It's absolutely no surprise, especially when (for US residents) the US government will literally pay all your expenses, provide a stipend, and provide room, board, and healthcare for you to get a trade school education of your choice via the US Job Corps (https://www.jobcorps.gov/)
0USD + 2-4 years training, all expenses paid + access to highly in demand jobs
vs.
20k USD to 200k USD + 4-6 years education by professors who generally don't even want to teach you + a degree that may not even land you a job
I do a fair bit of primary and secondary school STEM mentoring in my free time. People like me are frequently brought into schools as part of efforts to encourage them to pursue STEM careers (and higher education), however I would coyly tell students that: they absolutely do not need to specialize right after high school, trade schools and the trades are an option, and community college (in the USA) is an option, albeit with some risks [0].
However during one of these sessions parents happened to be in the room, and one approached me afterward to say the following. He said that while it was true that some trades eventually pay very well (he was always in the trades), you pay the price with your body--long hours on your feet, a higher risk of occupational hazards, back problems from bending over frequently. He saw a desk job as the goal to aspire to and that is what he wished for his children. Of course, desk jobs come with their own occupational hazards [1], but that point stuck with me and I no longer blindly encourage young people to go into the trades without at least thinking about the big picture, whatever that may be.
Also I don't know how much I buy the 'straight path to a six-figure job' bit FTA. It's can also be a long slog to get to the owner-operator stage, and not everyone is cut out for all of the responsibilities that come with it.
[0]: I say that one risk of community colleges is that they very much feel like "high school v2" and it's easy to wander into them and waste time instead of thinking seriously where you do (or don't want to work). When I started working a "job", I quickly learned what I _didn't_ want to do, and it was motivating for me to take the idea of a career seriously.
[1]: RSI and poor ergonomics and the like, something I also tell students: "When you start noticing problems in your wrists, it will be too late and you won't be able to ignore ergonomics ever from that point onward".
I don't think it is bad at all. In my day, going to a community college/junior college was seen as a bad thing as in you didn't get into a university. As an adult, I think that was absolutely an image pushed by the universities. The same classes are offered at a fraction of the cost. If it is a choice between not going to college because of university cost, the same two year degree is available for a fraction of the price. I try to remove this stigma from any college bound age students that will let a boomer offer an opinion.
That stigma was even more severe towards trade schools, but I think this is also an egregious label. It's like class warfare bad. Some people just want to know how to do a job to have a career. There is nothing wrong with that, and no shame should be attached in any way. In fact, I wish the concept of apprenticeships were still a thing. There are many very experienced workers that could give very good training to less experienced worker following their trade. I worked with a colorist that had 30+ years experience that had knowledge that is no longer taught but still relevant. I would never go to a school for that skill, but the experience was available and it gave me many more skills than I would have gotten otherwise.
So the system is self correcting after favoring academia for high pay? Let's see what happens but this sounds like it's going to improve some things for a change.
It's funny, I have one kid in college now who wants to go into some kind of health thing. I feel like that's long term safe. I have another about to start this fall who wants to major in computer stuff. I have no idea if that's a good move at this point or not. I can't suggest trades because he doesn't have the good vision required. I suppose it's scary rather than funny.
That's smart. Unless you have a clear idea of exactly what you want to study and how you'll make money with it, taking on debt and spending years of your early adult life in college is usually bad idea. Better to get started learning a trade as soon as possible than to futz around for years getting a literature degree before landing a food service job.
A lot of millennials were taught by boomers that getting any random liberal arts degree would be a sure ticket to easy street in the middle class, then ended up hosed by debt and lack of marketable skills when those promises turned out to be out of date. I'm glad Gen Z isn't falling into the same trap.
Somewhat related, but one of my favorite movies of all time, Margin Call, is underscored by this constant awareness that all the brilliant on Wall Street - all of the intellectual power, and occasionally sheer genius, harnessed for financial engineering - all this mental horsepower could have been spent building rockets, bridges, incredible new materials, predicting the weather, or teasing out the secrets of the cosmos and of existence. Propelling the nation into a new century.
I was about to quote a scene at length, but honestly, I'd feel bad ruining a single moment of the thing. If you're even tangentially interested in Wall Street . . or the aughtie's collapse of the financial system . . or even just the giant sucking sound of all our best and brightest getting pulled into shit that is dumb and wrong . . I'd seriously recommend it. Probably the best Wall Street movie ever made.
Anyway, it's somewhat related, but it's also very related, because, jesus. Do we really need another bumper crop of generic bachelor degrees feeding the paper machine? The last big enterprise software install I sat in on, a rotating cast of forty some different executives, with over sixty seven hours spent in meetings at an average cost of eleven hundred dollars per minute. That's just salaries. Somehow, in my gut, I feel like if we had more certified technical people laying around, we would not be seeing crap like that so damn often.
I recall a similar comment from a TED talk by Scott Galloway where he was lamenting the brain waste of the industrial advertising complex:
> Now we have the 700,000 best and brightest, and these are the best and brightest from the four corners of the earth. They are literally playing with lasers relative to slingshots, relative to the squirt gun. They have the GDP of India to work at. And after studying these companies for 10 years, I know what their mission is: Is it to organize the world’s information? Is it to connect us? Is it to create greater comity of man? It isn’t.
> I know why we have brought together — I know that the greatest collection of IQ capital and creativity, that their sole mission is: to sell another fucking Nissan.
I disagree with all. I mean, some of the best and brightest are making adtech which is its own entire waste of that ability in the same manner you consider fintech.
0USD + 2-4 years training, all expenses paid + access to highly in demand jobs
vs.
20k USD to 200k USD + 4-6 years education by professors who generally don't even want to teach you + a degree that may not even land you a job
Who wouldn't choose the former over the latter?