So I'll start a new one. This time I hope to talk about what in my opinion is a good way to start to fix it and that's a focus on vocats classes. Where I come from in NC and Canada we have a pretty good pretty good high school track that preps kids to take trades.
I think that all of us know people who've done well with no degree but have some of the best hands on training from masters in their field. This is where school counselors need to get better. Pushing for college education for all (and in fact forcing someone into the loan racket) turns students away from career fields that they might be successful in, or pushes some kids towards dropping out.
So this thread is for all of those fields that you guys are aware of that could be had by people who don't necessarily have to have a 4 year degree, and have the potential for them to do well.
I'll start:
Being in the development/building industry my dad works with a marble contractor that he went to high school with. He started as an apprentice to a brick mason and eventually went into marble where he basically makes his own price. He may be a millionaire.
My best friends brother went to the vocational school in our county. He became an air conditioning heating repairman. At age 19 he started his own company. Now at age 55, he owns 3 houses, one on a lake, and 2 boats. He makes almost twice what his brother makes, who is an electrical engineer.
My former sister-in-law went to Voc-Ed as a beautician. 4 years after she graduated, she opened her own beauty salon. She now has 4 girls working for her and is selling all kinds of CRAP that women buy out of her shop. She makes about 80K/year.
I have been telling everyone I know that higher education is not that important. Even people who did not go to or graduate from college can think, and sell, and represent, and retail, and manage.... If you want to get ahead in this world right now, you need a SKILL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
(04-28-2012 11:12 PM)nomad2u2001 Wrote: [ -> ]I think that all of us know people who've done well with no degree but have some of the best hands on training from masters in their field. This is where school counselors need to get better. Pushing for college education for all (and in fact forcing someone into the loan racket) turns students away from career fields that they might be successful in, or pushes some kids towards dropping out.
Agree completely.
The issues w/ current public education are legion. A short summary would be:
Poor understanding of teaching/education at primary level. Not enough time spent on mastery of basics, much time wasted on inappropriate materials. A complete failure to grasp the differences among vision, strategy and tactics.
At the secondary level many students suffer from poor preparation at the primary levels. Then there is the issue that you identify: a push toward college as a metric of success. And this permeates the meta-culture of education commentators, from the secular (Jay Matthews) to the religious (Chuck Colson's Breakpoint organization).
All of this is under an umbrella of a system that devalues liberty, and promotes authoritarianism, and is occupied by too many schoolroom tyrants. Now added to that is that these are graduates of a poor system and many teachers aren't even adept in their subject matter.
Finally there is administration bloat, which increases costs and busy-work while adding little-to-nothing toward education.
Our country is oddly against any form of true occupational training, and tend to look down on it. I don't think that college should be a necessity for anyone interested in learning a trade, except those especially skilled or math/science specific ones.
EDIT: I actually agree with a fair amount of Dr.Torches post except for the more ranty portions on authoritarians/tyrants/etc, but we should push back against the belief that a simple college degree should be used as a measurement for being a successful person.
(04-29-2012 07:27 PM)UCF08 Wrote: [ -> ]Our country is oddly against any form of true occupational training, and tend to look down on it. I don't think that college should be a necessity for anyone interested in learning a trade, except those especially skilled or math/science specific ones.
EDIT: I actually agree with a fair amount of Dr.Torches post except for the more ranty portions on authoritarians/tyrants/etc, but we should push back against the belief that a simple college degree should be used as a measurement for being a successful person.
Somehow the word 'trade' has been perverted to mean uneducated and kind of just stuck as that trade for the rest of your life. All a kid thinks is that I don't want to be a plumber, mason, mechanic, welder, etc. That in itself is a failure of counselors (I don't believe that it's necessarily their fault) to explain what other successful career fields are out there.
I think that this is really evident in the computer field. Tell me if I'm wrong, but training and certification will get you farther than someone with just a BS and a dream. Counselors won't tell you that, and neither will the companies.
Yeah, as I understand it, the certs are far more important than a Bachelors when it comes to IT work. I know that when it comes to computer science and more upper-level type work (for lack of a better word), they prefer degrees from reputable colleges but I don't think you're really limiting yourself without a bachelors in the IT sector.
Admittedly though, we can't jump onto schools/counselors alone for this bias regarding colleges. Businesses themselves need to share some of the blame in requiring Bachelors for jobs that really have no need for it. They like taking the 'most qualified' people available, and for some reason a large amount of employers include a Bachelors as part of their qualifications, when it really shouldn't be a major factor. I suppose you can assume that someone with a Bachelors at the very least has a non-embarrassing grasp of the human language/history/math/etc, but that could easily be weeded out in the application/interview process without requiring 4 years of expensive education.
(04-29-2012 08:31 PM)UCF08 Wrote: [ -> ]I suppose you can assume that someone with a Bachelors at the very least has a non-embarrassing grasp of the human language/history/math/etc, but that could easily be weeded out in the application/interview process without requiring 4 years of expensive education.
http://www.coyoteblog.com/coyote_blog/20...leges.html
That does make a lot of sense from the businesses perspective, so who's going to change this system as it is right now? Both the education and business sectors don't seem to want to, and that's a lot of pressure right there alone.
(04-29-2012 08:31 PM)UCF08 Wrote: [ -> ]Yeah, as I understand it, the certs are far more important than a Bachelors when it comes to IT work. I know that when it comes to computer science and more upper-level type work (for lack of a better word), they prefer degrees from reputable colleges but I don't think you're really limiting yourself without a bachelors in the IT sector.
Admittedly though, we can't jump onto schools/counselors alone for this bias regarding colleges. Businesses themselves need to share some of the blame in requiring Bachelors for jobs that really have no need for it. They like taking the 'most qualified' people available, and for some reason a large amount of employers include a Bachelors as part of their qualifications, when it really shouldn't be a major factor. I suppose you can assume that someone with a Bachelors at the very least has a non-embarrassing grasp of the human language/history/math/etc, but that could easily be weeded out in the application/interview process without requiring 4 years of expensive education.
+1 to your second paragraph.
When your butt is on the line making a hire. Who are you going to bet your salary on? A guy with the 4 yr. degree or the one who went the community college route. I go back and forth on this but we all know the score. I don't think you will change it either. Unless we went back to the apprenticeship route. I don't see that happening either.
(04-30-2012 07:14 AM)Machiavelli Wrote: [ -> ]When your butt is on the line making a hire. Who are you going to bet your salary on? A guy with the 4 yr. degree or the one who went the community college route. I go back and forth on this but we all know the score. I don't think you will change it either. Unless we went back to the apprenticeship route. I don't see that happening either.
As far as the hiring, depends on what I need done and what the degree is. If it's to fix my car engine, I'm probably preferring the one with the two year degree in auto mechanics over the four year degree. And I'm not hiring anyone with a four year degree in something like sociology or gender studies, period.
Bill Clinton had some blue ribbon panel the recommended we adopt a work-study apprenticeship program with retired people as mentors. That strikes me as an idea worth pursuing. Of course when it was proposed the democrats in congress wouldn't support it because their masters the teachers' unions opposed it, and the republicans wouldn't support it because it came from a democrat, so it went nowhere.
(04-28-2012 11:12 PM)nomad2u2001 Wrote: [ -> ]I think that all of us know people who've done well with no degree...
Nope, everyone I know has at least a college degree.