If fewer young men (then women) choose college, is that necessarily a bad thing? Maybe there’s more money in the trades
Amen to that!
signed: Boofy
“If fewer young men (then women) choose college, is that necessarily a bad thing? Maybe there’s more money in the trades.”
These days, if I were the father of college-age kids, I’d encourage to stay away from college and go into the trades, unless they wanted to pursue something in STEM. They can be successful and earn good money and not be saddled with heavy debt.
I’m in my 70s, I have a university degree, and I also worked in the trades when I was younger. But for the last 35 years of my work life I was in the corporate world. Though, I still did the majority of work on my house myself.
Everything worked out well for me.
But, that was a different time, and a different America.
Knowing what I know now if I had to make a choice today to go to college or go into a trade I'd go into a trade. Reason is the cost of college as opposed to the opportunity in major US corporation for white males (or rather the huge bias against them in hiring and promoting decisions). Now this is in an engineering firm so maybe it's different in finance but as a manager where I work I've been told informally (no paper trail and this was from a VP not in the HR org, for what that's worth) that if I have two candidates and one is a somewhat underqualified female or minority and the other is a superbly qualified white guy I should take the woman / minority unless there's some compelling defensible reason that his skills are unique or something. Being better isn't enough now, you have to be WAY better. No thanks, I'll be an electrician second time through life.
I fully agree. The article is using college education as a gauge for success. My brother and his two sons work in the commercial HVAC industry and never saw a day of college. Yet all three of them make significant salaries. That is also a male-dominated profession. You just don't see many women wanting to work in tight and dirty spaces.
Electricians, plumbers, high rise construction, the list goes on of male dominated jobs that pay much more than men with liberal arts degrees.
“If fewer young men (then women) choose college, is that necessarily a bad thing? Maybe there’s more money in the trades”
Them there glass ceiling breakers do great until the plumbing breaks.
There is more money in the trades! Send the manly men in that direction. Besides, the more people with college degrees the less they are worth.
Women with degrees will generally not consider marrying men of lower educational status. Even if she just has a degree in “women’s studies” and works as a low-paid HR drone, while he makes a lot more money.
I was told many years ago that there is such a shortage in the trades that any guy who is intelligent and competent could easily earn 6 figures income just in doing trade work. But somehow, everyone has been brainwashed (or gaslit) into thinking that working with your hands at something actually useful is beneath them, and that everyone should be college material and if you are not, you are of less value than the college educated. Funny because what I see coming out of college these days sure doesn’t support that.