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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

#261

Post by InclinedPlane »

rlanday wrote: post #216
InclinedPlane wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Improve the quality of average public high schools so that a high school diploma is a guarantee of basic literacy, science knowledge, basic schools, etc.

College degrees only work as a selection tool for employers since not everyone has one. High school degrees are currently nearly worthless as such a tool since nearly everyone (the current high school graduate rate in the US is about 83%) has one. You still need to get one, of course, since if you don’t have one, people will assume you dropped out either because you got addicted to drugs, or because you’re well below…

College degrees are not merely used as a selection tool for higher skilled jobs. In many instances they are used as a basic competency filter for literacy, ability to work in an office environment, etc. Indeed, many jobs merely require "some college" as a credential, not even a degree. That alone is enough of a filter. This means that jobs that require skills that any high school graduate should have are today out of reach for those people because they've been given a sub-standard education with a degraded market value. Which means that in order to be in any way competitive in the job market, even to get an entry level office job, often requires expending additional time and money, saddling oneself with college loan debt, and so forth. Today entering the job market from the bottom is a lot more difficult and more costly than it used to be, with significant deleterious effects on career/wealth advancement through life.

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

#262

Post by Consultant32452 »

Double_a_92 wrote: post #256
Consultant32452 wrote: post #206

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why would you want the state to stop poor people from earning a decent living just because they haven't completed the full set of requirements for a state sanctioned certification? The going rate to have your main sewer line snaked in my area is $250. If that's the only thing you know how to do, why can't you just sell that service?

That shouldn't stop the companies from hiring untrained people to just work from them. But it would be nice if there was an "official" apprenticeship for young people as a valid alternative to a college degree. And that shouldn't be some specific training for some random company, but lead to a comparable skill level so you can work everywhere in the country in that field.

>That shouldn't stop the companies from hiring untrained people to just work from them.

Why does a wealthy incumbent need to be protected by having the state outlaw anyone from working without the wealthy incumbent's permission?

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

#263

Post by mantas »

distances wrote: post #191
mantas wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Very likely. In my country, schools are rated by % of kids getting into universities. Teachers are also punished for kids who give a try at non-mandatory exams, but fail. Those who wants to get it into university damn sure work hard. Meanwhile people who don't aim for university and take those exams for the lulz are likely to damage teacher's statistics.

You have statistics for teachers ? That's just plain stupid to be honest.

No less stupid than rating schools by acceptance to universities. Gap-year and trade schools should be encourage whenever they make sense. But the rating does not incentivise looking out for kids interests.

Another fun fact - one of the points to certify a school as "gymnasium" is attendance. My school was certifying for that status during my last year. One of the vice-principals was nicknamed "12th graders attendance" since her office door was opening directly to cafeteria/lounge area and her #1 job was to make sure we attend as many classes as possible :)

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

#264

Post by Noos »

It's annoying when this is discussed, because people assume all there are only three skilled trades; plumber, electrician, or machinist of some kind. Machine Drafting, for example, was absolutely decimated by the rise of cad/cam, as was graphic design with the rise of desktop publishing and decline of print due to the web. We also have hairdressing, which is ok but shows that many trades are not open to women, nor can many areas not support a decent amount of tradespeople.

I went to a vocational high school myself, and many people wound up going to college instead, as maybe half the trades didn't have much of a future. And keep in mind, there were a LOT of tradespeople thrown out of work in the 90s in my area due to military budget cuts, too; many skilled tradesmen tend to piggyback on defense or government spending, which is not sustainable.

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

#265

Post by Noos »

GuiA wrote: post #217
dionidium wrote: post #167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's amazing to me is that there are people who don't feel like they're capable of changing their own doorknob. (I get it; there are some people who would rather just pay, but surely some of these people just don't feel like they could manage this task. That's wild.)

That's wild to me too, but rich lazy people who subcontract out everything is much better for society than rich people who hoard their money forever, so I'm certainly not going to shame them about it :)

There aren't enough rich people who need services to give people jobs. Martin Ford's "The Lights in the Tunnel" makes this point.

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

#266

Post by donatj »

One of my sisters and I both attended trade school and were quickly happily employed.

My other sister went for a psychology major and has since worked service jobs.

I went to a small trade school for "Application Development" circa 2005 that has since gone under.

They really got an undeserved bad rap, like a lot of for profit schools lately. I genuinely feel I received a quality education readying me for working in the industry. I had what I would consider some of the best educators of my life and lots of one on one time with them.

I know a handful of my classmates didn't really take it very seriously and the army was paying for them to be there, but honestly it's lead me into a career I enjoy and allowed me to earn more than I ever imagined.

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

#267

Post by eastWestMath »

srtjstjsj wrote: post #234
eastWestMath wrote: post #190

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don’t know why it has to be one of the other, university generally isn’t vocational training. I know lots of people who went to university and then did a trades program, I don’t think any of them really regret getting their degree. Of course this was Canada and nobody had racked up 60-80k in debt.

In the US, that would be called a college, not a university. A university is research+teaching institution.

Maybe I was unclear, they did bachelors degrees at universities and then later went to trade school.

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

#268

Post by rlanday »

InclinedPlane wrote: post #261
rlanday wrote: post #216

Earlier quoted context omitted.

College degrees only work as a selection tool for employers since not everyone has one. High school degrees are currently nearly worthless as such a tool since nearly everyone (the current high school graduate rate in the US is about 83%) has one. You still need to get one, of course, since if you don’t have one, people will assume you dropped out either because you got addicted to drugs, or because you’re well below…

College degrees are not merely used as a selection tool for higher skilled jobs. In many instances they are used as a basic competency filter for literacy, ability to work in an office environment, etc. Indeed, many jobs merely require "some college" as a credential, not even a degree. That alone is enough of a filter. This means that jobs that require skills that any high school graduate should have are today out of…

I think you’re assuming that there’s some minimum bar for “literacy, ability to work in an office environment, etc.” and that everyone above that bar is of fairly equal value to employers. I think you’re also assuming that nearly everyone can be brought up to this bar (note: if employers believed this, they could hire people without college degrees for cheap and train them on the job). As soon as you look at these traits as existing on a non-binary spectrum though, and employers wanting to hire people at an appropriate place along the spectrum (the most desirable workers obviously being more expensive to hire), I think it becomes obvious that any sort of filter that lets through everyone or nearly everyone is not going to end up being very valuable.

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

#269

Post by Noos »

bbarn wrote: post #224
roel_v wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I sat down with my daughter and very clearly explained why college for her was a bad idea. Her grades and ACT scores weren't good enough to get into lucrative fields, so I suggested she join the military with a specialization that opened skilled trade jobs. We discussed the benefit vs cost of the student loans, and she admitted that this would be a much smarter path and she is looking at very little career opportunit…

Women in general wash out of the military at much higher rates than men, mostly due to the fact their bodies are less able to deal with the serious physical stress of training. Women also really aren't going to have as many long term openings in the skilled trades for the same reason, mostly because it's hard, breaking-down physical labor.

There's little guarantee she can even do what you intend; she may very well go back to get that psychology degree after washing out of basic (god forbid she gets pregnant to escape duty)

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

#270

Post by forapurpose »

Double_a_92 wrote: post #112
forapurpose wrote: post #94

As is often the case, the answer is built into how the question is framed: If we frame the question as, 'what is the most efficient way to train people with directly salable skills', then college is inefficient and probably not the best solution. But if the question is, 'how do we best prepare people for life, including critical thinking and knowledge about the world, and to improve our society', college blows away a…

The problem is that most people are not actually that smart to profit from that. It just lowers the level if everybody basically HAS to go through college.

Using collegiate critical thinking skills, I wonder: What is that argument based on? Are 'smarts' really an important factor? Maybe it's just work, or opportunity, or preparation, or a million other things.

I tend to think that anyone who wants to do it can do it; they only have to work hard enough.

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