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Trade school, not 4-year college, is a better bet to solve the US income gap

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Re: Trade school, not 4-year college, is a better bet to solve the US income gap

#131

Post by ransom1538 »

roseburg wrote: post #86

I would simplify it and say that learning trade skills is a better investment for most people than attending a 4-year college. Trade skills can be learned at a young age, right from home, where there is room and time to explore and enjoy the learning process. Why we wait until after high school to teach kids in-demand skills boggles my mind. All the pressure in the world arrives after high school. It's time to start…

Agreed+. This is anecdotal, but I tried recently to get roof repairs made in CA for a rental home I own. I called 20+ roofers none of whom are taking new projects. I was able to get one quote from a friend of friend for over $1k for about 4 hours of work -- but he made no commitment. Plumbers, AC guys, roofers are in incredible demand in CA - need an electrician? forget it. These guys all own their own companies, drive nice trucks, are booked until feb '18 and have rude secretaries. The future seems bright for them, not much competition (know anyone learning HVAC?), a push for new housing all over CA, and I have no idea how to outsource a plumber.

Re: Trade school, not 4-year college, is a better bet to solve the US income gap

#132

Post by throwaway318434 »

Another layer on top of an already terrible curriculum.

Just make the damn schools better; the rotten prison system whose only arguable purpose has been to keep the unemployment figures down.

There is way too much social inertia and disdain for people who won't play the asphyxiating game (and we're supposed to be "tolerant, diverse" and all that jazz), that I wish, very much like Miyazaki, that the world experience another great deluge.

Re: Trade school, not 4-year college, is a better bet to solve the US income gap

#133

Post by olivermarks »

Consultant32452 wrote: post #129
olivermarks wrote: post #107

I reacted strongly and positively to the headline of this piece...and even more positively to the article. Apprenticeship was once considered more important than academic degrees in many areas. The balance has gone too far towards academia, and blue collar 'workers' don't get nearly enough respect IMO

I generally agree with you, but I'm always hesitant when I hear the word "apprenticeship." Because in my experience that usually means a union is stopping less experienced workers from undercutting their prices on the open market by forcing the less experienced worker to pay the union for the privilege of doing work. In this way it functions similarly to the way the college scheme works, only the college scheme is fo…

I agree.

Re: Trade school, not 4-year college, is a better bet to solve the US income gap

#134

Post by mathgeek »

learc83 wrote: post #89
smallnamespace wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think people argue past one another a lot about this because both facts can be simultaneously true: the US really is a land where a hard-working, smart, and motivated person (with a big pinch of luck) can work their way up from the top, and yet it's also a place where most people at the bottom aren't simultaneously hard-working, smart, motivated, and lucky. If they were, they would've moved up the rungs already. I…

Where do you get the idea that we admit a significant number of penniless legal immigrants?

There are published numbers for immigrant income levels, for those interested in a little research:

https://www.ssa.gov/policy/docs/ssb/v68n1/68n1p31.html

Re: Trade school, not 4-year college, is a better bet to solve the US income gap

#135

Post by muzani »

ransom1538 wrote: post #131
roseburg wrote: post #86

I would simplify it and say that learning trade skills is a better investment for most people than attending a 4-year college. Trade skills can be learned at a young age, right from home, where there is room and time to explore and enjoy the learning process. Why we wait until after high school to teach kids in-demand skills boggles my mind. All the pressure in the world arrives after high school. It's time to start…

Agreed+. This is anecdotal, but I tried recently to get roof repairs made in CA for a rental home I own. I called 20+ roofers none of whom are taking new projects. I was able to get one quote from a friend of friend for over $1k for about 4 hours of work -- but he made no commitment. Plumbers, AC guys, roofers are in incredible demand in CA - need an electrician? forget it. These guys all own their own companies, dri…

Honestly after a recent home renovation, I found myself a little envious I didn't take house building as a career. It's definitely skilled labor and in high demand.

It's not a "sexy" job - you'd be more likely to get a date telling someone you're a software developer than a plumber. But the low prestige of the job seems to make it worth .kre.

Re: Trade school, not 4-year college, is a better bet to solve the US income gap

#136

Post by romanovcode »

bruceb wrote: post #2

Remove the social stigma of not going to college. Hardly any tv shows that show young non college grads as positive.

Same with the stigma that trading-schools are somehow worse then college. Pretty sure it comes from elitism that people in colleges have towards non-college grads.

Re: Trade school, not 4-year college, is a better bet to solve the US income gap

#137

Post by roel_v »

olivermarks wrote: post #128
roel_v wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So what trade did you learn?

If you are asking me I was a graphic designer, mostly print work initially. It's a hybrid trade/skill set that gave me a good business grounding. I grew up in a generation where a lot of my peers in the UK were apprentices at Rolls Royce, Jaguar etc. I have no visibility into apprenticeships and how they are organized today...

It was just a snippy remark hinting at the many people in this thread saying how great trade skills are, yet very few of them actually do a job like that. I mean, commenters here mention 'the social stigma' and how unfair it is - but being a plumber is just a, well, shit job. Construction work isn't fun, when it's your job, and you're not the boss. There's a reason all those middle and lower middle class parents tell their children to get a degree - it's because they want their children to do better than they do. Working a high-skill office job is in pretty much every way 'better' than doing somewhat-skilled things like, I don't know, garden maintenance or HVAC installation or operating a printing press. Yet here are all people commenting (from their cushy office jobs, probably) how great those sort or jobs are.

How many people here would tell their children 'yeah forget about that LSAT and MCAT, do a one-year part time course in swimming pool construction, much better!'? Very few, I'd reckon. What's good for the good is good for the gander, right?

Re: Trade school, not 4-year college, is a better bet to solve the US income gap

#138

Post by romanovcode »

coredog64 wrote: post #7
toomuchtodo wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Social stigma is not the problem. Employers requiring degrees for jobs that don’t require a degree are the problem. They force the cost on the student, and with demand for college education then bring inelastic, colleges have all of the pricing power to charge whatever they want.

I've said it before and I'll say it again: Degree requirements are the last bastion of socially acceptable racism.

Pretty sure you would not want your doctor to be w/o a proper degree.

This "racism" as you call it is perfectly applicable to some professions.

Re: Trade school, not 4-year college, is a better bet to solve the US income gap

#139

Post by romanovcode »

Double_a_92 wrote: post #72
Apocryphon wrote: post #10

Isn't Germany, one of the more booming economies of Europe, a place that promotes the trades and provides educational tracks for interested students to easily get into apprenticeship programs? And where there isn't stigma against entering such a field?

There is still a stigma... The difference is that you have to be kinda smart to even get into Highschool first. Otherwise you basically have no other options than to do an apprenticeship or a trade school after middle school.

> Otherwise you basically have no other options than to do an apprenticeship or a trade school after middle school.

Which is much better than doing nothing at all, or going for some useless degree in college that will take you to debt.

Not everyone is smart, I am one of those people (pretty dumb), it is fine.

Re: Trade school, not 4-year college, is a better bet to solve the US income gap

#140

Post by Cyph0n »

evv555 wrote: post #118
roel_v wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Like what? Are you saying that most degrees, taught at universities today, could be condensed into 1 year, and the outcome would be that we'd have 19 year olds with the same skills as the 22 year olds graduating today? What degrees do you have in mind?

Almost half of the courses I took were subjects like English, History, Health, and so on. I don't doubt the value of these courses but they were competing for time and energy with courses like Linear Algebra and Calculus often to my detriment. I think an advanced degree could be condensed to 2-3 years or 4 years of part-time night school.

This is how the French/European system works (3 year technical degree), which has already been suggested in one of the parent comments.
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