College Degree not cutting it as way out of poverty for many (credits, master's)
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Do you have some stats on the rate of grad school acceptance? The only ones that I know to be especially competitive are medical school and physical therapy school.
I don't think you know much about the tech field. I've been an observer these last 36 years of my marriage, and I would say that's untrue. Denver is a very techy town, and most people come here un-connected. In addition, I've never seen anything like that on the Denver forum, where people are constantly asking about job hunting.
In SF, NYC, and in LA, the best way to really make money in tech is to create or work for a new start up that either becomes big or that is sold. For that you need serious connections.
Also the best tech jobs (not talking about rank and file IT) go to people who graduated from top engineering programs.
There's a huge difference in opportunity for someone who graduated from City College (CUNY) and someone who graduated from Stanford.
Put it like this, you need comparatively high GPAs to get into any grad school, and depending on the program you need to score high on standardized tests. It's not like you can get in with Cs and Bs.
I think one problem no one is addressing is the number of people who go to college with absolutely no plan or intent. 18, middle class and white- BOOM- off to college you go regardless of your level of motivation. I know a lot of people who figured out what they really wanted to do at 24/25 but had either tapped out mom & dad or already accumulated too much debt to make a return to school/training feasible.
The other issue is that people constantly look down their noses at working class colleges and Tech schools. To the point that even some perfectly good schools try to chase down higher/prestige & ranking even at the expense of the students they were already serving. This whole if you don't go to an Ivy, atleast attend the flagship state school, join a fraternity set seems to disregard that time and again plenty of people have used a more basic/focused college to get a toe hold in a profession and work their way to success.
And can we all agree- going into huge debt for a borderline degree from a for profit school is the definition of insanity but those schools know how to target an audience like no other.
So honestly, why go out and get a bachelor's degree just to earn 5 or 10 dollars more per hour than a high school drop out, when it may take considerable resources that you may not have and that may put you seriously in debt.
This is why I keep pointing out how crucial it is to pick the right college major.
Someone with a B.S. in Chemical Engineering, for example, starts out making $69,500. The mid-career salary is $118,000. Those are the median salaries.
Those figures are obviously far higher than just 5 or 10 dollars more per hour than what the average high school dropout makes.
I think one problem no one is addressing is the number of people who go to college with absolutely no plan or intent. 18, middle class and white- BOOM- off to college you go regardless of your level of motivation. I know a lot of people who figured out what they really wanted to do at 24/25 but had either tapped out mom & dad or already accumulated too much debt to make a return to school/training feasible.
This was me to a T. At 18, I had no idea what I wanted to do. I was in multiple AP classes because I was told I was going to go to College no matter what. When I asked my advisor what would be a good subject to major in as I was completely lost, her response always was "Well what do you like to do? What's your passion?"
At 18, my passion was hanging out with my friends and horseback riding. I didn't want to own a farm or become a horseback riding instructor (nor was I talented enough to become one), so I was lost. Neither of my parents had attended College so they had little to no advice to offer. I entered my state's flagship University (SUNY at Buffalo), majored in Communications (for reasons I still can't remember) and wasted 2 years and nearly $20,000 there.
At the start of my Junior year I dropped out and took 5 years off. Just last Fall I returned to school and enrolled in the Business program at my school. After this semester I will be two years away from graduating with a dual Bachelors and Masters in Accounting so that I can obtain my CPA.
Why we push every single 18 year old immediately into College without a thought of giving them some time to consider and experience what life REALLY is like will remain a mystery to me.
This was me to a T. At 18, I had no idea what I wanted to do. I was in multiple AP classes because I was told I was going to go to College no matter what. When I asked my advisor what would be a good subject to major in as I was completely lost, her response always was "Well what do you like to do? What's your passion?"
At 18, my passion was hanging out with my friends and horseback riding. I didn't want to own a farm or become a horseback riding instructor (nor was I talented enough to become one), so I was lost. Neither of my parents had attended College so they had little to no advice to offer. I entered my state's flagship University (SUNY at Buffalo), majored in Communications (for reasons I still can't remember) and wasted 2 years and nearly $20,000 there.
At the start of my Junior year I dropped out and took 5 years off. Just last Fall I returned to school and enrolled in the Business program at my school. After this semester I will be two years away from graduating with a dual Bachelors and Masters in Accounting so that I can obtain my CPA.
Why we push every single 18 year old immediately into College without a thought of giving them some time to consider and experience what life REALLY is like will remain a mystery to me.
First of all, "we" don't do that. I've been frustrated beyond belief with this meme. The latest mantra is "career or college ready".
Secondly, speaking of career, what can 18-19 year old high school graduates reasonably expect to do if they don't go to college? Work in retail or restaurants, for the most part, that's what. There just aren't the jobs out there for high school graduates with no further education, including technical education.
You did not waste two years if you got decent grades. You got two years of schooling out of the experience. Congratulations on what you're doing!
According to the stats I posted upthread, you are an outlier. Most people who do what you did do not finish. Life intrudes. Marriage, family, mortgage all make it harder. Yes, I know, 10 people will probably jump on this and tell me about how they did it with three kids, blah, blah, but that's not the norm.
Excepting family/legacy/network paths, what else are 18 year olds supposed to do? It's not like employers are hiring high school graduates off the street for good career-type jobs.
They can go to work - the jobs out there are mostly service oriented and dead-end, but there do exist some half-way decent jobs if you're willing to stick out years of being bottom of the barrel. You can start out at a menial level job and work your way up to sales or something that can bring in some money. Like college, it is not instant - looking at years of investment and growth to move up.
They can join the military, IF they meet the requirements. This is not an option for everyone because the military is not taking everyone anymore - you have to meet height/weight reqs, pass health exams, etc.... I went that route..... looking back on it, I'm not sure if it was a good or bad decision. It put me on a different path had I just gone straight into 4 years of college. Not better, not worse. Different. It did give me a sense of purpose though, that quite frankly I've never felt since.
The trades? Again, physical requirements apply, so not an option for everyone. For women it's not easy to get into the still male dominated trades. It takes about as long as college if not longer to go from a minimum wage hand to an actual tradesman. C-D is full of trades fellatio, but from my experience that is only marginally better than the minimum wage, work-your-way-up path of retail or service. It is another "different" path, not better and not worse than college. But let's use logic here. If "the trades" were a real path to upper middle class success, would we not see more people getting into it? I don't care what propaganda is out there, if there was real money in it people would be chasing it, period. Those successful tradesmen with their own plumbing businesses, roofing businesses, etc.... are the outliers just like the Bay Area software developers.
If, (and this is a big if), the 18 year old has some kind of connection who can be a mentor - an uncle, cousin, SOMEone who has an "in" at a business, either their own or one they're part of, perhaps college is unnecessary. However, many of the proprietors in question would prefer their mentee to be college-educated.
Given the options out there, college is about as good as any for the typical 18 year old. I would only counsel a kid against college if they truly have no direction or ambition. It's not a good idea to be in college burning money in that circumstance. Even then, it is only a failure if you fail out. Degrees do not have to be, nor were they meant to be, "training" for a particular job. You pay a college for education and that's what they give you.
Excepting family/legacy/network paths, what else are 18 year olds supposed to do? It's not like employers are hiring high school graduates off the street for good career-type jobs.
They can go to work - the jobs out there are mostly service oriented and dead-end, but there do exist some half-way decent jobs if you're willing to stick out years of being bottom of the barrel. You can start out at a menial level job and work your way up to sales or something that can bring in some money. Like college, it is not instant - looking at years of investment and growth to move up.
They can join the military, IF they meet the requirements. This is not an option for everyone because the military is not taking everyone anymore - you have to meet height/weight reqs, pass health exams, etc.... I went that route..... looking back on it, I'm not sure if it was a good or bad decision. It put me on a different path had I just gone straight into 4 years of college. Not better, not worse. Different. It did give me a sense of purpose though, that quite frankly I've never felt since.
The trades? Again, physical requirements apply, so not an option for everyone. For women it's not easy to get into the still male dominated trades. It takes about as long as college if not longer to go from a minimum wage hand to an actual tradesman. C-D is full of trades fellatio, but from my experience that is only marginally better than the minimum wage, work-your-way-up path of retail or service. It is another "different" path, not better and not worse than college. But let's use logic here. If "the trades" were a real path to upper middle class success, would we not see more people getting into it? I don't care what propaganda is out there, if there was real money in it people would be chasing it, period. Those successful tradesmen with their own plumbing businesses, roofing businesses, etc.... are the outliers just like the Bay Area software developers.
If, (and this is a big if), the 18 year old has some kind of connection who can be a mentor - an uncle, cousin, SOMEone who has an "in" at a business, either their own or one they're part of, perhaps college is unnecessary. However, many of the proprietors in question would prefer their mentee to be college-educated.
Given the options out there, college is about as good as any for the typical 18 year old. I would only counsel a kid against college if they truly have no direction or ambition. It's not a good idea to be in college burning money in that circumstance. Even then, it is only a failure if you fail out. Degrees do not have to be, nor were they meant to be, "training" for a particular job. You pay a college for education and that's what they give you.
^^Agreed! If nothing else, by going straight to college, you will get some of your gen ed requirements out of the way. You usually have until first-semester junior year to declare a major. Even if you do drop out, you have a foundation.
Excepting family/legacy/network paths, what else are 18 year olds supposed to do? It's not like employers are hiring high school graduates off the street for good career-type jobs.
They can go to work - the jobs out there are mostly service oriented and dead-end, but there do exist some half-way decent jobs if you're willing to stick out years of being bottom of the barrel. You can start out at a menial level job and work your way up to sales or something that can bring in some money. Like college, it is not instant - looking at years of investment and growth to move up.
They can join the military, IF they meet the requirements. This is not an option for everyone because the military is not taking everyone anymore - you have to meet height/weight reqs, pass health exams, etc.... I went that route..... looking back on it, I'm not sure if it was a good or bad decision. It put me on a different path had I just gone straight into 4 years of college. Not better, not worse. Different. It did give me a sense of purpose though, that quite frankly I've never felt since.
The trades? Again, physical requirements apply, so not an option for everyone. For women it's not easy to get into the still male dominated trades. It takes about as long as college if not longer to go from a minimum wage hand to an actual tradesman. C-D is full of trades fellatio, but from my experience that is only marginally better than the minimum wage, work-your-way-up path of retail or service. It is another "different" path, not better and not worse than college. But let's use logic here. If "the trades" were a real path to upper middle class success, would we not see more people getting into it? I don't care what propaganda is out there, if there was real money in it people would be chasing it, period. Those successful tradesmen with their own plumbing businesses, roofing businesses, etc.... are the outliers just like the Bay Area software developers.
If, (and this is a big if), the 18 year old has some kind of connection who can be a mentor - an uncle, cousin, SOMEone who has an "in" at a business, either their own or one they're part of, perhaps college is unnecessary. However, many of the proprietors in question would prefer their mentee to be college-educated.
Given the options out there, college is about as good as any for the typical 18 year old. I would only counsel a kid against college if they truly have no direction or ambition. It's not a good idea to be in college burning money in that circumstance. Even then, it is only a failure if you fail out. Degrees do not have to be, nor were they meant to be, "training" for a particular job. You pay a college for education and that's what they give you.
Whose going to pay for college? Particularly for working class people, if there's not a clear path to monetizing the degree, WHY would the PAY for it.
My masters degree is a particular training for a certain kind of job. English teacher. Though I am a writer, I did not get a MFA because the job market for MFA's is too limited. I can still write with a MA in English Ed and have more job options. You need to consider your own resources when your pursue a degree.
Some bachelor's degrees like NURSING are training for particular jobs. Advanced degrees like MD (training for doctor), JD (training for lawyer), DDS (training for Dentist), Education masters (degrees) training for teachers, phds (training for professors in whatever field) are ALL for training in particular fields. They cost too much money and/or time for people to get them superficially.
Many people with bachelors degrees get DEAD end OFFICE jobs. So what if someone's an executive assistant (read secretary) or works in operations or data entry (read clerk). You make marginally more than people in retail or restaurants or bars, and added insult to injury many office jobs are now TEMP jobs.
First of all, "we" don't do that. I've been frustrated beyond belief with this meme. The latest mantra is "career or college ready".
Secondly, speaking of career, what can 18-19 year old high school graduates reasonably expect to do if they don't go to college? Work in retail or restaurants, for the most part, that's what. There just aren't the jobs out there for high school graduates with no further education, including technical education.
You did not waste two years if you got decent grades. You got two years of schooling out of the experience. Congratulations on what you're doing!
According to the stats I posted upthread, you are an outlier. Most people who do what you did do not finish. Life intrudes. Marriage, family, mortgage all make it harder. Yes, I know, 10 people will probably jump on this and tell me about how they did it with three kids, blah, blah, but that's not the norm.
Someone has to work in retail and restaurants. Those jobs are ESSENTIAL parts of our economy. Telling everyone to go to college to avoid these jobs is not sustainable for the economy.
There are plenty of crappy jobs out there that SOMEONE must do and they are attainable for high school graduates who don't have associates degrees or the credentials to do the trades.
The trades are very important to the economy as well. When things go wrong in my building, the super fixes it. For major plumbing work he calls a licensed plumber. I live in a building that was built by a variety people in construction, and I'm sure very few people involved had degrees (maybe the architects, engineers, lawyers, etc, but the physical labor is done with by either people with no degrees and no certification, under the direction of licensed electricians, plumbers, and other crew members).
The need for these jobs is huge, and they simply will not go away. Someone must do them.
Policeman, fireman, airport security, other forms of security must be done ,and these people generally don't have college degrees though they may need to have college credits. They have full health insurance and pensions. Sanitation guys have full health insurance and pensions and you don't need a degree for those jobs. Bus drivers and public transit train operators have excellent vacation and benefits, and they don't need degrees. Postal workers have excellent vacation and benefits, and they don't need degrees. Ditto for building inspectors. Welfare case workers in NYC do not have to have degrees, and they get healthcare, pensions, good vacations, etc.
So clearly there are career options for people with no degrees beyond restaurant and retail that pay more than the minimum wage AND that offer benefits, including PENSIONS.
[quote=Katarina Witt;43461907]^^Agreed! If nothing else, by going straight to college, you will get some of your gen ed requirements out of the way. You usually have until first-semester junior year to declare a major. Even if you do drop out, you have a foundation.[/QUOTE]
You're right here. And if that person decides that they want to return to finish their degree, it is made easier by them having a foundation.
There's no way around that.
However it's not sustainable for our economy to say every 18 year old should go to college. Most probably shouldn't. It's a huge waste of resources to encourage them all to go, and it causes major economic issues.
For starters, whose going to pay for it? Private universities are expensive and you are not guaranteed scholarship money. As for state schools, they too can be expensive and the public is not inclined to pay trillions more in taxes to make going to state schools affordable for everyone.
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