College vs skilled trades.

[Rich M]

I never understood why college was "a bad thing" cause some folks chose to take loans out and get useless degrees. Basically anything without math or science of some sort is a useless skill.

We always need tradesmen but how many plumbers can a society support? How many electricians? How many engineers? How many doctors? How many physical therapists?

Did you know that machinists need college degrees these days? Buddy of mine went that route at about 40 years of age. The machines are all computerized and they still require 3rd or 4th decimal point tolerances.

What really makes me wonder is why they allow someone to take out a $100,000 student loan to get useless "art history" or "feminism" degrees. The only place those have any value is in the education institutions.

The kids who come here from 3rd world countries tend to get business, engineering, and medical degrees. They never have trouble getting jobs and live the American Dream while the "privileged white kids" get useless degrees and say the American Dream is dead. Just that the American kids don't know how to work and many do not recognize the opportunity we have.

Right out of high school I went to college to get a mechanical engineering degree. After 2 years I dropped out because I didn’t feel it was right for me and I hated the liberal environment (I live in CA). Started turning wrenches when I moved back home now I have a union job that pays well over 100k a year and I’m a foreman at 25. I think either option can be lucrative depending on what you want to do and I have even considered finishing my degree since my company will pay for it.


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Caveman - sounds like your work ethic made a big diff.

I worked my butt off for about 8 years to get a partnership where I work. We take care of the workers who take care of us.

Get the degree! It'll make a difference in the long run and give you the ability to climb the ladder better. After you do that, consider getting an MBA if management has any appeal. It was the best thing I did for my career. I got it about 20 years into my career.

 

[CoStick]

Being exposed to people from different cultures and values also provides an edge if people plan to work outside of their communities.

 

[wind gypsy]

College vs skilled trade is what you make of it and average salaries don't show the whole picture. Not everyone who claims to be a carpenter, electrician, plumber, etc is "skilled" in their trade. My dad is retired on a nice union laborer pension but I have a much higher net worth than him in my mid 30's as an employee for a contractor, and with a college degree.

I do think there is something about college that tends to open a lot of peoples mindset at what's possible and looking beyond just an acceptable wage. I'm a project manager for a large contractor. When all PMs were at the office for training recently I looked around and took a mental inventory of folks backgrounds and I would guess 90%+ had a 4 year degree even though there is ample opportunity for folks with a trade background to climb the ladder into these positions. IMO having a degree is all but a non-factor in who gets hired into the position in this case but there is still a huge discrepancy.

 

[wind gypsy]

We can agree to disagree.


I believe a lot of the college degree stuff has become overrated, especially when it's something everyone does, and colleges are just pumping them out for money.


It seems many degrees aren't a value added product.

My Mother is 62. She got a 2 year degree out of HS. She has done well professionally and climbed the ladder of a large corporation farther than they were supposed to let someone without a 4 year degree get.

She always regretted not getting a 4 year degree so she went back to school while working full time and completed that bachelors in science this spring. She is in the process of receiving an additional promotion now at 62 only because of the piece of paper she recently received. Even if a 4 year degree wouldn't have created any additional knowledge or abilities for her, I imagine the loss in earnings over her career was significant.

 

[CoStick]

My Mother is 62. She got a 2 year degree out of HS. She has done well professionally and climbed the ladder of a large corporation farther than they were supposed to let someone without a 4 year degree get.

She always regretted not getting a 4 year degree (my dad the union laborer talked her out of it) so she went back to school while working full time and completed that bachelors in science this spring. She is in the process of receiving an additional promotion now at 62 only because of the piece of paper she recently received. Even if a 4 year degree wouldn't have created any additional knowledge or abilities for her, I imagine the loss in earnings over her career was significant.

No doubt, the degree pays dividends over time if you work, regardless to what subject it is in.

 

[Actual_Cryptid]

I never understood why college was "a bad thing" cause some folks chose to take loans out and get useless degrees. Basically anything without math or science of some sort is a useless skill.

We always need tradesmen but how many plumbers can a society support? How many electricians? How many engineers? How many doctors? How many physical therapists?

Did you know that machinists need college degrees these days? Buddy of mine went that route at about 40 years of age. The machines are all computerized and they still require 3rd or 4th decimal point tolerances.

What really makes me wonder is why they allow someone to take out a $100,000 student loan to get useless "art history" or "feminism" degrees. The only place those have any value is in the education institutions.

The kids who come here from 3rd world countries tend to get business, engineering, and medical degrees. They never have trouble getting jobs and live the American Dream while the "privileged white kids" get useless degrees and say the American Dream is dead. Just that the American kids don't know how to work and many do not recognize the opportunity we have.



Caveman - sounds like your work ethic made a big diff.

I worked my butt off for about 8 years to get a partnership where I work. We take care of the workers who take care of us.

Get the degree! It'll make a difference in the long run and give you the ability to climb the ladder better. After you do that, consider getting an MBA if management has any appeal. It was the best thing I did for my career. I got it about 20 years into my career.

College is "bad" because the upper class of the right wing combined with the more controlling religious leadership decided they didn't like the trend of people going to college, learning things, and then questioning the "everything was great when my parents were kids and changing is bad." If I was gonna peg it timewise I'd say civil rights era, right about the time when college students started protesting against segregation and Nixon accused them all of being communists. Since college is a place where people will meet more people from different backgrounds, college has to be bad.

Thats where the idea of an art history degree being useless comes from. Want to make a movie set in 1543? You need someone who knows what the architecture, clothing, color pallete, etc is for 1543 in the duchy you're in. There's also live theater, education, valuations and authentication, preservation and other museum tasks, etc. Of course many art history degrees are not art history degrees so much as an artist who added a couple classes to get a BA or a historian who took some extra art classes for flair.

Women's studies and similar tend to be degree tracks for careers like social work, education, law, human resources, and other careers. Again, not useless by any means, but like you point out the opportunities are often outnumbered by the applicants. If I'd added a couple extra classes and paid a fee I would have double majored in finance and black history, because I thought the sociology and history classes were worth my time.

Now you ask "why do *they* let people get these degrees?" Well who should stop them? Education is a free market, who would you propose stops a student from enrolling in a degree path? The people lending them thousands of dollars that can rarely be discharged? The colleges that have to justify the existence of their program every time the football team wants new jerseys? Or maybe you want the department of education to set quotas for degrees in every field to make sure we don't accidentally end up with a glut of doctors or lawyers (as a lawyer, it has been a problem)?

I don't know where you get the idea that international students never have trouble getting a job. I've been trying to help a Nigerian-born classmate of mine get a job. She has the same degree I do, from the same college, with the same experience (we even interned together) but usually gets an insultingly low offer. OTOH, a number of international students (again, in my field and those adjacent) end up either dropping out and lose their visa (so you don't see them) or work for a couple years for companies that treat them like disposable robots and then take their experience to their home country or somewhere in the region. My school had a significant number of Chinese nationals who routinely struggle to find STEM jobs after graduation unless they take jobs for 30% less than the going rate for entry level graduates or relocate to places where their safety is at risk (either in the US where they're attacked or overseas in high-risk countries.)

Course if you ask me, we could stop running education as a for-profit enterprise and charging "buy a nice house" prices for tuition. There's no reason we can't run public colleges and trade schools. An educated population only benefits us as a whole. I'd love to go back for a masters' program and really hone my expertise but I can't afford it, so my employer has to either pay for it or can't benefit from the added expertise. And hey, there would be nobody complaining about student debt. If it's true that middle class americans are just lazy and getting useless degrees, then it's probably better for the economy at large for them to have money to spend on goods and services instead of useless debt, right? Plus if trade school was paid for some of them might get bored and try swinging a hammer instead, and some of them might even like it.

And of course that allows people to pivot easier. A machinist with 20 years of experience could go learn CAD instead of being replaced, a chemist burned out on lab work could get some management skills, a miner who's all busted up can go learn environmental sciences and get into remediation work or learn book-keeping.

The people who benefit most from our education system are the people who invest in those student loans.

 

[Kurts86]

I’m a degreed Engineer and Licensed PE. I graduated with no debt because I stayed in state and went to a public university, was on scholarship for academics and for running cross country and track. Even with everything on student loans I could have gone to 4 years of engineering for less than the average starting salary in engineering. The school I went to was about 80% engineering and stem majors and flunked out anyone who wasn’t serious within a few semesters. It was incredibly difficult at times and was not anything like the stereotype of a liberal college experience. I co-op’ed 2 semesters and had 2 other summer internships but I had a job at graduation despite being the middle of the ‘08 recession.

The people I met in college that could simultaneously balance engineering school and NCAA sports were on the whole amazing people and I wouldn’t replace that for anything.

Engineering teaches you a process for problem solving and learning rather than a specific skill set. Engineers get a bad rap for not being practical in their skills from tradesman who have a lot of knowledge depth in a narrow area whereas engineers are trained in a broad skill set intentionally. It creates people who can solve unique and new problems outside of the repetitiveness that is 95% of work in any field. Engineering versus the trades is very much about if you prefer solving micro or macro level problems.

As far as working in Engineering it’s a safe bet for a decent income while working 45-50 hours a week where you are home every night to see your family. The top end of the skilled trades can make more than mid level engineers mostly based on overtime or traveling to work based on my experience. At the same income engineers will typically have a better work life balance than a high paid tradesmen.

Day to day Engineering itself is a relatively hard white collar job but a relatively easy compared to some blue collar jobs. Engineering school itself is super difficult. There is a fair bit of stress tied up in your calculations and project management, you often work in less than ideal environments (steel mills, refrigerated food plants, green field construction sites, etc) and vacation days tend to be a lot fewer than similar STEM based white collar jobs. I worked for a decade before I had more than 10 days per year vacation. The percent of compensation that is beyond salary is relatively small as well compared to other industries. It can be especially frustrating when you see people in really nebulous financial/consulting/sales jobs who make a lot more money and provide a lot less value with a lot less training.

As for Engineering I can say that sometimes it isn’t a satisfying work experience on a day to day basis because you are often working on projects that take years to complete or you may not even see in person. There is certainly a more instant gratification when you physically build something yourself in the trades. I certainly moonlighted as a mechanic while working as an engineer to fill that a bit. That said sometimes it’s really cool to see your $10 million dollar project working that you designed and managed the project for functioning after years of heartache.

There is definitely a shortage of skilled tradesmen out there especially under the age of 55 or so. I have a ton of respect for skilled tradesmen and they are harder to find than engineers. While I was in high school there was no effort send people into the trades. It’s about to be a big problem. We have absolutely drained smart and motivated people out of the trades on the whole.

The trades benefit is two fold in my opinion. First is you can start making money young and if you are smart that sets you up for growth in long term net worth. You can make good money at 18 whereas my wife as a Doctor didn’t start making money until well into her 30’s. Starting early factors in quite heavily to lifetime learnings. The second is that the trades allow you to be a small business owner in a relatively low capital extensive and straightforward way. Once you have a skill set in a trade you go out on your own, maybe hire a small crew and be your own boss. We live in a world where you can be the most capable technical person but you will never be rich working for someone else.

I will say non degreed tradesmen who end up in middle management roles tend to be pretty easy to spot often due to lack of formal communication and project management skills. There is this glass ceiling there either formal or informal that exists in lots of companies. You see a lot of mixing of young engineers and senior tradesmen in supervision rolls and it’s the bottom of the engineering career ladder and the top for trades. It can be a pretty solid barrier if that matters to you.

I think regardless of your career path your success comes down to your work ethic and your willingness to continually advance your career opportunities. Often that means moving companies and learning new skills. You can wait a long time in one place and one company for opportunities to open up. It also means going out on your own and taking all of the risk and reward yourself.

 

[CorbLand]

The kids who come here from 3rd world countries tend to get business, engineering, and medical degrees. They never have trouble getting jobs and live the American Dream while the "privileged white kids" get useless degrees and say the American Dream is dead. Just that the American kids don't know how to work and many do not recognize the opportunity we have.

A lot of the international students come here on their governments dime and their government will only pay for STEM related fields. After graduation they have one of two choices, get a job here in the US to continue their VISA or they have to go back to their home country and work. This is why they have higher employment rates, they either get a job or arent counted in the US labor market.

If they dont come on their governments dime, they come on their parents. So basically the only ones that can do this come from wealthy, well connected families and walk into jobs working for them or using one of their connections.

Its not an equal comparison to compare US students to international. The requirements for the two different type of students are drastically different.

 

[cuerro viejo]

A lot of the international students come here on their governments dime and their government will only pay for STEM related fields. After graduation they have one of two choices, get a job here in the US to continue their VISA or they have to go back to their home country and work. This is why they have higher employment rates, they either get a job or arent counted in the US labor market.

If they dont come on their governments dime, they come on their parents. So basically the only ones that can do this come from wealthy, well connected families and walk into jobs working for them or using one of their connections.

Its not an equal comparison to compare US students to international. The requirements for the two different type of students are drastically different.

Pretty much only EAD or H1B approval is on STEM degrees. Whole system is designed to off set cost of local talent. University and tech field are the two largest beneficiaries. Let’s raise minimum salary of H1B to 120k, EAD to 100k and see what happens.

I sponsor or use third part visa holders a lot. Some is due to talent availability, some profitability.

US college system should be focused on STEM first and for most. It’s also has biggest impact of post grad degrees

End of the day the H1 visa system needs an exponentially higher minimum salary to break free of the indentured servitude it’s created

The highest wealth index for minorities/transplants in the US is Nigerian’s, they have out paced India, Pakistan, basically all Pacific Asian and Asian countries. Most are focused on stem degrees and they also have one of the highest percentages of advanced degrees. We can argue semantics all day long but this success is based on STEM pre and post degrees.

 

[southLA]

The percent of compensation that is beyond salary is relatively small as well compared to other industries. It can be especially frustrating when you see people in really nebulous financial/consulting/sales jobs who make a lot more money and provide a lot less value with a lot less training.

As for Engineering I can say that sometimes it isn’t a satisfying work experience on a day to day basis because you are often working on projects that take years to complete or you may not even see in person. There is certainly a more instant gratification when you physically build something yourself in the trades.

I am a PE with 5 years of experience and am dealing with this right now. I grew up in a blue collar family and i always feel the pull back to the way of my father and his father and his...

 

[displacedtexan]

I'm a carpenter, I've worked for myself nearly 20 years, and make a good living. I do very detailed work, and project management.

I love what I do, and have a good life, in a lot of ways I'm the poster child for "learn a trade, work for yourself!"

I have no regrets, but the attitude of so many in the trades of college being dumb or a waste is so ridiculous and confusing to me. Not just in part because every one of my customers has a degree. Quite a few have one of those "worthless" degrees.

 

[amassi]

I went to college but if I could do it again I would have gotten into the trades. Pays better, union is better etc etc.

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[2rocky]

Let's not forget...for every independent tradesman, you need a customer base who is willing to PAY for their services. There is no one right answer for everyone.

I definitely think there has to be more thought into whether college is the RIGHT decision for each individual kid. I for one would like to see more GAP years spent with the prospective college student doing some physical labor or serving their country in some capacity (yes even government work) so they can go to an advanced education knowing how what they might study in engineering or political science will be applied. I'm a HUGE advocate for engineering students having some vocational training prior to studying the principles and physics.

 

[Mule3006Elk]

Trade. Nothing against that at all. Great option often overlooked. I wish I knew more about that option when I was younger.

College: depends. If you don't know what you want to do I would recommended going to a local state school and keeping your debt as low as possible. With low debt and a college degree it won't hurt you. If you are driven and know exactly what you want to do I don't have a problem spending more on your education. If you want to be a MD it is better to go to a more respected school vs. one unheard of. If you have 2 applicants with the same general qualifications and score evenly on the interview the applicant with the more respected school will get the seat.

I went to state school to keep the cost down and finished with no college debt. I worked 2 jobs and the experience wasn't very fun. I still owe a little over 20K on my graduate degree but it was worth it. I've made a little over 3 million in 20 years. No complaints here.

 

[CorbLand]

Pretty much only EAD or H1B approval is on STEM degrees. Whole system is designed to off set cost of local talent. University and tech field are the two largest beneficiaries. Let’s raise minimum salary of H1B to 120k, EAD to 100k and see what happens.

I sponsor or use third part visa holders a lot. Some is due to talent availability, some profitability.

US college system should be focused on STEM first and for most. It’s also has biggest impact of post grad degrees

End of the day the H1 visa system needs an exponentially higher minimum salary to break free of the indentured servitude it’s created

The highest wealth index for minorities/transplants in the US is Nigerian’s, they have out paced India, Pakistan, basically all Pacific Asian and Asian countries. Most are focused on stem degrees and they also have one of the highest percentages of advanced degrees. We can argue semantics all day long but this success is based on STEM pre and post degrees.

I don't work with the VISAs super close, just know from my experience talking with many international students. Many go to college in the US and are being funded via their home countries government. Some of these governments will only fund the student if they are going into certain degrees, many which are STEM degrees.

 

[CorbLand]

Let's not forget...for every independent tradesman, you need a customer base who is willing to PAY for their services. There is no one right answer for everyone.

I definitely think there has to be more thought into whether college is the RIGHT decision for each individual kid. I for one would like to see more GAP years spent with the prospective college student doing some physical labor or serving their country in some capacity (yes even government work) so they can go to an advanced education knowing how what they might study in engineering or political science will be applied. I'm a HUGE advocate for engineering students having some vocational training prior to studying the principles and physics.

This right here. I graduated high school in 2010 and can give a little perspective to what my high school education was like. All we were told was go to college when you graduate. If you did say something like you didn't want to go because you didn't know what you wanted to do. You were told to just go anyway because you have two years of generals to figure it out.

I mentioned one time that I liked to do construction related jobs and was pushed toward project management from a four year college. Never once was I told about trade schools.

More time and energy needs to be spent teaching kids to figure out what they want to do and the avenues of getting there and less on just pushing kids to college.

It does crack me up a little bit to look back now that I am a little older. I got told countless times that I was just a young dumb 18 year old and needed to listen to all of those telling me to go to college, trades don't pay. Granted at that time trades were not that lucrative. Now many of those that told me that, will tell you that kids just dont want to work anymore and that is why nobody wants to go into trades. Sometimes people really need to make up their minds.

 

[Miflatlander91]

This right here. I graduated high school in 2010 and can give a little perspective to what my high school education was like. All we were told was go to college when you graduate. If you did say something like you didn't want to go because you didn't know what you wanted to do. You were told to just go anyway because you have two years of generals to figure it out.

I mentioned one time that I liked to do construction related jobs and was pushed toward project management from a four year college. Never once was I told about trade schools.

More time and energy needs to be spent teaching kids to figure out what they want to do and the avenues of getting there and less on just pushing kids to college.

It does crack me up a little bit to look back now that I am a little older. I got told countless times that I was just a young dumb 18 year old and needed to listen to all of those telling me to go to college, trades don't pay. Granted at that time trades were not that lucrative. Now many of those that told me that, will tell you that kids just dont want to work anymore and that is why nobody wants to go into trades. Sometimes people really need to make up their minds.

I graduated in 2010 as well and was told the same thing over and over again. Even to the point when when I told the counselors I wasnted to be a welder they tried very hard to talk me out of the whole idea.

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[CorbLand]

I graduated in 2010 as well and was told the same thing over and over again. Even to the point when when I told the counselors I wasnted to be a welder they tried very hard to talk me out of the whole idea.

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Pretty much the same at our high school. I have a buddy that went the military route. Served, then used his GI bill to get an engineering degree at no cost to him. Many teachers and counselors tried to talk him out of that.

This is and was very common for many I have talked to that are roughly our age. There is basically a group of people that are currently ~25-32 years old that were taught like this.

 

[Billy Goat]

My Mother is 62. She got a 2 year degree out of HS. She has done well professionally and climbed the ladder of a large corporation farther than they were supposed to let someone without a 4 year degree get.

She always regretted not getting a 4 year degree so she went back to school while working full time and completed that bachelors in science this spring. She is in the process of receiving an additional promotion now at 62 only because of the piece of paper she recently received. Even if a 4 year degree wouldn't have created any additional knowledge or abilities for her, I imagine the loss in earnings over her career was significant.

Don't take my statement as negative on college, it isn't. It's in understanding the value added.

You need to understand the value added and weigh that against the cost.


I have a degree in engineering, it's my fallback.
I don't maximize my earning potential, but I went into business for myself while I was still in school, mostly enjoy it. I try to maximize other aspects that I have opportunity to.

 

[Kilboars]

Work your way through collage while getting your own business planned out or started.


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