Again, this isn't the angry young racist bitch board either.

What's wrong with you Chrissie that you think regurgitating your ageist, racist, sexist venom again makes it persuasive?

I wish I could introduce you to my boss. It would be fun to see his response as you call the 40-something son of a legal Ebo Nigerian immigrant an "angry old white guy", for thinking college is overpriced and not delivering value to its customers, being as we just discussed his opinions on college last week. That would be fun.

Post Script: (Hat Tip- Cryptononymous)

Have you met the former President?

He seems to know you.

https://www.zerohedge.com/political/oba ... -eggshells

A. Decorum. Civility. C’mon guys. Take your tiff offline.

B. Around here, the people that I know in the trades have been bemoaning the fact that they can’t seem to get as many quality workers as they need. It’s only gotten worse the last few years. Good tradesmen are like artists and when you’re good at what you do, it pays well. Ain’t no shame in that whatsoever.

The college game hasn’t really changed much in the last 40 years. About half of the classes I had to take had absolutely nothing to do with my major all for the sake of a “well rounded education” and I had to pay money to take them. A few were interesting. A couple were almost horror stories. But to this day I wonder if they were only required so as to get more money for their respective departments.

My major was business administration. My hobbies were, and still are, mechanics, art and music. Those hobbies played into my wildly varying career path much more than my college education. Art led to mechanical design and music theory is really nothing but math. My first real job was in a specialty construction fab shop. Then drafting and design, field assembly work, estimating, programming to automate estimating, project management, quality assurance auditing, and market manager working with engineering firms. Along with my employment I’ve learned quite a few trades building from my experiences. I retired and used my programming skills to do web work and also graphic design. What’s the point of this story? Sometimes your passions will take you further in seemingly unrelated ways than your formal education will. Take those passions, think outside of the box and see where they take you.

I and my partner went to college in the 1970's My daughter went to college in the 2010's, My son is going to college now.

NONE OF US HAS EXPERIENCED WHAT YOU ARE CLAIMING.

Is that factual enough for you?

Brian

Mike Rowe ("Dirty Jobs") is a great spokesman for affirming the worth of trades. Carpenters, plumbers, electricians, HVAC techs, and more...unlike many college-oriented jobs, these fields (1) pay well, (2) are facing attrition as senior members retire, and (3) are not likely to be offshored.

I went the college path (three degrees: BBA; MBA; and Logistics), and chuckled in recognition when I saw Superheater's last post. I've ended up typecast as a beancounter, and in the twilight of my career, I'm seasoned enough to know that GAAP and FASB aside, there are more ways to calculate a financial picture (truthful or otherwise) than there are grains of sand on a beach.

Bravo to those who choose the blue collar path, and sincere best wishes as well.

To be fair, anecdotal evidence from people you may know is not factually indicative of a larger trend, even if the anecdotes are factual themselves. So don't take it that I'm calling you a liar, but "indoctrination" in this case is largely speculative to whether or not you agree with what angle the professor is taking on a course, or policies set by the institution. Conservatives will be far more likely to scream foul at traditionally liberal schools and teachers, more liberal students will tend to agree and go with the flow in those situations. Vice versa is also true. Teachers and proffesors absolutely "indoctrinate" (or whatever you prefer to call it)- just see how it's not socially or politically correct to teach "the facts" we once agreed on. Choosing to not use "preferred pronouns" gets people expelled frequently. If someone is being essentially forced to agree with or accept ideas they do not agree with, at risk repercussions from the institution, that is very much indoctrination. To what extent it exists is a matter of debate. Just goes to show how truly fractured our country has become, it's quite sad, really.

I have great respect for higher education. If time and money were not a factor I'd still be in school today just to keep learning. Where things go awry is that kids are taught that college is an "investment." They are taught that going to college is a magic ticket to doubling their earning potential. This is what needs to change.

Whenever I was in High school back in the 90's, I really wanted to take some elective courses at our affiliated trade school. Our guidance counselor literally staged an intervention to talk me out of it. I had a 4.0GPA, was in the top 10 in my class and the administration felt that trade school would be a disservice. They even went so far as to say I wouldn't fit in with the students "over there." So, I ended up taking advanced placement courses as my electives and went the college route. I now manage the tax department of a $4B company. I have no regrets, but I also realize I could potentially have been equally successful doing something I found more enjoyable. When I hire staff, I'm required to hire those with a college education. All it really tells me is that the individual is able to set goals, stick to them, and make long term commitments. All attributes I want in a successful employee. Beyond that, where a person went to school, what they studied and even their grades doesn't really impress me all that much.

If you want to be an XXXX and college is the prerequisite then college is the right choice. If you passion is to be a doctor, lawyer, etc. then obviously college is in your future to attain those goals. You really need to think about what you want to do and plan for how to get there. Maybe trade school or other training programs or more suitable for your goals and desires. Blindly going to college just because you think it will be your ticket to success is where it becomes a major mistake, yet this is what happens more often than not. Coming out on the backside with no ambition, a career your hate, and a pile of student loan debt isn't exactly the "investment" you were promised.

As someone with one of those "useless degrees" (America Studies) and somehow still has had some reasonable success in a technical field, I can tell you that many of the assumptions being made here are ridiculous.

College should NOT be seen as a vocational school.

That's the reason why people have to take those "stupid classes". The things you learn in college (both in and out of the classroom) make people more rounded and better informed people.

That might involve learning about things that some people claim are "indoctrination", like America's civil rights history and how that history still impacts things today.

Encountering that knowledge may make some people uncomfortable, but it is in dealing with that discomfort that people learn and shape their worldview.

THAT is the point of a higher education.

When I hire people, I look at college education not as an indicator of "can this person code", I look at it as a qualifier that "this person can do the varied things that college requires". Those are things like "showing up on time without mom or dad making you", "coherent short and long form writing", "exposure to people outside the town you grew up in", etc... all things that are required to be successful in the professional world.

As for why it's beneficial to wear a white collar instead of a blue one, it comes down to one big thing: people in the white collar world tend to have significant power over those in the blue collar one.

Think about who it is who gets to make the decisions about who gets laid off. Where a new facility gets built. What facilities get downsized. Etc...

Those things are often all out of control of the blue collar world. Look at the history we supposedly preserve here. Who decided that steam would be replaced with diesel, and all of those machinists in steam shops would be laid off? Who decided that the former Reading shops would be closed and the former PRR shops would be the focus?

If you were a planner at Conrail, you got to make choices. If you were a machinist at Reading, you had to live with those choices that were made for you.

When choosing a career path, it is that truth that drove where I went, and I think a lot of people either consciously or unconsciously make that same choice.

I and my partner went to college in the 1970's My daughter went to college in the 2010's, My son is going to college now.

NONE OF US HAS EXPERIENCED WHAT YOU ARE CLAIMING.

Is that factual enough for you?

Brian[/quote

OK, Boomer.

Most college graduates know this.

https://yourlogicalfallacyis.com/anecdotal

Oh? Are you saying that everyone should strive to be the CEO or in the top echelon then? I wonder how our white collar friends at NS enjoyed the move from Virginia to Georgia? While your statement is factual, let's be realistic. If you're not the owner, you're working for someone else. While you do have "power," your head could be served on a platter within minutes like anyone else in the company. I truly don't buy your argument. When it comes to displacement, it happens on all levels.

It's cavalier to stick your nose up at folks who didn't go to college. I went and have a BA, but in my everyday interactions, I can easily identify peers who went to school. They feel entitled and "dirty" work is beneath them. Great work ethic...

Wow, what an incredibly condescending and revealing post.


You really think showing up on time without "mom or dad making you" is a trait exclusive to college graduates?

And there's that Freudian slip. What's really important to your garden variety leftist is power over others.

Oh yeah, if you think somebody is more "exposed" to people outside their "town" because they went to college, there's a lot of former military people without degrees who have travelled the world who would beg to differ. Some people move as children, some travel for social, religious or personal reasons. This isn't 1930 where people live in a 30 mile radius of their birth.

By the way: my best ever employee was a woman who was former Army. She'd been assigned internationally, she enjoyed (and did some before there was a Lydia Valentin) Olympic Weightlifting. Her personality, punctuality and professionalism was beyond reproach. No college and she learned a lot about different people in her international deployments-as opposed to supinely accepting what was said in the classroom.

My worst was a woman whose career went South after 9/11. She took a clerical supervisory position, despite having a Rutgers MBA (so, two college degrees). Chronic tardiness and absenteeism were the least of her issues. One night, she treated me to an hour long dissertation on the evils of John T. Snow (as Treasury Secretary, not at CSX). Her absolute magnum opus was to waive a banana like a pistol, complete with sound effects of semi-automatic fire. Her deep commitment to "social justice" didn't preclude her from retaliating for being counseled on workplace violence by filing a nine page, handwritten sexual harassment complaint written with such rage she embossed the paper. I of course had to wait three months as the HR imbeciles conducted interviews.

It's youalls job to explain why my anecdotal evidence is not true.

It was stated that "Now I wonder if they serve any useful purpose? High tuition, silly courses and "professors" who are glad to indoctrinate you."

Yet when presented with facts to the contrary, who goes on to denial and attacking the messenger?

It is also true that such messaging is just one of many that are used successfully every day to divide the USA. The richest folks who have ever been chauffeured around the planet Earth love the gullibility at the manufactured outrage.

Brian

I'm not so sure about that. I've spent my entire career worried whether or not I would get caught up in the next round of layoffs. Middle management is often first to go. Even at the executive level there is generally a short time frame where you had better produce results or you're out even if it is through no fault of your own. At least in blue collar fields, layoffs are generally proportional to the work demand. In the white collar fields, your survival is often a popularity contest to put it mildly. Corporate politics are the primary reason why I sometimes question my career choices.

My point isn't that you HAVE to go to college to have those attributes. There are plenty of other ways to develop the traits that will make one successful in the modern world.

But what it DOES mean is that there's an easy shorthand for finding that out. Like it or not, businesses aren't able to really size a person up in the hour or two of interviews they perform. Someone having a college degree is a shortcut to establishing a baseline of expectations.

It ALSO doesn't prove that the person is great. There's a reason job interviews exist.

As for your own anecdote, I don't know what to tell you, people are weird man. But if all you want to see is the worst in them, then that's what you're going to find.

I mean, you're not wrong about still being subject to the vagaries of employment, it's just that when you look at who tends to win and who tends to lose in these things, a pattern clearly emerges.

Look, people of all kinds can be shitty. That's not depending on the type of work you're doing.

But if you're looking for a line a of work that gives you the most agency in the world, then it should be pretty obvious what educational credentials help.

Again. I'm not saying there are rules like "you can only have power over your economic life if you're in the C suite", but it seems to make it easier.