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More students are turning away from college and toward apprenticeships

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Re: More students are turning away from college and toward apprenticeships

#451

Post by briHass »

HEmanZ wrote: post #349
briHass wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Anyone that hasn't done manual labor really has no idea how rough it can be. I worked as an office-furniture-mover in my early 20s (Summers in college), and some days were pretty tough. Granted, that's pretty low on the manual labor skills spectrum, but even for a guy in prime physical shape, it's tiring and has elements of danger. Now that I'm double that age, the manual labor I've done like rewiring my house, insta…

I don’t think anyone idealizes those kind of physical labor jobs. Usually “the trades” is much more skilled manual labor: plumbing, hvac, welding, specialized mechanic work and repair, woodworking/carpentry, etc. No one says people should want a life of a mover, meatpacker, or ditch digger.

There are various levels of 'suck' along a spectrum, but many of the trades you listed are no picnic, especially when you're low man on the totem pole. HVAC work involves hauling heavy equipment that has sharp edges and spending good chunks of time in hot attics or dank crawlspaces. Most carpenters aren't boutique craftsman of expensive furniture; they are straddling joists holding a heavy nail gun above their head for hours. Plumbing...well, I think you can imagine the unpleasant jobs there.

It's easy to only look at the top level workers: owners that have young guys to boss around and/or tradesman that have built enough reputation/savings to decline jobs they don't want.

None of this is to say the skilled trades can't be a great career. The work is usually honest, rewarding, and a good mix of mental and physical. Most tradesman are able to work on their own house/car or they have buddies that will help for cheap (and reciprocity). I'm sure many would trade places with the upper tier paid software engineers in a heartbeat, however.

Re: More students are turning away from college and toward apprenticeships

#452

Post by antasvara »

OJFord wrote: post #416
zinckiwi wrote: post #409

Earlier quoted context omitted.

American translation: graduating with anything other than a 4.0 or a 1.0 is wasted.

Or rather between them, yes. (Or a bit lower than 4.0, that's perfect right? Or do you not have to get full marks on every exam to achieve that?)

4.0 would mean that you got a letter grade of "A" in every class. In the US, that usually means you got a final grade of 95% or higher in every class.

Re: More students are turning away from college and toward apprenticeships

#453

Post by User23 »

pclmulqdq wrote: post #26

College seems to have ~3 uses from students' perspectives: 1. A trade school for technical professionals who actually need specialist education (scientists, engineers, lawyers, doctors, etc.) 2. A finishing school for the elite 3. A blood sports arena for the brilliant to complete for professorships (almost all of whom will lose and be saddled with 6 figures of debt and 7 figures of opportunity cost) A lot of people…

You forgot 4. Party sex camp.

Re: More students are turning away from college and toward apprenticeships

#454

Post by yutijke »

nonethewiser wrote: post #428
yutijke wrote: post #421

I went to undergrad in India so YMMV for the primarily North American population here. A lot of people look back at college fondly, but to me it just felt like a lot of time and money spent for skills that I had to acquire on my own any way. It was a common opinion among my friends that other non STEM majors seemed to have an easier undergrad life where they could find time to explore things rather than trying to bui…

well what would your job prospects have been with a non-STEM degree?

Once again, keep in mind that this is an Indian perspective. YMMV for North America.

Sure you will make more money than them on your first job. But how many of us are able to enjoy that money to the fullest extent?

You will most likely end up being forced to work in a "Tech Hub" city like Bangalore (the American equivalent would be San Francisco and similar)

All those zeros in your salary end up going into sky high rent and housing prices. Saying nothing about the traffic, poor infrastructure and pollution that you'll have to suffer from anyway.

Looking at my childhood neighbours from smaller cities who are drivers/secretaries/carpenters, they may be going on fewer expensive vacations, but they are still able to afford a decent quality of life with way lesser stress. This is hard to quantify, but you don't have to ask me who I would bet on to suffer from High Blood pressure, Heart issues, etc earlier on.

EDIT: Some folks may mention remote work may alleviate these issues, but companies seem hell bent on dragging their employees back into the expensive hell holes their offices are based in with Weak sauce Hybrid work that gives you none of the benefits of remote work.

Re: More students are turning away from college and toward apprenticeships

#456

Post by ZephyrBlu »

waboremo wrote: post #128
azinman2 wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

MDs require more school on top of college; their major is often unrelated except they have to take pre-med classes. Often times people will go back to a community college or some other schooling option for those classes if they decide they want to go down that route. So you absolutely can be any of those majors and change your position later. Far better than say a communications major, which with psychology are the t…

Those that can self-educate effectively are also ones that would thrive in a proper high education system. Unfortunately, we're turning them away for various reasons (financial, lack of flexibility, etc) and filling rooms full of people who are there just because they were told to be there. It's quite horrendous, people in their 3+ years and they're still just going through the motions for the paper. If you're not th…

> Those that can self-educate effectively are also ones that would thrive in a proper high education system

Disagree. I think it's the complete opposite. Higher education is way to structured and inflexible.

Re: More students are turning away from college and toward apprenticeships

#457

Post by jedberg »

dahart wrote: post #235
jletienne wrote: post #225

Earlier quoted context omitted.

it's unclear if the causation here is having a degree. but it is correlated to a very large degree

This has been quite widely studied, actually. Many papers conclude that it’s a mix of causation, there is (unsurprisingly) some amount of actual learning of skills in college, and also (unsurprisingly) some amount of credentialism in the job market. What does it matter though? Parent was presuming to argue from a students’ perspective. The amount of relative causation might be pretty irrelevant to a student who just…

No, the main question is are the highest paid workers getting that because of college, or did the most driven and smartest go to college, and would have been equally successful had no one gone to college?

Back in the day (pre-WW2) most successful people did no go to college. College was for wealthy trust fund kids to spend some time meeting other wealthy trust fund kids, because there just weren't all that many colleges nor any need to go.

That whole college==more money thing didn't start until after WW2.

Re: More students are turning away from college and toward apprenticeships

#458

Post by carlosjobim »

TaylorAlexander wrote: post #345

Price of college is going up. Wages are stagnating. Quite unfortunately, it makes perfect sense that fewer people would think the expense is worthwhile. I wish we offered free high quality university educations. The USA can coast on its dominance for only so long before the lack of educated people sinks us.

> I wish we offered free high quality university educations.

You could sponsor somebody's university or college education, pay a full or part scolarship.

Re: More students are turning away from college and toward apprenticeships

#459

Post by meh8881 »

irrational wrote: post #280
pclmulqdq wrote: post #26

College seems to have ~3 uses from students' perspectives: 1. A trade school for technical professionals who actually need specialist education (scientists, engineers, lawyers, doctors, etc.) 2. A finishing school for the elite 3. A blood sports arena for the brilliant to complete for professorships (almost all of whom will lose and be saddled with 6 figures of debt and 7 figures of opportunity cost) A lot of people…

I don’t know. I studied ancient history and historical linguistics in college. I managed to graduate with 23 years, but I don’t consider my time in college to be wasted at all. College introduced me to a much more diverse group of people. I got to interact with very smart people on a continuous basis which helped me to think more clearly, more logically, etc.

People talking about the economics of college and citing their experience from over two decades ago as if it’s supposed to be comparable to today is really frustrating.

Re: More students are turning away from college and toward apprenticeships

#460

Post by WoahNoun »

karmelapple wrote: post #450
lapcat wrote: post #338

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Am I crazy or did Biden just try to pay for a bunch of student loans? Forgive, not pay for. > Legality still pending AFAIK. Oral arguments were heard by the Supreme Court a few weeks ago. > the debt cannot be dispelled through bankruptcy It can, actually, though it's difficult.

It’s forgiveness, but it will still cost federal money, correct? https://www.npr.org/2022/09/27/1125272287/student-loan-forgi...

There would be no payments from the treasury so no direct cost for the government. The "cost" would be an opportunity cost of collecting payments. Which from a government perspective is offset by the spending and savings in the broader economy for not collecting those payments.
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