Cecilie1200
Diamond Member
I told my grandsons to go out and learn a trade rather than go to college. Then if they want a degree, go to college after work. The college instructors will not find brainwashing my grandsons easy as they have been out in the world learning how it really works.
That's actually the solution to our higher education problems. There is no law that states you must go to college right out of high school. Live at home, work full-time for a couple of years, start college at the age of 20 or 21, and pay for it in cash. If possible while attending college, work part-time to keep the money coming in. When school is out for the year, work full-time.
By the time you graduate, you won't have any college debt. If you do, it will be very small compared to kids that go from high school directly to college. Plus a lot of kids don't know what they want to go to college for. When you work for a few years, you're older, wiser, and more experienced and can make a better choice for your life.
Also, people who are paying for their own education tend to make much smarter decisions about it financially and take much better advantage of the learning opportunity.
My husband and I are the same age (He's one day younger than I am). His parents sent him to the University of Arizona right out of high school, and he proceeded to flunk out spectacularly. He had been accustomed to getting good grades in school without having to work very hard, and he didn't take his college coursework seriously enough. He had to drop back to community college for two years and work his way back into the UofA. He graduated with a dual major in journalism/creative writing and respectable grades but nothing to write home about, and promptly couldn't get a job in anything related to journalism. I had to show him how to parlay a degree in writing into "I'm an amazing employee in anything that requires communication".
I had to get a full-time job out of high school, along with part-time piecework and helping my mother take care of my dad, who was dying. I didn't have time for college, and I really didn't want to take on that kind of debt when we were already in a desperate situation. I eventually went to a trade school (because minimum wage sucks) that had a work-at-your-own-pace curriculum, passed all my coursework with perfect or near-perfect scores, and set a school record for completion speed. As time passed, I went to other trade schools to improve my career skills, always out-of-pocket and always at the head of the class. There was no way in Hell I was paying for anything less than being the best. By the time I eventually got to go to college - also paid from my own pocket - I made the Dean's List every semester. Fuck that "just getting by to say I have a degree" bullshit.