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So what life choice that you made are you trying to justify, and why do you think one might be persuaded to make that same choice themselves?

I'm not attempting to justify any life choice. What I'm arguing for is that students decide for themselves based upon facts on what choices are best for them, as opposed to being told that they have to make Choice A or Choice B. One thing that I should have expanded on and what others have noted is the quality of student itself. If you're smart and willing to work hard, you can get a quality education no matter what path you take. My primary schooling was in a semi-rural district that the state frowned on as a whole. The education was considered sub-standard and the teachers poor. The reality was that most of the students didn't make an effort and the vast majority of parents didn't give a damn. My parents did and I got a great education. I was stunned when I got to college and saw how woefully unprepared many of my peers were.

Your entire posting seems to belittle the accomplishment of degreed formal education. All programs are not equal but if you desire to do more than make toilets flush better for $49K/year, you'll need a decent college and graduate education.

It would have been a more relevant and a lot shorter posting had you simply stated the obvious earlier: I should have expanded on and what others have noted is the quality of student itself. If you're smart and willing to work hard, you can get a quality education no matter what path you take.

But if that was all you said, you might not have gotten in the dig, and that's where your posting generally failed.

I'm mechanically inclined, so I do plumbing that I need to do and work on a fleet of four 1970 Cadillacs, a 2004 deVille a 1995 Roadmaster, a 2003 Suburban and a 1976 MG each of which my company owns (and when I say my company, I mean -- I own the company).

I hold 2 undergraduate degrees in life sciences and 2 graduate degrees - one in a life science and another which is an MBA. Thesis degrees not just "more course work." My wife of 30 years and I have 4 kids: 2 who were Marines now doing college on the GI Bill, and 2 others who I made employees of my firm, pay them a salary, and from that they pay their own college education.

I could have gone to a trade school, and gotten the certification and maybe a union card, but I worked full time all my way through college to pay for it, and availed myself of company education sponsorships for the grad degrees earned in night school earlier in my career -- a routine company benefit. Yes, I could have gone to trade school, I suppose, but I wanted to do more

In the end I own my own firm, make 10x what that plumber does annually, and that is due in large part by getting the foundation in college and coupling that to hard work.

Yeah, I can do the plumbing and car repair/maintenance, and as much as I enjoy the handyman stuff, nowadays it's just a matter of time and whether in the end it's worth more to me to pay the guy making 49K a year to do it.

In the earlier days when I was a janitor, I earned a lot less, but that doesn't mean today it's somebody else's job to sweep the garage, swish the toilet, or mop the floor. I just knew early on that that was not what I wanted to do all my life so I got the college education necessary to do something better, more challenging and more to my liking for the long term.

Belittling college education is most often done by those who chose poorly - whether it is a major, a school, or whether they just simply didn't have the initiative to finish the schooling they may have started.

FReegards!