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nope. everyone i know from high school who dropped out of college is back in the hometown working at the local chain pharmacy, waitressing, trying to go back to school. even the military folk aren't doing much.
jtur must be doing really well, he's on C-D all hours of the day posting things I may or may not agree with. Obviously it's something that leaves him with a lot of spare time
Just to be on topic, I've had a few friends that are doing really well for themselves. They either went and got EMS training, joined the military (for a few years, and now the military is paying for their expensive nursing/engineering degrees) and even know a girl or two that have gone to beauty school and get paid pretty well.
If you mean "making a lot of money", then one can work in sales, and get commissions. If you mean "content with where they are in life", I think you should be able to find quite a few of those. I know of stay at home mothers who are perfectly happy with where they are.
You mean happy and successful living in the rat race? Haha, anybody can join that, with or without college. But a degree sure makes it easier to join the rats.
I'd say the majority of people living outside the rat race aren't using their degrees...just a giant hunch on my part.
dropped out of college and are making a decent living? What do they do?
I have 2 friends like this:
One went into a union welding job after high school. He makes about $36,000/year.
The other became a lineman with the local power authority. He makes $70,000/year base salary.
Me and my friends are all in our early 20s living on Long Island. Both of my friends make at least twice as much as I do (my annual salary depends on how much I work and ranges from 12 - 16,000/year depending on my school schedule, life, etc) considering that I only work a part time job, and I am a full time college student on top of it.
I have a friend that dropped out of high school to take over his father's construction company. Of course he will end up making alot more than me with a college degree.
I'd argue that college is a joke on the American people, in general of course; this doesn't apply to the cutting edge science that is performed at top universities, but it does to pretty much any other of these "fields of study". College is just another form of the easy way out. Let me explain:
You keep hearing everywhere things like:
"I wish I could go to college so I could get a BETTER job"
"I have my associates, but a bachelor's degree would open so many doors"
"That place won't even grant you an interview without a BA in anything"
"Maybe I should go back and get my master's degree. I was a good student"
Opening doors to what exactly? Doors to the rat race? The top professions that require the MOST schooling are doctors, lawyers etc who top out at what 100-500k a year, paying 38% of that in taxes each year? But that's after a decade of loans, working for no pay, working extra long hours. So if this is the so-called tip of the iceberg, because it has to be if it's the most grueling field of study at college, then what about all these other degrees? What slice of the pie could they ever get you? 40k, 60k, 80k, 120k? Oh wait, but it puts you in 100k of debt out of the gate.
But at least you are securely placed in the world of debt, that old friend, that secure world of debt. Forced to stay at your job to pay off that debt that opened all these doors...well these doors are leaving people unskilled and useless and scared- and it's not their fault, it's what we're all programmed to do the first day of public school.
So I understand that venturing off into the world and pursuing TRUE interests is terrifying, but so is telling your offspring that college will open doors that it cannot. You still have to network yourself to the right people anyway, with or without college. Need proof? Look at all the college graduates unemployed. There are tens-hundreds of thousands of them.
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