Learning how to trade with other people will let you profit better from whatever you do

Except for the job you got in your field.

But I don't want to do that. I want to deal with 'things' not 'people'. I want to do science, with real numbers and measurements. Society needs technical geeks too. It is possible to learn how to plate cultures on a Petri dish without going to formal school, but to learn that and also get a magic piece of paper that allows you to work in science is a good reason to go to college.

Jan, in management now

Learn how to trade with other people. Get smart at spotting things that's others want and how you can deliver them

Try YouTube. It's essentially free

Maybe if they knew what wanted to learn and kept the college accountable for texting those things

Of course I would - why limit your child's potential by discouraging them from going to college? Sure, I did what I did without it - so far - but there are things (like advanced sciences and math) you don't get from High School. Sure you can make it without... but your opportunities are limited if you don't have the basic knowledge, or the ability to know how to gain additional knowledge.

I never went to college. I was self-taught, with help from tech schools while I was serving in our military. With self discipline, I've held good paying jobs in the technical sector for over 30 years. I have heard a number of positive comments from people (and their children) who attended community colleges.

We told our sons that college would be on them, if they chose to go, but we never pushed it.

as an engineer, I am prejudiced. . my dad had a degree
in botany and had wanted to be a forester. . mom had
a degree in sociology and wanted to be a social worker,
so dad got pragmatic and did ww2 army plus HR with
Sears, and mom did homemaker with 2 kids. . I did
engineer and they looked at me like I was from Mars,
loving Rand and cranking numbers with a slide rule.
since I never had kids, I would wish that they'd like a
science career which would bring them independence
to the max, and then figure out how school would work
with the individual. . my 3 degrees helped me. -- j
.

I learned tons of technical goo in college, including how to streak a Petri dish for isolation of a colony of bacteria and then take that isolated colony and perform biochemical tests on it to identify it. I could not have learned this from home study. In my 4 years, I took 3 classes (required) that were not math or science. This bachelors degree could not get me a job - lack of the degree excludes you from job markets, but the presence of the degree does not guarantee you a job (so I joined the AF).

I took some courses in JC (later in my life) and found them pathetic. For example: When I dropped out of a Psych class [long story], I took the professor aside and showed him my notes: I had attended his class for a few weeks and I had found two things he had said worth writing down. I asked him if I had missed noting anything important. He was aghast. He thought a while, and agreed with me - he said that he had not realized he had diluted his lectures that much since he had stopped teaching at the University. So I regard JC's more as extended High Schools than as colleges.

I had a boyfriend who was a genius. He had dropped out of college and was therefore relegated to working on assembly lines in tractor factories because he did not have the 'magic piece of paper'. Anywhere he showed intelligence and initiative, he was fired; no one wanted to supervise a maverick who was smarter than they were.

So, yes on college if classes are technical; no on JC unless you want to clean up what you missed in HS or learn a trade. Yes you need the 'magic piece of paper', but it will only keep you from being excluded from consideration, it will not grant you a job.

Jan

People tried to ram college down my throat too, but
I hated school too much. When I didn't make it in-
to the top singing group the teacher was forming in
high school, any motivation I might have had to go
(I might have gone for the music) was gone.--
But since then, I have gone through a consid-
erable number of tech courses,lasting a few
months apiece; and it doesn't get me a job.
(Wait; the business school closed down at the
end of 1970, about halfway through the course,
and in 1977 I got a job in a commissary kitchen
in a restaurant chain,part of which was helping
the boss-lady of the commissary with paper-
work--but if I had depended on my education for
support, 6 and a half years or so would have
been a long time to go without eating). And,
after I finished a keypunch course, I once got
a part-time, temporary job copying invoices on-
to a computer, which lasted a few weeks). It is
a matter of paying sometimes as much as about
$300, going a few months, and then not getting
the job. I do not regret that I was not suckered
into going to a four-year liberal arts college, go-
ing through all that pain and boredom, getting
into all that debt, and still not getting any
better job and money to pay it off with. Once
my former French teacher (who had had me skip
2nd-year French and go into 3rd, where I made
straight A's again, though I can't say as much a-
bout all the other subjects), said if I had gone
through college, "Then you'd have a college de-
gree."

"Yeah, then I'd be a street vendor with a
college degree," I replied, to which remark my
younger brother objected.-- Better to lose $300
and waste a few months, than $40,000 and
waste four years.

I think like you, awebb--if there is a specific
career for which it is really necessary, such as
medical doctor, that is one thing; otherwise,
don't bother. Also, the people in this country
need to boycott the colleges, and bring those
professors et al down off their high horse.

Agreed.
If a child does want to do something that requires college, I would refer them to Hillsdale College or Prager University...at least they wouldn't be inundated with revised, confounded liberal nonsense. There is so much that can be done online also.
I myself have furthered my education with over 20 lecture courses from Hillsdale...it's amazing how tainted and inaccurate our education was even in the 60s/70s.

Good to have GED as an early option. According to what I've read of Pennsylvania law, GEDs are only available after age 18 or when the age cohort has graduated.

It may be different now, but a generation ago I was employed in a job that supposedly required a degree. Not only did I lack the degree, I had only a single exposure to the subject -- in ninth grade. In my experience, for big companies with HR departments screening hundreds of applicants per position, a degree may be mandatory. In the case of smaller, entrepreneurial businesses, it's well worth making the case that your experience is more than the equivalent of a 4-year degree. It worked for my spouse.

I went to an engineering school for 5 years and upon leaving and getting a job in my field I discovered that 95% of the "schooling" was spectacularly worthless.

I'm not too worried about progressive brainwashing, but the price is another thing. I think a reasonable degree does help in most good-paying job fields.

Any of you out there have a thought on what is making college so expensive. Is it accreditation? I can imagine starting college of engineering. I think four or five good engineers could teach a small class and my math has me making more than I do as an executive teaching. Where does the money go? Administrators? trash collection?

I would only if his chosen field required a college degree. If it didn't then I would actively encourage him not to go to college.

Interestingly, Peter Thiel, paypal founder and early investor in facebook, is actively encouraging HS graduates to start a business instead of going to college. He even provides scholarships for this..

I work with others who do not have a degree at all so in some respects, my degree is worthless. However, I cannot say my degree did not help me get my entry-level job and quick promotion. It may have moved my applications near the top of the stack. I did have some small student loan debts but I also worked full-time throughout my college years. Thankfully, I was able to afford the bulk of my education without a loan. If I judge my degree's value with a strict financial lens, I probably could have saved money with hard work and experience alone. I do not regret my degree, however, because my extra education helped me incalculably in multiple areas of my life.
Comparing myself to many of my high-school friends (some barely graduated from 12th grade and some could not even accomplish that) I was better suited for higher education. First off, I had a willingness to attend college whereas they were already a foot out of academia and happy to abandon the discipline of study complex thoughts. I also chose self-improvement. I saw myself at the beginning of a long road of discovery and accomplishments whereas their only interests were, dope and fast food jobs and romances.
Only one of them matured and abandoned the moocher-lifestyle. He obtained a G.E.D. and then an Associates. He eventually became a responsible career man, husband, father, and neighbor. He started much later but now we are about equal by all measurements I can imagine.
Higher education is definitely not the only means to knowledge and influence; books, documentaries, internships, trials and errors, experience etc. can get you as far as, if not further than, and undergrad. What matters most, regardless of institutional educations, are drive, long term goals and personal responsibilities.

As a retired college professor I would have to say no. I suppose the world needs academics but it also needs bakers, welders, bus drivers, auto mechanics, farmers and much much more. This may sound like an attempted justification of the caste system in Huxley's "Brave New World" but it is the reality. Not everyone wants to be a "successful" lawyer or doctor or politician. I know I didn't. A college degree is only useful if it makes the person that earned it useful. Most of the degrees from major universities today have little or no market value. A liberal arts education "with emphasis on liberal" really does not prepare one for much. And yet it is these students that are most likely to complain that jobs for which they were trained are not available. There is an enormous unfilled demand for people with trade skills but most universities, especially the ivy league ones, regard this kind of education as beneath their dignity. I knew how to operate a lathe and milling machine before I learned how to solve a problem in algebra or geometry, my father saw to that. I also knew how to fly an airplane before I was old enough to get a license to drive a car. I didn't learn any of these things in college. When I went to college the main objective of a higher education was to teach you how to think, now it is to teach you what to think! The world is a much poorer place as a result.

I may be one of the very few who have experienced both going and not going with my two sons. Son number one AKA Mr. Fixit could put together complicated electronics at age seven. He went to a Tech college, did well, and worked his way through, mostly. He became a successful consultant, worked for NASA and is now chief software guru at a national company. Son number two was a creative business type.At age 15 he made a five reel super 8 movie of the history of comic books. A high school teacher after viewing it said it could pass as a master's thesis. At age 16 with my initial financing he started putting on comic book collector convention, then record collector conventions and within less than two years was nation wide. After high school he was too busy for college, having segued into the rock and roll memorabilia mail order business, and eventually the publishing business. So, what it boils down to is allowing the kids to determine their future, under your supervision. They'll usually pick out what's best for them.

Thoreau noted the question is not "what do you want to be?" but "what do you want to do?" Over the years, I've accumulated a BA in Economics, Masters and Doctorate in education and, looking back, the graduate degrees were the result of being a truck driver. And I made a LOT more money (and enjoyed the hell out of it) being a truck driver. 2008, I grossed $246,768 driving in the gas fields of Wyoming. Most I ever made working as a child abuse investigator for the State of Wyoming was $41,000. I might note my wife is an ER RN and, when working in California, was making $118,000. Not bad for a high school dropout.And she loves her work.

I ALMOST took wood shop in high school. I do like to work with wood. I took Anatomy and Physiology and Space Science instead! haha. and Physics. My husband keeps saying he'll teach me to weld.

I think apprenticeships are excellent ideas! I honestly believe hands on experience is great!

I do have a child, and I am encouraging her to go to college. The courses themselves might not be the most important part, but the experience can be. I can tell you right now that I don't spend my days programming in Pascal and Snobol and Lisp, but for many years I worked in a field to which I was introduced by working on the school paper, and I'm still friends and professional colleagues with my classmates.