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Indeed, it may not pay of at all, so why try to encourage everyone to do well in school? If you like to study, fine, but if you don't, wants wrong with getting a manual labor, janitorial, or bartender job?
I don't think there's anything wrong with those jobs but what appears to be happening is that jobs are constricted at the top and then the qualified people who would be employed there look for jobs at a lower level which squeezes out the people who would normally take those jobs. So it seems as though the more qualification you have, the more job protection.
A friend of my husband's owns a chain of supermarkets and has a main office. He is getting much better quality people applying for jobs than he used to. People with college degrees are applying for positions that not too long ago he was asking for only a high school diploma.
My husband, years back, had a teaching degree. He actually made more in retail management. Then, he took a six months course in computers and now is doing very well in teaching the use of proprietary software to retail establishments.
I think it's good to continue some sort of training all your life. It's good to wear more than one hat. It is also wise to reach as high as you can, when young, regarding education.
Technology is obliterating so many blue collar jobs that it is forcing those who perhaps are not suited for college to advance that way. The highest unemployment numbers are in the not college trained jobs, so naturally parents want their children to go to college.
I get the impression that parents do not pay enough attention to their young children, when it may count the most, when good attitudes towards quiet study are best learned. In some countries parents send their pre schoolers to school and continue with tutors, on and off, when grades seem to be faltering in a certain area. It may be unpleasant, but it seems to be the best course.
How much education do you need to clean hotel rooms, or to carry luggage?
How much education do you need to be a doorman?
How much education do you need to work as a dishwasher?
How much education do you need to pour drinks?
How much education do you need to do deliveries?
These aren't trades, but they are jobs done by real people. Something you can't seem to acknowledge.
Not everyone who doesn't do well in high school becomes a criminal. Indeed, that is absolutely no excuse.
And yes, there are people who gasps, work in WalMart, McDonalds, Macy's, Target, etc.
You don't need a lot of education for a lot of jobs. That isn't the issue. The issue is who are you competing against? How many people are trying to get those jobs and what are their qualifications?
Whenever there are too many people vying for too few jobs there will be a lot of companies raising qualifications for jobs.
Yes and Writer is saying high school is a screen. In theory, yes it is a screen. But ifAmerica truly put that into practice we would have the same efficiency as Germany where big buff Gunther, Hans work in auto mechanics (because someone noticed that gene in them and steered them appropriately) and the more cerebral Petra, Manfred, Axel, are bank examiners and all 5 love what theydo and their incomes aren't wildly different because the nation of Germany itself refuses to have nation of wildly rich and wildly poor people. So they see a square peg they wanna put it into a square hole . Round peg round hole.
America seems to want to HAMMER every kind of square peg into round holes knowing full well it's unrealistic - and for what? Image? Thats gotta be it. Gotta keep the illusion alive. not sure when (decade) this American wackyness began but it's terribly outdated and was flawed from the start! (by wackyness Im referring to the idea of "college for all" ... Riiiiiiiight... eyes roll to the ceiling)
My conclusion/guess: Young not-naturally-erudite blacks and Latinos in America simply want the government to be straightforward with them and to guide them somewhat even if, for many, their employment destiny is pretty predictable. Like, at least "pretend to care". Instead, America treats them as triangular pegs (neither round or square) and leaves them to their own devices. It's a cycle with guilty parties on both sides ....and it's vicious.
But supposedly in our economy the harder it is to find qualified people for a job and the more difficult a job is, the more the person gets paid. If you got people in higher paying jobs, doctors maybe, you could train them to be auto mechanics, but not the other way around, so they get more money.
Who pays these people, anyway? You are talking about overhauling the entire economy, maybe? To move from our capitalist system to a more equitable one?
Now why do white kids, especially WHITE MALES, need help when compared to other groups? They are neither recent immigrants (on the whole), nor have they suffered in recent times (post 1960) from the intense bias that blacks and other non white groups have.
First of all my post there was directed towards all rural people regardless of race, I took great pains to express that, but you seem to have just glossed over it and refused to read it.
Second of all, white rural people are the ONLY acceptable targets of discrimination left in society. You can't make black jokes, you can't make hispanic jokes, Rosie O'Donnell might let you get away with an asian joke but that's pushing it...but you can bash those stupid inbred hicks all day long for how they look, smell, talk, think, or anything else, right? What recourse would some guy from Alabama with no teeth have if he didn't get a job he was qualified for vs. a non-qualified applicant from a better socio-economic background? None. Nobody cares about him, because it's not "cool" to care about him. It's cool to hate him and to harbor prejudices about him and to reject him based solely on what you think he is, how he looks, how he talks, and where he's from.
Why don't you go back and read what I actually wrote, you'd probably be in a better position to reply. My post was about how rural people of all races suffer because politicians don't get brownie points for helping them out the same way they do for helping the urban poor. Don't try to turn it into a race issue, it isn't, and I wasn't trying to make it one.
Wah WAH! White males this white males that!! Why don't you do a little math equation on Average white male IQ vs Earnings vs the Minority population you will see it not a racism issue but an intelligence issue.. And quit your crying and read a book
You don't need a lot of education for a lot of jobs. That isn't the issue. The issue is who are you competing against? How many people are trying to get those jobs and what are their qualifications?
Whenever there are too many people vying for too few jobs there will be a lot of companies raising qualifications for jobs.
You might talk to people who have been successfully hired in those jobs I mentioned. Many don't even have high school degrees. A lot of people may apply for those jobs, but even if hired, one has to be able to withstand the stress of doing that job. That's nothing a college degree can help with.
Who are you competing in these jobs? Illegal immigrants, people who dropped out of high school, people who have had colorful pasts (prison, substance abuse issues, etc.), people who just went to high school but didn't do so well, etc. You are not competing with the creme of the crop for these low end positions.
People like to pretend these jobs don't exist because they are low end and full of "uneducated" people. But low end people do all the ****ty jobs that have to be done (and they deserve respect for them just like anyone else).
By the way, companies don't always want the most qualified worker. They want the best fit for the job. I remember applying for clerical and paralegal positions in law firms. Their immediate concern, which they voiced, is what I would not commit to this position and instead apply for and go to either law school or grad school. So they wanted someone less qualified than me, because a qualified enough person can ditch a so so job like a hot potato at the first chance of a good opportunity. For obvious reasons, many employers hate that. Btw, I recently submitted my grad school applications.
If it wasn't for those evil white males, everyone in Africa/LAtin America would be dancing around fires rubbing each others bellies with a bowl hanging out of their lips.
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