Kids that go into trade schools and emerge with marketable skills, for jobs that pay excellent salaries, shouldn’t be the ones that are stigmatized.
The pointing and laughing should be at the idiots that emerge from universities with worthless, unmarketable degrees and hundreds of thousands of dollars in debt.
Plumbers make more than poets, I can assure you. And the plumber might be writing poetry at night. You never know.
Is it really the trade school that is the stigma or the blue collar worker the school produces that appreciates freedom and hard work, drives a pick-up with a Don’t Tread on Me sticker on the bumper with a gun rack in the back window. As opposed to your over educated university unemployed socialist Berner driving his Libaru with a crooked Co-Exist sticker on back.
You’re better off getting an AS in diesel mechanics, HVAC, welding, culinary, computer networking, electrical, or construction than getting a BA in any liberal arts now. The communists fucked colleges up, and skills are what matter in life, not the ability to spin bullshit. Far too many people doing that already.
While my two eldest sons have “marketable” college degrees and are financially successful, my youngest (Junior in high skrewl) is undecided about his plans and whilst he is doing very well academically, I have been talking to him about the need for tradesmen. We will always require plumbers, electricians, HVAC people, auto mechanics, etc. and there is excellent potential in these trades.
THIS DEGREE SUCK
“Speaking the truth in times of universal deceit is a revolutionary act.” Geo. Orwell
My son is going to college during the school year, then taking welding classes during the Summer break. I can imagine one day in the future when he’s working in a shipyard, and all his coworkers are razzing him about his college degree.
Robert Burns was a farmer.
Doing carpentry I make my money from people with college education’s. People in trades know other people in trades so they seldom call on me.
I remember back in the 80’s when there was a shitload of small independent trade schools funded by govt. grants that weren’t worth a shit! I recall meeting with a senior HVAC tech on a job who was trying to mentor one of these graduates of a so called trade school. My observation was this guy didn’t learn squat in that school but was sold some expensive tools in the process.
When I ran into the same tech again I asked if his rookie had made any headway. He said they had to let him go he turned out to be a liability, BUT it worked out even better for the rookie because he went to work at the trade school he attended as an INSTRUCTOR!
Not all trade schools are created equal, and the govt. should support qualified schools and not throw money at bad ones.
It all depends on what you want to do with the rest of your life. Ragging on college grads is just as silly as ragging on those successful folks that did not go to college, it is elitism from both sides converging to the middle.
The key is having options, being clear eyes about the cost of a college education, and figuring out that it is a path, but not the only path to gainful self satisfying employment.
It would be helpful to post some data on vocational starting salaries versus liberals arts college degrees and the trends after 10 years. Then, an overlap with how those incomes payoff school debt and when you breakeven.
Oh, I don’t get debt free until I’m 32 and am 7 years behind the vocational grad in income?
The ivory tower needs competition to improve their results and they should also provide recourse for students receiving federal assistance if they don’t perform.
If I had less than 100K
I could build a used WoodShop
Have built 2 in the Past
Produced some Awesome Works
Still have a couple
Some are in Amazing Places
If I had less than 100K
Could I tell my Story for 100K?
I would do it.
Wood you help me?
Jury Sticks
Proofs in the Pics
I’m still holding onto my hope of marrying a rich widow…..
There is a down side to the trades….I’m gonna be 62. My lower 7 vertebrae look like a stack of marbles with their gaskets sticking out. My neck vertebrae look like dry fusilli pasta. I need shoulder work, hip work and a new knee. My favorite wrist moves from the 10 pm angle to the 12am angle…..still holding out for that rich widow….
Willy – Be careful what you wish for. Most of the rich widows I’ve worked for had me thinking their husbands committed suicide.😉
I wanted to be a carpenter but that wasn’t good enough for my family. The field I chose in college wasn’t good enough according to my mother because women could only be teachers or secretaries according to her. Nurses were were 2nd rate in her opinion. While I enjoyed my field of study in college and had a career that paid very well and allowed me to retire at 53 I still wish I had gone to trade school. 2 degrees weren’t good enough either because I didn’t get a husband while at school. Twisted, twisted thinking. Meh pay no attention to my mini-rant
I re-enlisted for the welder training while I was in the army and never looked back. It’s been a great 37 years ago and it was a great decision.
It’s all what you make of it.
Back in the day, there was this plumber (who happened to be negro) and he said “I may be a nigger, but I’m gonna be a rich nigger! I can do some plumbing!” and he struck out on his own and formed a company and did, indeed, grow wealthy. AC guys, too. And auto mechanics. And there are those with BAs, MAs, and PhDs who are working at Starbucks serving shitty coffee.
A lot of people go into college cuz they’re lost and looking for a place to hide for a few years, sponging off Mom and Dad, till they can “find themselves.” They emerge just as confused as they entered – which isn’t surprising – and continue to be unemployable, unreliable, and generally worthless.
But that’s a personal choice.
There are dishonest, lazy plumbers, too. And AC guys. And electricians. And auto mechanics. And phone guys. And MOST Union guys.
We hear more about the worthless college people because they’ve amassed so much debt to institutionalize their worthlessness and they want others to pay for it.
izlamo delenda est …
While in college (I attended as an adult, mature, motheer, but decided on a practical business dgree. The students in my elective liberal arts courses, held the opinion that business school was actually vocational education. The laugh was on some of them. I had a job the next day after graduation and worked 25 years in a good paying career. Degrees in underwater basket weaving doesn’t get you very far. High schools here want their graduating seniors decided on attending college, trade school or enlistment in the military. One has to have a plan for the future. My VA benefits largely paid for my education, otherwise I wouldn’t had have the funds to further my education.
The “stigma”? If a (literally literal) card carrying NAMBLA member accuses me of being “a bad daddy”, am I (actually) “stigmatized”? Now, if you insist that NAMBLA is full of good people, then maybe you think I am. If you (claim to) know the type of people that carry NAMBLA cards are something other than good people, yet insist that I am “stigmatized” by them calling me “bad”, then I guess you’re just a “racist”.
It’s time to make a major change in the way student loans/grants are made (federally guaranteed/funded) that can ensure the country gets what it really needs and to stop students from piling on huge debt that will either never be paid or will cripple them for life.
If a student applies for a degree in Information Systems, Engineering, Finance, Chemistry (essentially the sciences, STEM or the ones are determined to be always in need for research, business, construction etc) gets a higher percent of the loan/grant applied for. The school chosen may also factor into this. Other degrees in Arts such as English, Political Science, get a smaller percentage and some degree programs will get an even smaller percentage such as Racial Studies programs (all of them), Gender Studies and whatever else is deemed pretty well useless.
Education in the trades will get full funding (again though, it has to be a real trade that is needed by the country at large).
The left, the banks, the teachers, the students and the colleges will scream like stuck pigs but that’s just too bad. They (and liberal politicians of all strips) got your country into a huge mess of garbage degrees, entitlement mindset, massive debt and ever rising tuition because the colleges know they’ll get their money regardless.
I managed to get a hard science degree, worked my way thru, without any student loans. I don’t actually use it, but it opens up a lot of doors, and looks nice hanging over my desk. If I could do it over… . I’d have found a way to join the IBEW out of high school, and be retired by now. I’d probably also be brainwashed & voting Demonrat… So there are tradeoff’s to consider…
went to vo-tech twice in the 70’s. Computer prog. and data processing that went nowhere because mommys aprons strings were still too tight. 2nd course 5 yrs later was ad design and commercial art and after taking protfolios to ad agencies none of us got jobs because the instructor was focused on fine art not commercial art but what did us kids know? He was canned after that year and another commercial printer came in and rescued the course. Then 4 yrs later I got my degree in respiratory therapy. BUT, vo-techs are fantastic and most kids should attend those because a college degree is worthless and we need skilled labor. I wish i knew a trade…
…I went to vocational school when I wanted to be a world-famous auto mechanic/guitar hero (I was only 16 – like YOU didn’t have unrealistic expectations at that age), and got the “auto mechanic” part done. I spent a couple of decades with that, even used it to work on emergency equipment during “down” times when I was a firefighter/medic, but I wanted to see if there was more, so I went back to college WHILE doing all this. (I was WAY younger, and NoDoz and Mountain Dew kept the need for sleep to a minimum).
Side note: knowing how cars were built helped me save lives literally when it came time to dig someone out of a car wreck, put out car fires, and generally deal with the foibles of automotive transportation on an emergency basis
I made it through school on low Dean’s list, but had MASSIVE problems with the nascent Political Correctness 101 courses they required, PLUS I figured out pretty early which profs would give high grades in exchange for saying Communist stuff.
Having done both, I can say with some authority that the vocational school was FAR more valuable.
They taught some very basic things that are GOOD for young people to learn BESIDES the course, like showing up on time, not sitting down EVER in the shop, etc., while universities impart things like “I can’t be racist because I’m Black” kind of stuff, and ENCOURAGED laziness as long as you had some stupid liberal excuse to go with it (couldn’t come to class all week, too worried about Reagan and South Africa were popular).
I program industrial robots now, among many, many other things, and it compensates me very well, performs a service that is useful, and isn’t boring…and I use those auto-mechanic skills every day.
…can’t say the same for the “Divest South Africa NOW!” ones the university tried to impart, and those REALLY didn’t do South Africans of ANY color any favors for those that DID apply those lessons…
Never graduated with a degree, went to a lot of classes, mostly as an audit.
If I needed some knowledge I would try and find it.
Wish there was the internet back then, does wonders for the autodidact.
Have an innate penchant for physics.
Retired at 55, supervising aerospace engineers.
I hated being a boss.
Now I putter in my half acre garden, invent in my 12ksq ft well equipped shop and enjoy life and my wife.
Did OK without a degree, if you can do it, do it.
Like the old meme says:
https://pics.me.me/megan-mark-got-a-4-year-degree-in-went-to-a-27565052.png
The truth is that the Marxists detest self sufficiency and individual capability taught by tradesmen.
They would much rather have humanities students to convert to useful commies.
I can do anything Supernightshade can do, only better
@Supernightshade can you hire me to run your secondary Lab? I work Nights and Day. Eggs and Peanuts are or are not a problem.
One man’s story. Got a 4 year degree in Geography then
a summer job at old Beth Steel and stayed. I went from
blast furnace labor to machinist to the last 10 years
in the company Fire Department. After almost 14 years
the bottom fell out and other blue collar work was paying 8-12 dollars per hour tops. I dusted off the Degree and
used it to qualify to take the test for a County
Planning and Zoning Office position and got the job.
I retired at age 61 after 26 years with a 3 year added early out bonus for a 29 year retirement. I get a sad monthly check from the steel mill federal bankruptcy ppl. for $142.09 and no benefits. I get a hell of a lot more
and good benefits from the County.
I saw both worlds and in the end the Degree saved my ass
as the P&Z hiring test required the “sheepskin”.
Keep your options open.