My second son was a National Merit Scholarship finalist when he was 17. When he didn’t get the financial aid offers he’d hoped for from some state university branches, he went into a funk, but he’s now finishing his first year at our local community college with excellent grades (and more maturity).
He’s decided college isn’t all that fun, and he plans to take the Industrial Equipment Mechanics program starting this fall. In one more year of community college, he can be a certified mechanic. He’s big, strong, smart, bilingual English/Spanish, drug-free, and has a clean driving record. He’ll be financially independent by the time he’s 21, with almost all his college savings intact in the event he decides pursue a degree in the next ten years.
My granddaughter was asked by a professor why she was at the small college she goes to and why she wasn’t in an Ivy League school. She told him that she wants to be an Occupational Therapist, which is a 2 year degree and a semester of internships. She will have the Associate’s in OT and her bachelor’s in Rehab a month after her 21st birthday.