# College Is Not For Everyone **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [September 23, 2010, 7:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/college-is-not-for-everyone/554801 "2010-09-23T19:17:58Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Shagnasty](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9dc877/32.png) [@Shagnasty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shagnasty)\ **Post date:** [September 23, 2010, 11:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/college-is-not-for-everyone/554801/21 "2010-09-23T23:20:17Z")
> [@even\_sven](#): > > My problem with these arguments is that they always end up “College isn’t for everyone. Well, of course college is the right choice for _me_ and my children. I guess I’m talking about those guys over there…college isn’t for them!” > > Nobody is ever willing to say “Yeah, I’m going to encourage my kid to become a plumber.” It’s always about wanting someone else to encourage their kids to go into the lucrative field of manual labor. Everyone is full of enthusiasm for how awesome the future of trade-school grads is, but oddly nobody wants to choose this path for themselves. It’s fun’n’easy to make other people’s choices for them, especially when the expected results would benefit you (by making your degree rarer and more valuable.) **even sven** , I am one of your biggest supporters despite having a different outlook on things. I can see your point most of the time but I don’t believe what you are saying here. You are being insulting to the skilled blue-collar trades here for one thing and I think that the good ones have more prestige than your random college grad without some other good plans and directions. They also tend to make more money which is what really talks. Anyone can weld steel to steel but true welding is both and art and a highly in demand technical specialty that can pay well into the upper-middle class range just on rates alone. Good plumbers aren’t just glorified handymen. Lots of them own their own businesses and can branch off into lots of different types of specialty work and command high pay accordingly especially once they get people to work under them. There are lots of bad construction contractors but the really good ones get the respect and pay that goes along with that. I have a college degree but I work in a factory myself as a consultant. I get a big office but I still have to wear steel-toed shoes to work everyday because I am out on the floor a lot sometimes getting dirty. Engineers with masters degrees from prestigious schools have to do the same. I don’t know why people knock the more hands-on work. You can easily make 6 figures in the trades if you build it up over time and have some brains. If you don’t have brains, you can just be reliable and always have some sort of work waiting for you. An accomplished cabinet maker has much more prestige in my mind than a random person with only a liberal arts degree to their name. What’s the real difference between an artist and an artisan anyway? I wouldn’t have any problem with my daughters choosing a technical trade especially these days if they like more hands on work. There is lots of room for growth in many trades, even creative ones. That beats an MRS degree or a poorly defined liberal arts goal any day. I do think there are lots of people going through undergraduate school that shouldn’t be there. It would be a fine experiment if resources were unlimited and everything was free but it doesn’t work that way. ---
**Author:** ![suranyi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e36b37/32.png) [@suranyi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/suranyi)\ **Post date:** [September 23, 2010, 11:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/college-is-not-for-everyone/554801/22 "2010-09-23T23:29:04Z")
Of all the days for a thread like this to start, today a study was published which showed that the economic benefits of a college education are higher than ever: [http://www.ncpa.org/sub/dpd/index.php?Article\_ID=19850](http://www.ncpa.org/sub/dpd/index.php?Article_ID=19850) “Workers with a college degree earned much more and were much less likely to be unemployed than those with only a high school diploma, according to the report” ---
**Author:** ![Zsofia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/7bcc69/32.png) [@Zsofia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zsofia)\ **Post date:** [September 23, 2010, 11:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/college-is-not-for-everyone/554801/23 "2010-09-23T23:42:14Z")
But do any of those studies compare college educations with _skilled_ trades? Not my gardener, my plumber. My plumber would make a _hell_ of a lot more money than I do if he didn’t have three ex-wives. ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [September 23, 2010, 11:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/college-is-not-for-everyone/554801/24 "2010-09-23T23:45:21Z")
I came in here to say more or less what **Shagnasty** said. Why do people think that someone who would party for four years of college would have made a good plumber? (My grandfather was a plumber, so the career is near to my heart.) You also need quite a bit of skill in those trades, and not everyone can do them. My brother, with a degree (in family planning) actually worked for years as a car mechanic before he got into IT. He was good at it, I wouldn’t be. I also suspect that many people who would be good in the trades would major in engineering, not English Lit. My district has a spanking new and beautiful VoTech high school for people who want to go that route, and it was an excellent investment. But if you try to direct too many people that way you are going to glut the market with bad plumbers. It is not like plumbers and welders are guaranteed jobs, any more than English majors are. ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [September 23, 2010, 11:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/college-is-not-for-everyone/554801/25 "2010-09-23T23:47:47Z")
> [@Zsofia](#): > > But do any of those studies compare college educations with _skilled_ trades? Not my gardener, my plumber. My plumber would make a _hell_ of a lot more money than I do if he didn’t have three ex-wives. Then to be fair you’d have to remove the people not majoring in lucrative fields from the college population. ---
**Author:** ![even\_sven](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/dfb087/32.png) [@even\_sven](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/even_sven)\ **Post date:** [September 23, 2010, 11:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/college-is-not-for-everyone/554801/26 "2010-09-23T23:48:32Z")
I agree that many trades can provide a good living and can be fulfilling on a number of levels. I agree that anyone who wants a trade-school education should get one, and that is a perfectly valid path. What I object to is the idea that some unspecified “those people” are making an irrational decision to go to college and need our loving guidance about how to run their lives, whereas our own decisions to go to college is of course perfectly reasonable. If it’s such a good idea, why don’t you be the first to sign up? I may be a bit het up about things, because I had numerous people over the course of my life- from guidance councilors to my own family- try to convince me that despite excellent grades I was not college material because finances were tight. If well-meaning people had had their say in my future, I’d probably be a secretary right now and I think the world would be missing out on a lot of what I have to contribute. ---
**Author:** ![Shagnasty](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9dc877/32.png) [@Shagnasty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shagnasty)\ **Post date:** [September 23, 2010, 11:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/college-is-not-for-everyone/554801/27 "2010-09-23T23:57:37Z")
> [@suranyi](#): > > Of all the days for a thread like this to start, today a study was published which showed that the economic benefits of a college education are higher than ever: > > [http://www.ncpa.org/sub/dpd/index.php?Article\_ID=19850](http://www.ncpa.org/sub/dpd/index.php?Article_ID=19850) > > “Workers with a college degree earned much more and were much less likely to be unemployed than those with only a high school diploma, according to the report” There is always a big screwup in that argument however. For poorly defined groups, it is completely true. You won’t ever make much money in the U.S. bouncing around retail jobs or taking calls in call centers. There is a very different side to that however. If you raise a reasonably bright and responsible child, what is the better choice in money terms: a degree in philosophy or becoming specialized in a skilled trade. I would argue the latter is a better choice. My brother is an industrial electrician and I have a friend coming to see me in a couple of months who own his own welding business. They certainly aren’t hurting for money and both are solidly middle to upper-middle class despite the blue collar nature of their jobs. Let’s not glorify white-collar jobs too much either. There are plenty of people making 6 figures who sit all day in a cubicle much smaller than a jail cell. The vast majority of the work they do is downright secretarial as well. The only difference is that they get to decide what to type a little more than old-school dictation. Some of those don’t produce much of anything tangible but they are a manufactured class so they hang around. The amount of white-collar “dead-weight” killed off during this recession is extreme and where much of the reality-check is coming from. There are simply too many thinkers and not enough doers around. I chose my current job because it is a white collar job with a mix of blue-collar elements and impossible to outsource offshore. That is a huge consideration in a global economy and lots of people don’t understand that. ---
**Author:** ![WhyNot](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/c77e96/32.png) [@WhyNot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WhyNot)\ **Post date:** [September 24, 2010, 12:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/college-is-not-for-everyone/554801/28 "2010-09-24T00:09:17Z")
> [@even\_sven](#): > > My problem with these arguments is that they always end up “College isn’t for everyone. Well, of course college is the right choice for _me_ and my children. I guess I’m talking about those guys over there…college isn’t for them!” _cough cough_ Oh, excuse me, I was choking on all that straw from your man. 😉 I’ve consistently said on this board that my son probably isn’t cut out for college. Don’t get me wrong, he’s a great kid, very bright, and getting good grades in the college level classes he’s taking right now as part of his Charter high school. Still, I don’t think he’s cut out for college, and I haven’t since he’s been in about sixth grade. His writing skills are barely passable, his interest in Humanties and Liberal Arts is nil and, more to the point, he’s just not interested in academia. He’s a hands on kid who likes hands on stuff. He’s been taking things apart and putting them back together, mostly successfully, since he was a tot. Now, he’s thinking about Engineering, which is fine and does require a college degree these days, and I’m encouraging him to explore that option because it’s what he wants. But I’ve also told him that if it doesn’t work out (which I privately think it won’t - he’s sort of meh about his current Physics class, for one), then there are lots of things I think he’d be fantastic at - being a mechanic, a contractor, a carpenter, a machinist, etc., etc. - that may or may not require him to sit through another four years of English and Humanities classes in college. They’re all very skilled fields that would be a good fit with his spacial intelligence and manual dexterity skills, and if he’s good at any of them, he can make a fine living for himself. Now, am I in the \*minority \*as a parent not hoping he goes to college specifically? Perhaps. But I’m not alone, either. “Always” is a pretty big word. ---
**Author:** ![Zsofia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/7bcc69/32.png) [@Zsofia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zsofia)\ **Post date:** [September 24, 2010, 12:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/college-is-not-for-everyone/554801/29 "2010-09-24T00:12:29Z")
I think that what somebody upthread said is very true - kids don’t necessarily _know_ about skilled trades. How many sixteen year old boys know what a pipefitter is? A lot of people might not take on student loans for a degree they’ve been told they have to have if they know there’s an alternative between office work and ditch digging. ---
**Author:** ![Eva\_Luna](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/e495f1/32.png) [@Eva\_Luna](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Eva_Luna)\ **Post date:** [September 24, 2010, 12:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/college-is-not-for-everyone/554801/30 "2010-09-24T00:25:19Z")
> [@Zsofia](#): > > I think that what somebody upthread said is very true - kids don’t necessarily _know_ about skilled trades. How many sixteen year old boys know what a pipefitter is? A lot of people might not take on student loans for a degree they’ve been told they have to have if they know there’s an alternative between office work and ditch digging. Seriously. My first job after college was doing vocational counseling/retraining/job placement for Soviet refugees. The East Bloc had, and still has, a much stronger tradition of vocational and technical education than the U.S. (mostly 2- and 4-year schools instead of 5-year university programs that were really more the equivalent of a Western M.A.) The grads of some of those programs in machinery repair/installation, tool and die making, etc. were the absolute easiest people to place in jobs, because the U.S. simply doesn’t produce enough people with solid training in those fields. The high school I graduated from sends something like 80% of its grads on to higher education (at least initially). This society simply doens’t need 80% white-collar workers. The U.S. educational system largely ignores a huge hunk of midlevel jobs. It’s silly and conterproductive. ---
**Author:** ![MaddyStrut](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/dbc845/32.png) [@MaddyStrut](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MaddyStrut)\ **Post date:** [September 24, 2010, 12:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/college-is-not-for-everyone/554801/31 "2010-09-24T00:34:38Z")
> [@Martin\_Hyde](#): > > Just as a data point one of the prices I saw in my personal life from _not emphasizing the skilled trades_ is that many people I knew didn’t know the opportunities that were out there. I went to school in a redneck, poor, backwards part of Virginia. A lot of guys I knew _hated_ school, they hated doing paper work, they hated having to sit at a school desk all day. They hated having to learn about history, social studies, and all kinds of other boring stuff they weren’t interested in and would never want to know about. > > … > > What happened to those guys is many of them ended up working _fucking shit_ minimum wage jobs into their mid 20s. If people had made them aware of trade schools at graduation, I think things would have been different. Several of those guys are in skilled trades now, but they lost 5 years because they weren’t properly informed about their options. Or they could grow up in a middle class family like my brother, who hated school, books, all of it. But he went to college because \*of course \*you go to college in my family. He farted around from school to school for six years or so before finally dropping out and tending bar, etc. for several more years. As you mentioned, he had no idea what career opportunities were out there besides the college vs. tending bar/running a cash register paths. Finally, in his 30’s, he got into diesel mechanics and is happy and financially solvent. He’s not unintelligent or anything. He’s just not someone who wanted to go to college or wanted the type of career you get from college. ---
**Author:** ![Mozart1220](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/f1d935/32.png) [@Mozart1220](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mozart1220)\ **Post date:** [September 24, 2010, 2:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/college-is-not-for-everyone/554801/32 "2010-09-24T02:49:25Z")
College is not for everyone, but it should be availiable to anyone who wants it. ---
**Author:** ![suranyi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e36b37/32.png) [@suranyi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/suranyi)\ **Post date:** [September 24, 2010, 4:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/college-is-not-for-everyone/554801/33 "2010-09-24T04:02:00Z")
> [@Shagnasty](#): > > > [@suranyi](#): > > > > Of all the days for a thread like this to start, today a study was published which showed that the economic benefits of a college education are higher than ever: > > > > [http://www.ncpa.org/sub/dpd/index.php?Article\_ID=19850](http://www.ncpa.org/sub/dpd/index.php?Article_ID=19850) > > > > “Workers with a college degree earned much more and were much less likely to be unemployed than those with only a high school diploma, according to the report” > > There is always a big screwup in that argument however. For poorly defined groups, it is completely true. You won’t ever make much money in the U.S. bouncing around retail jobs or taking calls in call centers. There is a very different side to that however. If you raise a reasonably bright and responsible child, what is the better choice in money terms: a degree in philosophy or becoming specialized in a skilled trade. I would argue the latter is a better choice. My brother is an industrial electrician and I have a friend coming to see me in a couple of months who own his own welding business. They certainly aren’t hurting for money and both are solidly middle to upper-middle class despite the blue collar nature of their jobs. > > Let’s not glorify white-collar jobs too much either. There are plenty of people making 6 figures who sit all day in a cubicle much smaller than a jail cell. The vast majority of the work they do is downright secretarial as well. The only difference is that they get to decide what to type a little more than old-school dictation. Some of those don’t produce much of anything tangible but they are a manufactured class so they hang around. The amount of white-collar “dead-weight” killed off during this recession is extreme and where much of the reality-check is coming from. There are simply too many thinkers and not enough doers around. I chose my current job because it is a white collar job with a mix of blue-collar elements and impossible to outsource offshore. That is a huge consideration in a global economy and lots of people don’t understand that. Of course there are exceptions: This whole thread has provided examples of people in blue collar jobs with skills who make very good money, and we all know about people with college degrees who, perhaps because of their choice of major, are stuck in dead-end jobs. And of course every individual has to make the best decision he or she can, based on what is known about his/her interests and capabilities. But the bottom line is that on the average, a college graduate will earn much more money over the course of his/her life than someone who has nothing more than a high school diploma and – this is the key point of this study – this difference is increasing, not decreasing. ---
**Author:** ![Inbred\_Mm\_domesticus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/aca169/32.png) [@Inbred\_Mm\_domesticus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Inbred_Mm_domesticus)\ **Post date:** [September 24, 2010, 7:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/college-is-not-for-everyone/554801/34 "2010-09-24T07:55:08Z")
> [@suranyi](#): > > But the bottom line is that on the average, a college graduate will earn much more money over the course of his/her life than someone who has nothing more than a high school diploma and – this is the key point of this study – this difference is increasing, not decreasing. This thread isn’t about people who stopped at a high school diploma. This thread is about people who train in a skilled trade. Mechanics, plumbers, machinists, electricians, welders, etc. all have an education they earned after their high school diploma. There is nothing about the recommendation to seek out a trade as a career that dooms a person to the “high school diploma only” category. You shouldn’t be lumping these together. ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [September 24, 2010, 12:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/college-is-not-for-everyone/554801/35 "2010-09-24T12:35:43Z")
[Steel-toe boot](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E3oPWQUOcm8) documentary. ---
**Author:** ![msmith537](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/d9b06d/32.png) [@msmith537](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/msmith537)\ **Post date:** [September 24, 2010, 12:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/college-is-not-for-everyone/554801/36 "2010-09-24T12:49:57Z")
> [@Eva\_Luna](#): > > The high school I graduated from sends something like 80% of its grads on to higher education (at least initially). This society simply doens’t need 80% white-collar workers. The U.S. educational system largely ignores a huge hunk of midlevel jobs. It’s silly and conterproductive. Given that the number of adult males with college degrees is like 15-30%, I would say your school is not a representative cross section of America. I’m assuming that it is probably in a mostly white, affluent town? I have to agree with **Inbred Mm domesticus**. There are two issues here: 1. Does an advanced degree prepare students for being productive members of society after graduation (and is the cost worth it)? 2. Is there a value to higher education in and of itself? WRT to the second point, I believe there is a value to going to college just for the sake of going. It provides an opportunity for many people to become exposed to people and ideas that they would not normally have been exposed to between the ages of 18 and 22. It provides a somewhat protected forum for those students to explore those new ideas and relationships. As for how well it prepares students for the real world, I think there is much to debate there. When I was applying to colleges in the late 80s, the expectation seemed to be that you go to college because you had this vague notion of graduating and pursuing a relatively lucrative career in a large company. People had notions that they would become engineers, lawyers, accountants, doctors, or whatever. Even if they didn’t know, you just sort of assumed you would figure it out by graduation. My university was founded with the purpose of training future managers and executives for the nearby steel companies. A combination of factors, including economic conditions over the past several decades (dot com bubble for high tech workers not withstanding), an increase in wealth of our more affluent demographics, exploding education costs and a growing sense of American entitlement has created a sort of elitist class structure out of our higher education system. Kids are going to college without even a vague notion of doing ANYTHING after graduation. They just expect someone to hand them a high-paying job. There’s also an expectation that if you have a college degree, jobs where you actually “do stuff” are now beneath you. I see nothing wrong with getting a liberal arts degree at Harvard and becoming a highly educated auto mechanic. Although mechanical engineer seems like a more logical degree choice. But the fact is that person would probably be looked at as a “failure” and a “waste” for not parlaying his degree into a lucrative job at a hedge fund. ---
**Author:** ![shiftless](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e9c0ed/32.png) [@shiftless](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/shiftless)\ **Post date:** [September 24, 2010, 12:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/college-is-not-for-everyone/554801/37 "2010-09-24T12:52:00Z")
The opportunity to go to college IS for everyone. It’s not useful for everyone to go and many people would be better served if we had more trade programs, for example. Everyone should have the opportunity to go to those too. ---
**Author:** ![hobscrk777](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/a6a055/32.png) [@hobscrk777](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/hobscrk777)\ **Post date:** [September 24, 2010, 12:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/college-is-not-for-everyone/554801/38 "2010-09-24T12:58:44Z")
Something I always wonder when these kinds of questions are raised. About 70% of high school graduates today go on to college, but obviously not all of those actually complete the degree. What is the “right” percentage? If we assume that the student population is normally distributed, should it be only the top 50%? The top 2-sigma? ---
**Author:** ![Odesio](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/odesio/32/20003_2.png) [@Odesio](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Odesio)\ **Post date:** [September 24, 2010, 1:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/college-is-not-for-everyone/554801/39 "2010-09-24T13:39:34Z")
> [@msmith537](#): > > Given that the number of adult males with college degrees is like 15-30%, I would say your school is not a representative cross section of America. I’m assuming that it is probably in a mostly white, affluent town? My high school also had an absurdly high percentage of graduates that went on to college. Of course they counted community colleges (whether or not the person intended on getting a 4 year degree) and they do not keep track of whether an individual actually graduates. Come to think of it, I’m not quite sure what mechanism they used to track how many students went on to college. All I remember is being asked I don’t remember giving anyone permission to tell my high school I had been accepted. I just got the impression that my high school was extremely proud of their percentage rate. ---
**Author:** ![furt](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/439d5e/32.png) [@furt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/furt)\ **Post date:** [September 24, 2010, 1:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/college-is-not-for-everyone/554801/40 "2010-09-24T13:53:47Z")
> [@suranyi](#): > > Of all the days for a thread like this to start, today a study was published which showed that the economic benefits of a college education are higher than ever: > > [http://www.ncpa.org/sub/dpd/index.php?Article\_ID=19850](http://www.ncpa.org/sub/dpd/index.php?Article_ID=19850) > > “Workers with a college degree earned much more and were much less likely to be unemployed than those with only a high school diploma, according to the report” The higher-ed industry reported that the product it sells is more valuable than ever? Well, who are we to doubt them! [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/college-is-not-for-everyone/554801.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/college-is-not-for-everyone/554801.md?page=3)