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Old 02-08-2017, 09:13 AM
 
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Jorge ChemE View Post
Thank you for your answers. Now another question: Have you ever meet somebody that having a good family and financially supported that means can get a college degree has voluntarily wasted his/her life in terms of education and is low educated (top education level: high school or lower)? If so, tell me such stories.
My mom is the only one of her siblings that didn't graduate from college. She graduated from HS and shortly thereafter gave birth to my older sister. She is actually very intelligent but for whatever reason didn't want to attend college (even when my father wanted her to) and never wanted to get a job (even though we never had any money growing up.)
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Old 02-08-2017, 09:26 AM
 
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Original poster, do you consider anyone not having been to college as low educated? There are educational options beyond high school other than college, such as going to a trade school. Tradesmen and women can sometimes make a very good living and go through specialized training that can be pretty rigorous. Personally I am a college educated professional, but I come from a family of tradesmen who all make or made a very good living. I also have a lot of respect for what they do.

If there was a societal breakdown tomorrow my dad's skills as a mechanic would probably be more highly valued than the analytical skills I use at work!
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Old 02-08-2017, 09:39 AM
 
Location: Washington, DC
4,321 posts, read 5,118,352 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Jorge ChemE View Post
Thank you for your answers. Now another question: Have you ever meet somebody that having a good family and financially supported that means can get a college degree has voluntarily wasted his/her life in terms of education and is low educated (top education level: high school or lower)? If so, tell me such stories.
This might not fit your thesis Jorge but there are a huge number of Americans WITH college degrees who ultimately are low educated and have little to offer the job market. Many think the degree itself is the end of their education, these people cannot go far, lifelong learning is necessary now for good careers. Some are geographic losers, they live in areas without many good jobs and don't want to move. Some don't find work in their fields of study and waste more money on graduate education or give up trying to work.

Formal education too often is an expensive vacation. If I quit my job to get a Masters, my life would become 10x easier. Even on the job, the people always asking for formal training are inferior to those who research, dig-in, and learns things as they go (on the job or at home).
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Old 02-08-2017, 09:51 AM
 
Location: Spaniard living in Slovakia
853 posts, read 644,112 times
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Thank you for your answers again. Now I will be more specific with examples of my own family, maybe you know similar cases and this is what I am looking for.

The best example I have of someone who is financially supported and could have studied but did nothing with his life is my brother in law. He is married with my sister, 32 but some months later will be 33. He is colombian and I am very ashamed of that... you can't believe what you are reading... He haven't finished the high school! neither have worked more than a couple of months all that time!. I dare not tell my sister, how can someone want to support this guy? My sister is a nurse working in a private clinic of fertility treatments, she usually works 15 days in a row, sometimes from monday to sunday, they live thanks to my sister's incomes. Another further case is the new husband of my aunt's sister, he is divorced with a daughter studying economics but he, having worked in his home country, Uruguay, is doing nothing with more than 50. So, certainly, we also have several problems with latinos...

I want to know about similar cases, yes!, I have researched and I have the word, in spanish is Nini (ni estudian ni trabajan) in english this term seems to be NEET (Not in Education, Employment or Training) but I want to focus on those cases that are also poorly educated. My brother in law, his name is Steven. Do you know more cases in United States like Steven?
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Old 02-08-2017, 01:52 PM
 
Location: East Bay, San Francisco Bay Area
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The ones that were either too poor to afford, or did not get a chance to complete
their formal education. The effects usually do not affect you when you are very young (20's), but later in life, you will find that you do not have the intellectual capital to compete for higher paying positions.

Education and wealth + future socioeconomic status are highly correlated. A great college education helps with upward mobility into the upper-middle class or higher.
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Old 02-08-2017, 03:18 PM
 
1,955 posts, read 1,749,526 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Dopo View Post
The kind that elected Trump

There are plenty of people like Steven in the US - people that didn't finish school, don't work, and expect someone else to support them. We call them "moochers". They either live off of their parents, or a spouse, or the government.

Last edited by toobusytoday; 02-08-2017 at 05:50 PM.. Reason: removed off topic comment
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Old 02-08-2017, 04:24 PM
 
Location: colorado springs, CO
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Sure; this entire country is FULL of "Stevens" ... In fact; I had 5 kids with "Steven".

Well, actually, his name was Mike but you understand.

I mentioned my mother, who is a PhD in BioChem. All of her siblings (2 sisters & 1 brother) were extremely high acheivers & this was directly influenced by their culture (vs despite it). Mom is first generation American born Greek. Her dad immigrated in the 1910's at age 14 with literally nothing but the shirt on his back. Her mom arrived about 10 yrs later to marry him. My mom & her siblings grew up between the Greek communities of Denver & Chicago.

There were no "free preschool with ESL" programs back then (late 40's-early 50's) so my mom started learning on her 1st day in the public schools in Denver.

For her, her siblings, her cousins & every first generationer in the Greek communities; failure was NOT an option. The elders from the Old Country were very proud Greeks but felt blessed to become American citizens. America, was seen as the land of opportunity & they had not fled Greece to watch their kids do "so-so".

My mom graduated HS at age 16 & went on to attain 3 degrees, including her PhD in BioChem, my uncle is a Dr/DDS & PhD in Immunology & my late aunt was a PhD in Immunology/Genetics & still holds 14 patents for the developement of the HIV vaccine.

What my family did is amazing if you consider that the girls, especially; were 1 generation away from being married off in an arranged marriage at age 14 like their mothers & grandmothers had been. Basically, in the US; there are no excuses for becoming "Stevens", no matter where, or who you "come from".

In some families there may not have been alot of parental involvement towards demanding success. Maybe some of it is delayed maturity; todays 24 yr olds seem to be at the level of the 14 yr olds from 100 yrs ago.

And yes; every once in a while a kid comes along who does better without having had an education than maybe he would have with but thats getting rarer. Nobody wants to pay a skilled tradesman what they are worth & they don't even really have to.

It's unlikely that you will find a way to motivate your Steven. Hopefully Steven will motivate your sister to motivate his rear to go on his way. It took me 7 years to get rid of mine.(mike aka steven).. Some smarts you have to learn the hard way; I was educated but it didn't stop me from making some dumb choices.
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Old 02-08-2017, 04:38 PM
 
Location: Backwoods of Maine
7,487 posts, read 10,452,568 times
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People are not all the same. Some of them are smarter than others, and some of them have career interests that do not require college. There are some very bright people who just do not like school. They may have issues with authority, or are just the types who think outside the box. Often they are dedicated to their careers and make very good money.

I have seen college grads who were among the stupidest people of all. Going to college is no guarantee of success today. It never was. There are too many young people being shuttled off to college, who don't belong there. After graduation, they work in call centers or as baristas and complain about their student loans.

The term "not college material" has been abandoned. You go figure.
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Old 02-08-2017, 08:42 PM
 
Location: North West Arkansas (zone 6b)
2,776 posts, read 3,227,392 times
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typically poor families where the kid needs to start working at an early age to help the family. People with learning disorders might not continue past high school.

I had a friend in high school who chose to go work as a bag boy at the local grocery store instead of going to college, but I knew he was fairly poor and probably couldn't afford to go to college which is never free unless you get a scholarship.

Another friend who chose to go to the military instead of school. Not sure whatever became of those folks but I also have a few college friends who wound up out of jobs for years, so maybe there's no real difference for completing college (I know this is untrue so I'm retracting that statement).
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Old 02-08-2017, 09:23 PM
 
Location: Marin County, CA
787 posts, read 639,818 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Jorge ChemE View Post
Hi,

I am curious to know what kind of people have only elemental/high school education in the US. This thread is not intended to be racist or discriminatory. I am not from US but interested to know about the american society.

Thanks!
Uneducated people, obviously.


If you want to delve further into it, you really can't avoid racial and discriminatory topics, because once we begin to analyze who the uneducated are, and who the poor are, we can no longer ignore the demographics.




But a bigger point to make, as MLK once alluded to, is that formal education isn't worth much if you are still an uneducated and unintelligent person after being formally educated, and trust me there are thousands of people who have a degree on the wall but are both uneducated and unintelligent, all you have to do is listen to these people attempt to reason critically.
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