College money. Holy carp.

Adrian_Thompson said:

If you live in any kind of large metropolitan area there are normally several choices of four year undergrad collages and many community collages.  Why anyone would choose to go away, out of state or private, especially if they plan on a post grad degree is beyond me in this day and age.  Where you get your Masters or Doctorate is far more important than your undergrad.  Paying room and board on top of tuition is to me, plain dumb.  Stay at home, work and pay as you go. Both girls will be going on to grad school (vet and Paleontologist respectively) and  both plan to do that at the top two state schools in Michigan.  That will be harder, but both will be working.

Which is great if you live near a university that offers what you want to major in but not always an option. I had no colleges near my hometown that offered Mechanical Engineering and at the time there were only two universities in the state that offered Mechanical engineering (both of which were fairly large universities with massive classes which is an environment I knew I would not do as well as I could in) and none that offered aerospace. Plus going out of state allowed me to end up in a tech hub and made finding a job after college much easier (especially important when you consider the economy hadn't fully recovered in 2011).

mtn said:

....My biggest problem with all of it is that the kids have ABSOLUTELY NO IDEA what they are doing when they're signing the loans. An 18 year old has no concept of what a 10, 20, or 30 year commitment is. They have no clue what a student loans means for their wealth building power, or how it is going to impact their life.....

Add to that the fact that many are going into huge debt getting a degree they are very unlikely to every actually use!  What is the stat?  Something like 80% never work in their degree field (and I suspect 50%+ never use any of degree specific learned knowledge).

Realistically, 80% of students should be getting a business degree, that is where most will end up.  If you are getting a literature degree, you better plan on teaching (another degree) or just taking your educational costs as a loss.

Side thought: PLEASE encourage anyone going to college to take a logic (or some form of critical thinking) and a statistics course!  They are two things that are desperately needed in the general populace!

Kids are required to take a quick online thing about loans and and answer questions properly before they can accept their loans now. My kid did it in 20 minutes so it's not exactly rigorous. 

As much as we complain about all of this, college is still the single best way for the very poor and very bright to climb out of poverty. A bunch of my "complaints" about cost stem from the fact that my kids are and will be paying full price with no grants or subsidized anything because my wife is winning at life. If you're very poor, the cost of school can be quite different. Add to that some great test scores and it's one hell of a meal ticket if you choose your major right and do well. It's hard to overstate how important this is to a lot of kids. 

aircooled said:

mtn said:

....My biggest problem with all of it is that the kids have ABSOLUTELY NO IDEA what they are doing when they're signing the loans. An 18 year old has no concept of what a 10, 20, or 30 year commitment is. They have no clue what a student loans means for their wealth building power, or how it is going to impact their life.....

Add to that the fact that many are going into huge debt getting a degree they are very unlikely to every actually use!  What is the stat?  Something like 80% never work in their degree field (and I suspect 50%+ never use any of degree specific learned knowledge).

Realistically, 80% of students should be getting a business degree, that is where most will end up.  If you are getting a literature degree, you better plan on teaching (another degree) or just taking your educational costs as a loss.

Side thought: PLEASE encourage anyone going to college to take a logic (or some form of critical thinking) and a statistics course!  They are two things that are desperately needed in the general populace!

Definitely agree on Logic and Critical thinking, which was a 1000 level Philosophy class. I'm biased, having a Philosophy minor, that people should really be taking more because of the critical thinking skills it teaches.

In reply to WonkoTheSane :

I know guys who have done each.  Just had a 70 year old mechanic here at work retire this year.  At the other end, I work with another guy who's in his 50's and started out as a mechanic and is now working a desk job.  All depends on the person, and what they want, and what their body can handle.

I will say, without getting too philosophical, there is nobility in manual labor.  I get more satisfaction out of burning metal for an hour in my garage every night than I do from 8 hours behind a CAD station during the day.  

Dare I say it, but America's infatuation with sports, teams, games, etc all kinda suck at teaching critical thinking skills to kids. 

You build critical thinking skills by acknowledging failure, not just trash talking the challenge or training harder. "The Power of Positive Thinking" also can detract from critical thinking skills, as it's easy say "whatever, no big deal, I'll try something else," rather than focusing on "what did I do wrong?" I don't think school is the best place to learn critical thinking because failure or loss (being broke) isn't immediately apparent in a kids life. 

I personally didn't learn critical thinking until I was working, paying for college, failing classes, and learning "man, this job sucks I don't want to do this for the rest of my life I should probably figure ish out." 

volvoclearinghouse said:

I will say, without getting too philosophical, there is nobility in manual labor.  I get more satisfaction out of burning metal for an hour in my garage every night than I do from 8 hours behind a CAD station during the day.  

You get that satisfaction because you're working on things you view as valuable. Imagine having to weld pipe all day, every day. Eventually, it isn't satisfying anymore. The problem with many trades is that "the office job" is often management, and you don't get into management without putting your time. For some, spending 5 years digging holes, framing, pulling wire, welding joints, fixing toilets is too long to wait for that management job. Worse, because they never went to college, they might also be limited by educational requirements for said management "office jobs."
 

I know mechanics, good mechanics, who worked in Porsche shops, who lost interest and had take time away from the industry because it just wasn't satisfying, no matter how challenging the repair or troubleshooting. Luckily this one guy was pretty business savy and started his own business (temporarily) and not works both part-time. It works for him, but many are not so lucky. 

I also know lots of linemen and pipelayers who have got lots of construction experience and skills, but they can't work a computer worth a damn, they can't communicate effectively, they can't write an email to save their lives because they just spent too long "in the field." 

One way this is changing is that more and more companies are understanding the young, fresh out of college employees might be good for mixed environment positions. Jobs where you need someone who can work CAD, but also can do some welding/fabrication. Or someone who can both work as a nurse, but also has some management experience. Or an electrician who knows his way around a computer. Problem is, those jobs are really really hard to find, not from an availability standpoint, but kids fresh out of college don't know those jobs exist, or how to search for them jobs on Indeed. 

SVreX said:

I have a college degree, but made most of my career in the trades. 

Its true that many tradespeople have busted up bodies by the time they are 50, but I would suggest it has very little to do with their work or their lack of a degree, and a whole lot to do with their lifestyle choices. 

Less booze, less carousing, and less bad decisions in their off-time might lead to better health.  I’m 56, and am in much better physical shape than many of my 30 year old counterparts. Iplay adult rec sports, am over twice the average age in the league, and can run rings around 75% of them. 

I don’t think there is a direct correlation connecting trades work to poor health. There is no question that it made me healthier. 

I know a lot of desk jockies who are under such stress that they are nothing more than a heart attack waiting to happen. 

I don't know why this comes up every time but I think it has more to do with people looking for excuses or justification for not going into the trades.

I've been a tradesman for over 30 years. I can't recall seeing a single person in that time that was 'physically broken' because of their trade/job. What I do see on a regular basis is overweight out of shape desk jockeys.

When I was in high school they told us that if we didn't go to university we wouldn't be able to get a job in the future. That was in the 70's. It wasn't true then and it isn't true today. I have (technically) a grade 9 education.  I got my trade certification by working very hard and working my way up in a few companies when I was in my teens and early twenties.

People will tell you that those days are gone and you just can't do that anymore.

BullE36 M3.

Hard working Conscientious people showing up for work every day can still advance. I see examples of it every day in the factory where I work.

I'm a 56 year old lifelong tradesman in excellent shape and could have retired comfortably last year but I'll continue to work until I no longer feel like doing it, and I'm not alone in my group of friends and associates.

volvoclearinghouse said:

To be clear, it works against the "actual primary goal" of most students, which is to insure their future prosperity, rather than the "actual primary goal" of a traditional liberal arts education, which is something rather different.

I can see how it could work against both goals, in a way.  The actual primary goal if the traditional liberal arts education could be affected if the demands of the consumers (the students) are to get jobs so they can pay off their loans.  

Yep. And that's precisely why I dedicate the first hours of my survey classes (in history and political science) to a discussion of liberal arts and what they are intended to help students achieve. Clears up a lot of misconceptions (well, I hope it does) for students who are most often in those classes not because they're interested but because they are required as part of a liberal arts curriculum.

Of the reasons to avoid the trades, I don't think the "it's hard on your body" is a good reason to avoid them. 

I will say this though, being expected to show up early and leave early is hard for some. I've never been a morning person, but I'll put in time late into the evening. Most trades have very hard start times, very much still "punch that timeclock" type of schedules, where you're expected be at the shop or jobsite at 6AM, no excuses. I understand why, I've been there, I've gotten lectured about those hard start times, but that doesn't mean they worked well with my personality. 

The trades are not always easy on minorities, or people who can't handle aggressive personalities. They can be dog-eat-dog for young people. 

Lastly, while the money might be better than other options, a personality who doesn't strive to learn new things and advance themselves can get disastrously "stuck" in a labor intensive, "body breaking" trade. 

Ironically enough, it's taken working a few office jobs to know what kind of trade job I'd like to work today. Basically, I'd love to work in fabrication or some sort of field repair, fixing stuff way off the beaten path. My guess is that by the time my home life allows for such jobs I won't really be interested in working those types of jobs anymore haha.

93EXCivic said:Which is great if you live near a university that offers what you want to major in but not always an option. 

100% agree, which is why I did qualify my statement 'With...If...'

volvoclearinghouse said:

In reply to WonkoTheSane :

I know guys who have done each.  Just had a 70 year old mechanic here at work retire this year.  At the other end, I work with another guy who's in his 50's and started out as a mechanic and is now working a desk job.  All depends on the person, and what they want, and what their body can handle.

I will say, without getting too philosophical, there is nobility in manual labor.  I get more satisfaction out of burning metal for an hour in my garage every night than I do from 8 hours behind a CAD station during the day.  

I agree with that statement, but I think PHeller is right as well about your satisfaction because it's different than what you do for 8 hours a day  :)   I started with an AS in CAD/Product design, lucked into a job using CNC equipment, did a few years with the occasional 100 hour week as an apps guy, moved companies to the software that I used to teach as said apps guy and now I'm on the product management side.  I tell our apps guys they have the best job in the company, but I know for a fact it doesn't always feel that way to them! :)

Suprf1y said:

When I was in high school they told us......

People will tell you that those days are gone and you just can't do that anymore.........

BullE36 M3.

Hard working Conscientious people showing up for work every day can still advance.

The danger for kids has always been trying to predict the future. What worked for you might not work for your kids. When I was a teen there was still a lot of pressure on people to get a good union job at the auto parts plant. Those guys are doing ok, but nowhere near what their dads or grandpas did. There was also the school teacher route. It was a respected position and pay and benefits were good and the world always needs teachers. The current state of teaching is different than it was. "The trades" is a pretty broad stroke. I knew a number of people that lost just about everything during the housing bust. They had great skill sets but nobody was building. For years. Welders have also suffered as the oil fields wax and wane. It's seldom as simple as "I'm successful so do what I did". 

In reply to pheller :

Ok, That’s the second time in this thread I’ve heard that the trades are tough on minorities. 

I’m calling BS. 

I worked my entire career with a majority of minorities. I never saw any limitation on minorities in 40 years in the construction industry. 

Conversely, I now live in a town that is 51% non-white, but my place of employment (a medical facility which would consider itself well racially mixed) has about 90% whites.

I will admit there is more unsavory language in construction, including racial epithets.  But there is just as much racism in my medical environment (just because they whisper to each other about the “dark part of town”, doesn’t mean they are less ignorant than those who openly use the “N” word)  

Construction is far more bilingual than medical, with greater opportunities for advancement for all minorities, in my experience.

SVREX, would you be ok with your daughter working in the trades? As in, home construction, paving, plumbing, etc? 

Maybe I should remove racial minorities from my previous comments, and just focus on "diverse personalities". Like I said, I never felt like I fit into the trades because it was always "you're a goofy guy, you won't be able to make it in this job unless you harden up." When I say trades in this case, I mean home construction. I'm sure other trades are more open and diverse, I just didn't like my first taste of that career, is all. Y(Kids)MMV.

SVreX said:

In reply to pheller :

Ok, That’s the second time in this thread I’ve heard that the trades are tough on minorities. 

I’m calling BS. 

I worked my entire career with a majority of minorities. I never saw any limitation on minorities in 40 years in the construction industry.

No offense intended but I think you can safely call that on pretty much everything he's posted in this thread.

pheller said:

SVREX, would you be ok with your daughter working in the trades? As in, home construction, paving, plumbing, etc? 

Absolutely. I wish they both would. There are tremendous opportunities for women in the construction industry RIGHT NOW.   

You guys must think I'm bashing the trades. I'm not. I'm saying, not every person is cut out to work in them. 

Just as not every person can handle sitting in a cube 90% of their job. 

SVreX said:

pheller said:

SVREX, would you be ok with your daughter working in the trades? As in, home construction, paving, plumbing, etc? 

Absolutely. I wish they both would. There are tremendous opportunities for women in the construction industry RIGHT NOW.   

And you've never encountered environments where a female might feel threatened working in? I dunno, you must work with some real professionals, because in my brief time in construction I encountered environments not only toxic to young people in that trade, but ones where a woman could walk in and file a bunch of discrimination suites on the first day. Even in my "professional" environment of a corporate utility, the construction crews do all kinds of highly unprofessional crap. 

To be clear, professionalism and lack of it happens in every field, but I just believe it happens more in the trades. 

In 18 years when my daughter is entering the workforce would I support her working in the trades? Sure. But I certainly hope that by that time the "old guard" of the trades is dead and gone and the level of professionalism has hit a higher bar. 

In reply to pheller :

I think your issue with construction has nothing to do with women or minorities, but your own personal issues with being perceived as “soft”. 

There are not many subtleties in construction. You gotta be able to dish it out, AND take it. 

40 years in construction. I ALWAYS looked forward to it when women showed up to work.   They did better work. They had to.

Some of the most successful people I know are those who learn to work in environments that are not typically “friendly”, like women in construction. Or auto mechanics. 

A woman owned plumbing business would have a hard time NOT succeeding in most states today.

EastCoastMojo said:

I have been watching an astrophysics class on youtube and loving it, so maybe I would have done well enough in college to make the mind blowing debt worth it. 

 

I’ll just leave this here…

Leonard Susskind – All Stanford University Lectures in Order

As a parent with two daughters, I'm committed to promoting women in STEM.

I just finished helping with an open-house at work (Med-Tech) where we exposed ~50 young girls to the field.

My proposed eight hour lecture on calculus didn't get much buy-in so we just had them gown-up in clean rooms and make hearts out of Play Doe and stuff like that but they really seemed to enjoy it so what do I know.

In reply to pheller :

For the record, EVERYONE is threatened in construction. It’s dangerous. 

I have no interest in working alongside someone in construction who does not understand the risks. 

The most dangerous people I’ve ever worked around were people who had been through all the training, wore all the safety equipment, and followed all the rules, but had no idea of the risk, and never watched out for their co-workers.  I’d get them off the site as quickly as I could.  If hurting their feelings or insulting them was what it took, so be it. 

My older daughter has been on construction sites for over 20 years.  Yes, she got cat-calls, and stares.  She also learned how to handle it.

Young guy and fresh grad from a state school here, figured I'd throw in my 2 cents. 

Mazduece, I was in a similar spot as your daughter 6 years ago when I started college, my parents were doing just a little too well for me to get any substantial student aid or grants but not well enough to bankroll me through college especially with two younger siblings who were also looking to start college in the next 3-8 years.  I was ready to either enlist or enroll in the ROTC program to pay for my schooling as my parents paid their own way through school and had never offered to help in the past.  I was aggressively persuaded not to go the military route by my family.  I look back now and still think that wouldn't have been a bad path to take given how it has worked out for several of my friends who are either veterans or ROTC students. 

I'm lucky enough that my parents did end up helping out out with my tuition costs for 4 years, I paid for housing, books and took as many student loans as I could.  It took me 5.5 years to get a mechanical engineering degree so the last 3 semesters I was on my own, I had to take on more loans and I worked +20 hours a week at an internship during the school year and full time during breaks and the summer just to cover tuition.  I started flipping car parts on Craigslist to pay my rent. I managed to land a job with an amazing company paying above the area average before I even graduated with around 30k in student loans.   It wasn't easy and honestly I'm glad it wasn't, the struggle and the hustle really came to make me appreciate my parents, my education and my new job.  I will say I think  I was a bit of a rare breed of 18 year old going into a college knowing full well what degree I wanted to get, having a general idea of what I wanted to do with it and then landing a job in that field.

In reply to pheller :

As a tradesman, I  wish your experience was a better one. 

pheller said:

SVreX said:

pheller said:

SVREX, would you be ok with your daughter working in the trades? As in, home construction, paving, plumbing, etc? 

Absolutely. I wish they both would. There are tremendous opportunities for women in the construction industry RIGHT NOW.   

And you've never encountered environments where a female might feel threatened working in? I dunno, you must work with some real professionals, because in my brief time in construction I encountered environments not only toxic to young people in that trade, but ones where a woman could walk in and file a bunch of discrimination suites on the first day. Even in my "professional" environment of a corporate utility, the construction crews do all kinds of highly unprofessional crap. 

To be clear, professionalism and lack of it happens in every field, but I just believe it happens more in the trades. 

In 18 years when my daughter is entering the workforce would I support her working in the trades? Sure. But I certainly hope that by that time the "old guard" of the trades is dead and gone and the level of professionalism has hit a higher bar. 

You basically just described any male dominated career. It's not just the trades, it's the military, or law enforcement, or fire fighting, or working as a mechanic, or driving a truck, or a ton of other things. Women/minorities can and do thrive in those environments, but they can always "dish it as well as they take it". First of all, the men in those roles need to change, and that's occurring (all be it slower than preferred) but secondly quit selling these groups short, or thinking of them as soft and unable to handle themselves in a situation where they're outnumbered. If we want people to be equal, then we have to stop thinking of them as unable to do things just because of physical traits that they can't control.

I have an acquaintance who owns a decent sized local plumbing company. He'd give about anything to have female plumbers working for him. He says that they tend to put many customers more at ease than male plumbers.