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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

#461

Post by lapcat »

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...

It would cost in the same sense that it costs to lower the tax rate: a lower amount of future payments to the federal government from that particular revenue source.

Of course, a lot of student loan debt will never be paid anyway for various reasons, such as deferment, default, or death of the borrower.

Loan forgiveness won't result in any immediate payments from the federal government, because these loans are held by the federal government rather than by banks, something that a lot of people seem to misunderstand. The payments were already made years ago when the loans were disbursed.

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

#462

Post by OJFord »

cperciva wrote: post #419
Balgair wrote: post #351

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thanks for the reccomendation! I am a bit confused though. Is 'a first' the top score on an exam or like a suma cum laude ? Free link to the book here: https://gutenberg.ca/ebooks/waughe-bridesheadrevisited1945/w...

"First" means "first class honours" aka. the highest designation of degree. The US equivalent is summa cum laude, yes.

It's not quite equivalent in that it's more standardised and every university uses it. I think it's more accurately equivalent to 3.x GPA or above; probably you could find graduate entry requirements (though most are probably fine with at least a 2:1/upper second) stating exactly that as their equivalent admissions criterion.

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

#463

Post by _delirium »

psaux wrote: post #347

California Universities just had the most applications in history. UCLA 145k applicants, UCSD 130k applicants. Respectively they are both down now to about a 3% and 5% acceptance rate due to the spike. Might be Covid holdovers due to a gap year, or with the economy as it is, out of state applications have dropped.

Four-year universities haven't seen much of an enrollment decline, especially not more prestigious ones like the UC system. Here is some data breaking down enrollment numbers 2017-2022 by type of institution and type of degree sought: https://nscresearchcenter.org/current-term-enrollment-estima...

Percentage changes in undergraduate enrollment over that 5-year period were:

    Seeking a bachelor's (4-yr) degree:    -6%
    Seeking an associate's (2-yr) degree: -21%
    Other undergraduate students:          -8%

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

#465

Post by muyuu »

alsaaro wrote: post #88

As someone who has worked two of the most intensive blue collar jobs, people should be wary of romanticizing blue collar work. Blue collar workers are expected to really work at their jobs. White collar workers can chill if there is no work to be done, or be sent home early with pay, or take a relaxation day and just browse the internet and listen to podcasts. They have perks, you see white collar workers leaving wor…

I think the article is basically about the opposite of romanticising blue-collar work. It's laying out how apprenticeships are already producing white-collar workers. In fact I don't think the existence of blue collar work is very apparent to the writer of this article, I don't know where have you seen any praise of blue collar work unless you've assumed it from the title.

However from the article it's clear that those apprenticeships remain tied to an older model of apprenticeship that doesn't seek to replace most of University, and most of University needs getting replaced more than reformed.

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

#466

Post by AmericanChopper »

azinman2 wrote: post #40
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…

It also grows the intellectual souls, exposing people to far more depth of thought. It also builds professional networks. If a person is smart enough to receive it, more education is almost always good. Of course money is a factor, and schools have gotten insanely expensive. I’m glad to hear that more people are finding alternative routes - it shouldn’t be that everyone needs college because quite frankly many career…

> grows the intellectual souls, exposing people to far more depth of thought

It’s honestly cringe when people talk about colleges as if they have some sort of monopoly on thinking. If you want to be intellect stimulated, then do intellectually stimulating things, like reading lots of books. Will Hunting was basically correct about library cards (though it’s not like you really even need libraries any more).

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

#467

Post by karmelapple »

jonathantf2 wrote: post #161

One thing these articles usually fail to mention is the fact that college/university is also a huge social experience. I'm a young person who took an apprenticeship instead of going to university - only one of my high school friends did the same as me, literally everybody else went onto university. I'm from a small town, there's not much going on and apart from when all my friends come back at Christmas and those few…

I must admit this was very useful for me, too. Not just for making friends, but living semi-on-your-own, having some familiar but mostly new faces, and the excitement of certain activities.

Since you didn’t choose that road, don’t beat yourself up, but make friends in other ways. Do you have meetups nearby? Attend them if so. If not, create them and see who might want to attend. Even advertise at a nearby community college or other means if possible.

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

#468

Post by sjs7007 »

seanalltogether wrote: post #237
varunjain99 wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd also add 4) A social / networking experience. As an adult, rarely will you interact so often with so many people of your age. 5. A signaling mechanism. I have X credentials so give me job Y. This is far from ideal because the signal can be noisy. But it is a data point. It's similar to how physics PhD's are targeted for quant finance roles - they've signaled they can solve hard problems!

I know so many people who don't keep in contact with high school friends, but still meet up with college friends from time to time. There's just something special about throwing a bunch of people of the same age into this melting pot that they chose to be thrown in to that creates these social networks that last a lifetime. Military friendships also seem to mirror this same effect

Well, it's also typically the last place you get the opportunity to make a whole bunch of friendships before heading out into the adult world where it requires much more effort.

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

#469

Post by karmelapple »

the_only_law wrote: post #375
clintonb wrote: post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I assume you work in software. How hard does the HVAC guy work? I wager if you compared wages earned per hour worked (not just employed), you come out ahead. You probably beat doctors and lawyers, too. Large salaries mean nothing if you don’t account for how much effort is expended to earn the money.

Yeah I had nurse friends who had impressive pay on paper, but we’re desperate to work in anything else because the shifts were hellish.

I don’t understand the hours expected of healthcare professionals in the USA. It sounds like madness and a definite route to burnout.

Why don’t the professional organizations and other groups mandate serious reform for this? Have more reasonable max hour stretches, etc. Are the difficulty of hospital handoffs primarily the source for the awful hours demanded?

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

#470

Post by ZephyrBlu »

danielvaughn wrote: post #198
zabzonk wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not to be rude or unsypathetic, but did you think that spending $80K was going to turn you into an artist?

I was a very good artist, and when I was 18 I genuinely believed that college would turn me into a professional artist. I'm not saying this to brag, but I did have a level of talent that I could have turned into a career. So it wasn't a crazy idea at the time. What I found, however, was that the education I received wasn't what I wanted or needed. In my senior year we were still being taught things that I had known s…

Yeah, for people who are talented the education portion of university is generally a waste of time at this point. University caters to people who are complete novices when they start the degree.
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