There are kids coming out of the local college with AAT degrees making a lot of money, doing things like manufacturing technology, welding, HVAC, etc. No student loans either. These kids will never be my problem. We just need more of them.
I've been pushing this for YEARS. Voc Ed is massively under-utilized in our society.
Upthread you some people were talking about how getting a degree is helpful for everyone. I strongly disagree. There are a LOT of people today who go to college and get useless degrees and end up only marginally more employable at age 22, 23, 24, or 25 than they would have been at age 18 with no degree and with a huge pile of debt.
Worse, about half of the people who go to college immediately after HS will never graduate. Sources:
For the ~35% of HS Graduates who go to college but never graduate, college is nothing more than an ENORMOUS waste of time and money.
The problem, bottom line, is that WAY too many kids are going to college. It probably *should* be around 25% of HS graduates or lower. Instead, see above, it is nearly three times that number. Roughly a third of them can actually do college level work and benefit from attending college. The other two thirds do one of two things:
- Never graduate, or
- Switch majors repeatedly until they find something easy enough for them to pass, then eventually graduate, generally in 5 or more years, with a degree that doesn't really qualify them to do anything that they weren't already qualified to do when they graduated from HS a half-decade or more earlier.
In either case, College was a massive waste of time and money for them. They would be MUCH more likely to be employed and would make more money in almost all cases if they had Vocational training in something like what you listed, Manufacturing Tech, Welding, HVAC, etc.
