This reminds me of a friend who described her small liberal arts school as a place where “Rich parents sent there dumb kids.”
This comes up in every similar thread, and it is objectively bad advice that is actively harmful to people.
By the numbers, a college degree is the single most important factor in what you make. The unemployment rate for students with a degree is 4%, versus 7.5% for those with just a diploma.
And your plumber? Plumbers with degrees make significantly more than those without. The plumbers making 6 figures are doing so because they are running successful businesses, not because there is something magic about plumbing. The pimply high school dropout from roto-rooter isn’t on the path to riches.
It’s bad advice on average. Specific cases may vary. I mean, if you have a 17 year old that loathes school, graduates high school by the skin of his teeth because he cuts every class, never does homework, personally sees no value in it . . .pressuring that kid into taking out $20K in loans so that he can go to college where you hope a miracle will occur is irresponsible. He’s not going to finish anyway, and all that debt will make it harder to do anything else when he grows up a bit. Better to get him some basic skills of some sort so that he can at least make a living and then see what happens.
On the other hand, I really don’t think people spend enough time looking at the far end of a career in the trades. It doesn’t matter how well you stay in shape, physical labor gets harder as you age and it’s hard to be 60 or 65 and working construction or plumbing or machining. And you are utterly gambling on your body not giving out–there’s no way to be sure you won’t end up with shot knees or MS or a shattered ankle that never quite heals. I’ve told this story before, but at 55 my dad stepped wrong off a ladder and shattered his ankle. Because he worked a desk job, it made basically no difference in his ability to support himself financially. If he were in a trade, it might have basically cut 10 years off his earning potential.
So anyone pushing a kid into the trades really needs to help them develop a back-up plan. Bodies are not reliable.
There are several public schools that are feeder schools to the Ivy League. Stuyvesant High School and Hunter College High School in NYC and Thomas Jefferson High School in Virginia are some examples, and there others that have as much reputation for feeding into Harvard as Exeter, and are free. You enter these schools by competitive examination. It simply isn’t the case that the only feeder schools are expensive and private.
Note that Boston Latin is like Stuyvesant; both are competitive admissions public schools. And some of the feeder schools are the open-to-all public schools in suburbs like Greenwich, Connecticut or Palo Alto, California.
I don’t agree with the above quote from Manda JO (though I do agree with many of Manda’s other comments). The FAFSA website specifically lists the maximum amount of loans that college students can accrue while in college. If you add up the maximums for a dependent student for four years it is $27,000 much of which can be in subsidized loans.
The main issue with growing student loan debt, in my opinion, is the expansion of for-profit colleges. They accept everyone (whether they belong in college or not) and charge as much as a mid-tier private college. Their admissions staff act more like used car salesmen than college admission officers (ABC - always be closing!) They prey on the misinformation and myths the general public have and they have no concern whether a student will be successful and persist in their education.
Once a student has committed to a for-profit the loans will come in the form of a ‘financial aid package’ which futher muddies an already complicated transaction. Things get even more muddied when a prospective college student’s parents haven’t been to college themselves. They are often swayed by the sales pitch from the for-profit admissions staff, at which point, the informative discussions with a high school guidance counselor about the merits of the local community college are ignored.
I agree 100% with what you are saying, I did not mention anywhere that all feeder schools were expensive or private, I was only referring to the fact that a good feeder school is a significant factor in admissions. I was only throwing out a couple examples, it was not meant to be a complete list. I made no comments regarding the expense, exclusivity, requirements, whether it is fair etc., I was merely adding 2 factors of admission to the 3 that were mentioned in the post I replied to.
I think this is really good advice for anyone thinking that trade school is a good idea if a college education is a viable option. In my many years of working at various trades I cannot recall anyone who I worked with wanting their kids to follow in their career path, even the union guys. All of the ones I knew encouraged their kids to do well in school and did there best to save money specifically so their kids would have options they did not have. I even know someone whose mother literally cried when he dropped out of school - she was pretty upset at the thought of him having the hard life his father had (and he was a union plumber who did well financially).
There are certainly other factors: I’d add having access to top-rate college counseling and test prep to that list. But I teach at one of the sort of schools you are talking about–not one you named, but one that shows up on the same lists–and I will tell you that even among the kids in the “feeder patterns”, the ones that get accepted are generally pretty fucking impressive.
People keep throwing out the idea that if you’re smart enough, you can always get scholarships or get a free ride. I’d be interested in seeing a rundown of which schools (states?) actually offer these sorts of deals. I did succeed in getting my entire college expenses at a good state school paid for through scholarships, but, at least there, this was not a common situation that would repeat itself for almost any smart student. What ensured my success was the following–
(1) As far as academics went, I was a monster. I was doing graduate-level work while I was still in high school. My main letter writer was a professor who was at the very top of the field.
(2) I applied for (and got) a ton of scholarships-- most scholarships were in the $1,000-$5,000 range. This was only possible because I had two completely different majors, and so could apply for scholarships and research awards in both.
(3) I lived at home, so my living expenses were zero.
So, I’m curious to know how common the scholarship free ride actually is.
A free ride might not be common, but you might get enough in scholarships from the private school that the total cost of attendance is lower than the state school with the lower sticker price.
There are two ways to get a “full ride” for exceptional students. One is the fairly significant need-based aid that many top schools provide. Many are “100% need-met”, which means that they pay everything you can’t – using a moderately accurate formula based on family income. The second is through merit scholarships. These are more complicated. Many schools do have some sort of automatic scholarships that kick in if you have very high test scores. There are quite a few pretty decent state schools that offer full tuition or full tuition + housing, even, for National Merit Semifinalists. However, these are only available to the top 1% of college bound kids. Awards generally scale down from there–kids with test scores in the top 10% or so will likely find they are eligible for some amount of award somewhere. And then many state schools have other scholarships that are competitive (limited number of slots).
So yeah, there are full rides out there, but they aren’t thick on the ground, especially if your household income is above $60K a year or so.
Interesting tidbit: National Merit is proportional by state. A kid needs to get a 225 in Virginia, but only a 203 in West Virginia. Interestingly enough, there is a separate category for boarding schools with out of state students, presumably to stop people from starting National Merit Mills in weak states.
See, this is why I’m happy my duel citizen Aussie/American son has decided to go to uni here in Australia.
There’s a gap year culture - he’s taking a year off, saving money and going overseas. This will help him decide if being a teacher (which is what he wants to do, primary school ed) is really his thing or not, once he’s seen the world.
There’s the HSC scoring, which means that he gets offers based on how he did on his HS exams. It has problems (excessive pressure on kids, for a start) but it means kids who shouldn’t be there don’t go.
There’s the apprenticeship system - lots and lots of kids who should be in trades, go to trades. They make money while they learn on the job, and they go to the equivalent of a community college (TAFE). I encouraged my son to consider this option, and even though he’s been accepted at uni - and deferred for a year to go travelling - he can still do this easily.
There’s the student loan system - which I’m taking advantage of, too, as I’m getting my law degree right now - it’s run by the tax office. If you don’t make a certain amount, currently around $50k - do the exchange rate math before you howl - you owe nothing and your debt accumulates interest at a rate of inflation (2-3% per year). Once you make that amount, you have extra tax deducted at an escalating amount of your pay, topped (I think?) at 8%. So someone like me pays the max, and my kid wouldn’t pay anything until he hit the cut-off.
This means professions like social work, teaching and Indigenous affairs can attract quality graduates who just aren’t going to make big bux till later on in life. Kids who want to do a trade can be assured of making a living. And kids are encouraged to take a little time off and think about it.
But, yanno, socialism, so…
My son is one of those kids and the other day we were talking about registration for next year. I think he is taking autoshop - and accounting 
His idea is that if he works on a trade, plus gets an AA business degree - he’ll be well positioned to open his own shop.
It gave me some hope for a kid who I wasn’t sure if he had figured out he wasn’t going to live in my basement and play video games forever.
I suspect this is significant, but I’m having trouble finding evidence.
I don’t know how helpful our experience is, but I do have a co-worker and three college-age daughters, and they illustrate pretty well what average to intelligent kids with working-class parents can do.
Co-worker: Parents with little / no means. Not sure of his HS grades or test scores. Communications / PR major. Chose to attend a community college for two years, then a poor-rep state school for his last two years. Not sure how much aid he got at either college, but at the state school, he worked as an RA so at least some of his room & board were comped. He ended up with $52K of student loans for his four years of school. Has never found a job in his field; currently employed for around $9-$10 per hour and defaulting on his student loans. He has moved in with his parents.
Daughters: Attended local public high schools with low average (21) to higher average (29) ACT scores and mostly good grades (1 B-C student - also the 21 ACT; 2 A-B students). Daughter 1 chose community college for two years with free tuition b/c of dad, then the private college where I work; daughters 2 & 3 are going straight to the same private college. This year, all of my kids get 50% off tuition after scholarships; next year will be 75%, then the following year tuition will be free, though Daughter 1 will be graduating in December. All three daughters still had / have to take loans, ranging from minimal (daughter who lives at home) to more significant ($9K - $12K annually this year for daughters 2 & 3). 1 business major, 1 accounting major, 1 game design major in the bunch. Daughter 1 will have about $20K in loans when she’s graduated, Daughter 2 will have around $40K due to living on campus, Daughter 3 will have slightly less, around $25-30K depending on whether she lives on campus or gets grants. If she doesn’t choose to live on campus, she’ll have $9K in loans, max, even without grants.
The upshot: My co-worker & kids could not get into Harvard or any Ivy. They’re all nobodies (albeit precious to me nobodies ) with good not spectacular grades and no connections. In my humble experience, three things pile up debt: 1) Living on campus; 2) A major that doesn’t give good ROI; 3) Insufficient scholarships versus loans in the aid package.
Our best state school, U of I, doesn’t offer much aid beyond loans to kids like mine. Our private college does much better even before my discount. I took this job specifically to provide tuition benefits for my kids - and I know that’s not feasible for every parent or even most parents. If I didn’t have a job here, I’m not sure what my kids would do - have lots more debt wherever they could manage to matriculate, most likely. I can’t speak to whether my co-worker should have gone to trade school, but none of my three kids were interested in any of the trades that local vo-techs provide: no truck-driving, no PRN, no welding, etc.
Until recently, it didn’t *matter *what major you chose. The real “problem,” if it can so be called, is that our school systems today produce many more college-ready students than they did 50 years ago. So long as you graduated college back then, you could get a decent job. Maybe not in your field, but a job nonetheless. Having a college degree means you can complete something substantial. That used to matter in the days where many kids dropped out of school due to laziness, or to work on the family farm, etc. Nowadays it’s easier to complete college, because the students who graduate from high school are (as a whole) more engaged human beings and more academically-focused than ever before. People who used to slip through the cracks are now acknowledged and mentored, whereas the system used to treat them as invisible and let them flounder.
I don’t know what the solution is, but I know it shouldn’t be, “Don’t major in soft subjects unless you have a trust fund.” The world needs English majors and poli-sci majors and artists and musicians. We as people are more than the job titles and salaries we manage to accrue.
Furthermore, half of the “smart” advice people love to share about picking majors is dead wrong when it comes to reality. The average film major makes more than the average biology major. Some of the most frequent majors among millionaires include economics and art history. Unless you are majoring in something very specifically vocational, it’s not always intuitive to pick the “right” thing, and the “right” thing today may be the field that outdated or outsourced tomorrow. In the modern world, what you major in as an undergrad is only the very first tiny, tiny step in your career development.
And that is another fact behind the scare numbers. Yes, prospects for new graduates are pretty bad. But what that mostly reflects is that it takes longer to get established. Few college grads are still flipping burgers five years after graduation, and their lifetime earnings are often still much higher than those without degrees.
This is a good point. If you follow a very conventional path, graduating from high school at 18 years old and from undergraduate school at 22 years old, you might have 45 years of employment ahead of you (assuming that you retire at 67). That’s a very long time to still be doing the same thing you learned from 18-22. So I think that most people will need to grow or reinvent themselves several times over their working life. How many jobs haven’t been changed by the technological and societal changes over the past fifty years or so?
That’s the truth. Which is why it is important to go to the best school you can afford. Really good schools don’t just spoon feed you information about subjects, but make you think about them. Learning how to pick up new things is a lot more important than learning something which might be obsolete in 10 years - or might already be obsolete. I’ve interviewed kids who took a course in my specialty which taught them stuff that nobody has used in decades. In some cases I know their professors, who write grant proposals try to get money to research improving things no one has done in decades.
An undergraduate thesis or research project will do more for you than any number of classes.