Skilled worker shortage?

The idea that everyone should go to college has really fucked things up. In many ways, it's made the BA the equivalent of a High School diploma.

If everyone has a degree, then it's not so special -- especially if yours isn't from a top school.

And, if it's not in a field directly related to a career, it's even less valuable.

 

I get what you're saying about it being a "fetish" to get more people to go to college. I think, unlike in the past, kids view college almost as an extension of high school now (and even when I was in school).

It's just another four years on your 16-year education plan and you can skate by and get a degree and bam, you're going to make $100,000/year because back in the day, the folks with a college education got paid well.

Now, there's so many college grads that the ones who don't put any work in, will have no appreciable job skills, but they think that because they have a diploma they're above working a $30,000/year job.

You get out of it what you put into it and a lot of people still don't put any real thought into what they're doing in college or why they're doing it. They just think diploma=money, not education/skills=money.

And many of those students, if they had learned a trade instead of spending four years doing the minimum in college, would make more money and have no student to debt to pay off.

 

CSX is expected to hire approx. 500 employees in W.Va over the next few years making that pay range.

 

I have talked about this in groups with other parents, noting that if one of my sons didn't really want to go to college and could learn how to be an electrician or something, I'd encourage him to do that.

There was almost a race to the phone to call Child Protective Services.

Meanwhile I live out here in the land of the West Coast Conference, where the Catholic colleges charge Ivy League prices for a state school education, and they have people lined up out the door to pay for it.

 

I'm with you LTL.
I would tickled to death if my kids were plumbers or electricians.

 

I'd say community college is the answer to teach a trade, but a quarter of the class I teach have trouble writing a complete sentence.

 

Why do you need to write a complete sentence to be a plumber? I'm not trying to intimate that plumbers are illiterate, but really what is the value of sitting in an English composition class for that career path?

 

Let me know what they say in a few years when Johnny moves back in with them, and expects mom to cook his meals and do his laundry.

Remember the Colgate kid from the Times profile?

Meanwhile, the kid with the trade skills will likely have a job, his own place, and no debt.

 

Could not care less if they can replumb my bathroom and gas lines without a leak.

 

Do you want someone to repair a gas line if They can't write clear instructions or understand them? Have you read instructions for furniture?

 

And, this is the problem.

I once took some classes at Iona College. It's a private, Catholic college in New Rochelle, NY. Not an Ivy League school, to be sure, but a solid little school.

And, it was not nearly as challenging as my high school.

It could have been. They have fine teachers. But, the students aren't prepared for college level work.

I saw no reason to continue taking classes there. I knew a degree from there would mean no more to me than the high school degree I already had.

 

If I was starting over, I'd learn to work with my hands - carpentry, plumbing, something like that. A job that can't be outsourced and the satisfaction of seeing something take shape under your hands. I think I'd like that.