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I think another reason not addressed is that trade programs are expensive. Many schools really only have the space/money to have a couple of programs. My school had a “trade wing” that was built way after the original building, but programs had come and gone throughout the years. THey had one daycare center on campus that students and staff could use and students used to get training, but that had been closed by the time I arrived there. I think they still offered cosmetology and drafting. For stuff like mechanic work, electrician, culinary arts, plumbing- a lot of equipment is needed to help students train for the tasks.
There are other programs that are relatively inexpensive, but a lot of times they aren’t offered to many students. I know I worked as a sub in schools that had a medical program. The students would get training to work with the nurse, often getting their CNA or learning phlebotomy in the process.
In other countries, kids really only go through 9th grade before deciding what track to take in high school. At that point, they can pick schools that are focused on specific trades. We don’t really have that. That would allow for fewer schools offering each trade area instead of having the luck of the draw whether a student ended up in a school that offers the trade of interest.
Yes a lot of trade schools are very expensive most of these are private and the education you get isn't that great. Your high-end trades will be taught at a community college as well where they will be much cheaper.
I have heard from a lot of people from other countries that talk about high School curriculum that involves more career focused teaching and I like that idea but we don't do that.
People here in the US like to infantilize young people saying they don't know what they want and yes that can be true but maybe they don't know what they want because they were never faced with the option.
Isn't it amazing how many politicians and commentators who extol the merits of blue collar work and "trade schools" for other people's children send their own kids to the very institutions they claim aren't "worth the money"? Now, why would they do that???
This is simply untrue.
Not only do significantly more than 30% of Americans over 25 have at least a 4 year degree in 2021, but that percentage is even higher for the youngest group of over 25s. Between 2010 and 2019, the percentage of Americans who had at least a bachelor's degree rose from 29.9% to 36.0% (https://www.census.gov/newsroom/pres...ttainment.html). Among 25 to 29 year olds, 49% had at least an associate's degree in 2019 and 39% had a bachelor's degree or better. (https://nces.ed.gov/programs/coe/pdf/coe_caa.pdf).
There's also a strong correlation between educational attainment and income. The median weekly wage of Americans with a HS diploma but no college was less than $781/week in 2021 or $40.6k annually. With a bachelor's degree, the median wage was $1305/week or $67.9k annually. With a master's degree it increased to $1,545 ($80.3k annually), and for a doctoral degree, $1885 ($98k annually). The mean wage for a person with a professional degree was $1893 ($98.4k annually).(https://www.bls.gov/emp/chart-unempl...education.htm.)
The unemployment rates based on educational level fall as educational level increases. HS grads have an unemployment rate of 9% while 4 year college grads have an unemployment rate of 5.5% while doctoral degree holders have an unemployment rate of only 2.5%. (https://www.bls.gov/emp/chart-unempl...education.htm.)
Facts are pesky little things.
I have no problem with students pursuing a trade or an occupation that maybe only requires a short course of training in welding or cosmetology. Not everybody is intellectually oriented. Not everybody has the temperament to sit at a desk all day. IMO, it's better to work at something you like than to work at something you dislike or hate just because of $$$.
I do object to the fallacy that some posters keep spreading that the trades are lucrative careers. That a few tradespeople are highly paid doesn't mean it's the common. Most tradespeople are going to start out working at close to today's minimum wage and probably top off at the equivalent of $50-60k range in today's dollars. They are good alternatives for people who aren't interested in pursuing a career that requires college but they aren't a realistic pathway to big bucks.
Trades can be lucrative careers. And it's not just a few at the top. And no they don't pay highly skilled people $3 more an hour then they pay the teenagers that put your groceries in a bag.
You can wax philosophical about statistics all day long I've worked in trades for 20 years. Your statistics don't match my paychecks.
And at the end of the day it's not your statistics that matter to me it's my paycheck.
In the peak of the last trade I worked in I was making 120k a year and that wasn't by no means a master. Three of my colleagues made about the same.
The trade I'm going into it's possible to get up to 600k a year. These wouldn't be people with massive amount of skills or the elite these would be people that got all of these certifications. Which takes a couple of years. I spend a year and a half in school and go and work in the field for 10 years and I could be in that pay bracket. While med schoolers are just starting out in the residency.
So just you can Google a few things and repeat some statistics you read based on an aggregate of tradesman and doesn't mean you have the full story.
For me, there would be a lack of intellectual challenge; but that's why you and I chose different career paths.
[/quote] it's precisely this sort of elitist attitude why trades are looked down upon and it's mostly from people who have no idea what actually goes into the trade. And this is why a lot of the times people feel like they're getting ripped off.
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I'm agreeing with you i.e. not everyone should (or wants to) attend college.
I don't think you're agreeing with me my point is is college is probably a bad idea for most of the people going there.
Another trade path is military. Can’t speak for other branches but I did serve 8 years in the Navy. We had machinist, plumbers, welders, & firefighters all within the same division. My division worked with water pumps, oil pumps, boilers, electric generators, water purification, and other related equipment. Electricians on the ship worked from basic electrical up to rewinding motors and control panels for generator electrical distribution. There was also aircraft maintenance, hydraulics, electronics, and many other jobs that could easily be converted to a civilian job. My training in the Navy has helped me to get my current job at a hospital boiler room. Been here for 22 years. Not big pay but it’s been a steady paycheck with benefits.
I said that tradespeople started out at only a few dollars above minimum wage. Y'know, "starting out" is not the same as "highly skilled".
that's also incorrect, depending on the trade. I've never worked a day in any trade where I made less than double and a half of minimum wage.
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You are using your own situation as a barometer for all trades.
that's a straw man fallacy I never said all trades. You are misrepresenting my statement.
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Not all trades are created equal. Cosmetologists (ie, hair stylists), vet techs, LPNs, etc never make all that much money even when they're "highly skilled". Even EMTs aren't paid nearly what they're worth for the work they do. You are using your own situation as a barometer for all trades. My guess is that your trade is an outlier -- an unusual situation that's outside the norm for all tradespeople.
and argument against your straw man. But I agree not all trades are equal not all college educations are equal as well.
If EMTs were not paid what they were worth they wouldn't be EMTs. If you're willing to accept money in exchange for your skills or labor you are saying those skills and labor are worth the money being exchanged. There is no intrinsic or greater value.
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My youngest brother has only a high school diploma. He has a lot of different skills because he was a farm kid and you learn to do a lot of practical things around a working farm, but he wasn't hired because of those skills and hasn't used them at his job. It's a job that doesn't specifically require "hard skills" one would learn in high school or a trade school. He makes $100+k, has fully paid health benefits that will follow him into retirement, and a pension that will pay him 60-70% of his salary. His success doesn't mean that many or most people with just high school diplomas can duplicate his success. He's an outlier, too.
Same with someone who gets a bachelor's degree. Most people regardless of education don't make it to the top 10% of earnings.
To say that having a bachelor's degree somehow magically bestows this ability to reach this 10% is a disservice to people. I've met quite a few extremely well educated people who make less than minimum wage.
Let's not forget that since the 70s the country has developed an education industry that is connected at the waist to the banking industry.
The industry was created by a fat, barely regulated federal government program initiated by Senate Majority Leader Lyndon Johnson and renewed by then President Johnson eight years later. The history of this travesty has been chronicled in "The Debt Trap: How Student Loans Became a National Catastrophe" by Josh Mitchell.
"In 1982, a new executive at Sallie Mae took home the company’s financial documents to review. “You’ve got to be ****ting me,” he later told the company’s CEO. “This place is a gold mine.”
Over the next four decades, the student loan industry that Sallie Mae and Congress created blew up into a crisis that would submerge a generation of Americans into $1.5 trillion in student debt. In The Debt Trap, Wall Street Journal reporter Josh Mitchell tells the untold story of the scandals, scams, predatory actors, and government malpractice that have created the behemoth that one of its original architects called a “monster.”
The tale begins in 1957 with the launch of Sputnik. Afraid that America was falling behind the Soviets in science education, Congress created the first major federal student loan program to enroll more students in college. What followed were a series of well-intentioned government actions that created a cycle of reckless lending and runaway tuition. Easy access to loans allowed colleges to raise tuition to unheard of levels, which in turn led Congress to increase loan limits and interest rates and expand who could borrow. This spiral continued as the private banks that fronted the money made huge profits on interest. “Nobody was pure in this business,” one former college president said.
As he charts the gripping seventy-year history of student debt in America, Mitchell never loses sight of the countless student victims ensnared by an exploitive system that depends on their debt. Mitchell also draws alarming parallels to the housing crisis in the late 2000s, showing the catastrophic consequences student debt has had on families and the nation’s future. Mitchell’s character-driven narrative is required reading for anyone wanting to understand the central economic issue of our day."
that's also incorrect, depending on the trade. I've never worked a day in any trade where I made less than double and a half of minimum wage.
that's a straw man fallacy I never said all trades. You are misrepresenting my statement.
and argument against your straw man. But I agree not all trades are equal not all college educations are equal as well.
If EMTs were not paid what they were worth they wouldn't be EMTs. If you're willing to accept money in exchange for your skills or labor you are saying those skills and labor are worth the money being exchanged. There is no intrinsic or greater value.
Same with someone who gets a bachelor's degree. Most people regardless of education don't make it to the top 10% of earnings.
To say that having a bachelor's degree somehow magically bestows this ability to reach this 10% is a disservice to people. I've met quite a few extremely well educated people who make less than minimum wage.
College is about getting the job you want. If there are official degree requirements or cultural expectations of a degree for the job you want, you need college. If it's not necessary you don't need it.
Although the stats are pretty clear college is better than no college. Compared to high school diplomas only, the college educated have half the unemployment rate regardless of the quality of the economy, 40-100%+ more lifetime income, lower divorce rate, lower single parentage rate, lower incarceration rates, all of those by at least 50% and often 90%, and even higher life expectancy.
Hell, I would recommend going just for the dating options. I was in the Army so finished college late in my 20s. I can attest to the massive increase in the earning potential of college educated women versus the non college ones. The earning potential of the waitresses, hairstylists, dental assistants, office assistants etc... I used to date was much lower vs. the future or current teachers, lawyers, doctors, speech therapists, etc.. I was able to date post college. My net worth today would be a lot less if my wife was not able to match or exceed my income.
I am OLD. When I was growing up it was all about college. Now I know it is not only all about college. It is about your passion, and what your aptitude is. I’ve already posted about my grandchildren, who are engineers and nurses, and are doing well.
Plenty of kids can excel in technical school in any number of professions. The thing to do is to identify your strong points in high school, then build on that.
These days that isn't very wise. Having 60k in debt makes it more difficult
no averages don't matter my paycheck does. If I'm pulling in high six figures I don't give a crap about averages.
What does pay well mean?
1. You keep playing fast and loose with numbers, I'm not sure why. The average student loan burden per bachelors degrees is nowhere near $60K.
2. Averages, medians and ranges matter. Not understanding that is your problem not mine.
3. HVAC, electrical, plumbing, oil field, welders, brick layers, machinists, pipefitting etc. theses jobs pay better than hair stylists etc. and the former are dominated by men.
I'm not trying to be a jerk but how many women would be able to say wrestle an air handler into your attic or onto your roof and then install the thing?
actually loads of people do that. I don't take it personally frankly I think it's kind of funny.
On the fly problem solving - how can I sweat these two wet pieces of copper pipe? How do I take the flat spot out of this locomotive wheel? How can I get this string/rope through this 90 foot run of PVC in order to pull the wire? Should I use WEGOs or wire nuts? How can I wire these 2 - 12volt deep cycle batteries to output 24VCD?
What does "line" vs. "load" mean on the back of my GFCI receptacle? Why is it not OK to tie off ground to neutral at a receptacle or secondary panel when ground is directly bonded to natural in the main panel? In hot and neutral only circuits (no ground) how/why do GFCIs test "OK" when there is no equipment ground? And quizzically enough why is this situation better/safer than not having GFCI protection? How can I transition from 1" PEX to 1.5" schedule 40 PVC or thin wall or galvanized? Will I really kill this Zoeller pump running 1" drain pipe instead of 1.25"?
I've worked dirty in both the oilfield and industrial electrical construction, not to mention growing up on a ranch, and I still do 80% of my own plumbing (I have no desire nor the equipment to pump out primary sewage tanks) and almost 100% of my own electrical. There's a difference between reading plans or even devising your own plans and putting that info action and long term intellectually stimulating work.
I was trying to be nice. Here's a more direct version. I've done trade work - some fairly dangerous industrial electrical work as well and very dangerous oil-field work. It's interesting and for sure most please are not good enough with there hands to do either well. However, most trade work is not intellectually stimulating in the sense Corporate Cowboy means. It's just not.
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