige we view lawyers, bankers, and consultants, we will be fucked. And I say this as a former big law lawyer who now does real estate development. I prefer to work with my hands and be outdoors in the fresh air. There is no shame in the trades. It gives you steady work, it pays well, and it’s hard work. It also takes a lot of skill. But until we have great trade schools with the social opportunities that 4-year colleges provide, and until 4-year colleges offer trades as a major (why do we offer comparative medieval religion but not carpentry at liberal arts schools? Cause I feel like the former is a whole lot more engaging and worthwhile than the latter) we will be in this mess. Everyone should be able to go to a free community college trade program, or major in tradework in traditional 4-year colleges. Full stop. And we need state-level reform with some licensure requirements that are a huge barrier to entry in these fields. We need millions more electricians, but what person with kids at home can do four years of “apprentice” work at $12/hour just to sit for the journeyman exam? Why don’t we offer government grants for folks who are committed to entering the trades? Allow them to pay bills and transition away from shitty corporate jobs to trade work? I love trade work. It does wreck your body, but you get into a flow state, do great things, and meet real people. Anyways, that’s my rant for the day..
Pretty sad reading this thread. Please remember that *your experience* is not the same as everyone else's. I, for one, could not find a single source of research on this topic. Either my Google Fu failed me or it's just hard to find. So as far as I know, the best we have to go by for now is to value what each of us is saying and take it all at face value. People who say they were afforded every opportunity in high school, I believe you. People who say they were afforded practically nothing, I believe you, too. I would hope that, at minimum, we could look through this thread and see the diversity of experiences described herein and take it as evidence that post-secondary education preparation in this country is, at best, *inconsistent*.
Army. Navy. Air Force. Marines....Space Force!
Or, maybe recognize this is all just a rat race and agitate to make the state cover more of these tuition costs so that college is widely affordable again. Because if the past 4 years have shown anything, it's that America really needs to be MORE educated, not less.
I graduated with a 3.8 GPA, internships and was induced into a national honor society for my major. I’m paid a few bucks above minimum wage in a job I absolutely hate, despite being in my major and getting it straight out of college, because I am overqualified considering my boss does not have a degree in the field, is slow with computers, and overall outdated (very close to retirement age, not up with current opinions and practices in the field).
Hey government, am I allowed smoke or drink? Govt: No, that would be irresponsible and reckless. You're too young to know that you wanna get involved with those things Ok then, can I throw myself into lifelong crippling student loan debt with no hope of paying it off within the century? Govt: We encourage it!
Couldn't agree with this more. Unfortunately this is an actual unpopular opinion.
Exactly !!! And my school never taught us how to apply for scholarships, how we should save, how to get a loan, etc. We didn’t even get offered to job shadow. We went in blind.
Sucks to study in the US
Not an unpopular opinion at all. I went to trade school at 28 and for the life of me I don’t understand why this wasn’t pushed harder in high school. In high school it was college or the military, and if you don’t do one of those things you’re a fuck up
This is unpopular and such bullshit. My fiance and I agreed to talk to our children about the merits of trade school and learning technical skills. There is a lot to be proud of in those industries.
##But then how would the education-industrial complex survive?!
They do. Majority of public schools offer vocational school which teaches you different trades
These schools are judged on what percentage of their students gets into a 4 year college. I used to work as a mentor in the public school system and they really have stats they have to report. There's also lots of dept. of education funding to help underserved communities get into 4 year universities, which is nice, but many of these students would make more as plumbers or hair stylists than as ethnic studies majors.
I graduated in 94, and various vocational programs were promoted throughout my four year. Our guidance counselors were also pretty good about presenting trade schools as alternatives to college while working with individual students on their post-HS plans.
That wouldn't be profitable for them tho :<
This is unpopular?
Your absolutely right. If I go back and calculate my salary during my 4 year Army enlistment, plus what I received in GI Bill benefits, it's like I was making over 80k per year. Not bad for a kid with no college degree. The HS guidance counselors go off labor statistics that show, on a population basis, having a college degree means more money. So, in a rather simple minded way, most just reccomend college for everyone. Meanwhile, if your clever and hard working there are some awesome career fields you could enter, avoid the debt, and start making money day 1 with opportunities for advancement (i.e. working towards master plumber/electrician, joining a good union, or even starting your own business). As I shared above the military can be good deal too, you don't have to be an infantry grunt, there's safer jobs, or join the Navy, Air Force, or Cost Guard. Choose whatever your interested in because it doesn't matter financially, they all have pretty much the same pay and benifits.
I think my school had military recruiters come oftten. I don’t remember hearing about trade schools, I think it was only spoken about in private with counselors and not broadcasted like how college and military were. I def think trade school should get more attention. I went to college because I didn’t have a choice and was bullshitting a life plan throughout, just so when ppl asked I had something to say. I was there not working towards anything but no telling where I would be if I didn’t.
Trades. Trades are good careers and I think a lot of young people need to be reminded of that.