> Children are inherently low-skilled laborers, lacking even a minimal high-school education. And many high-school educations are minimal indeed, in the South o

> Children are inherently low-skilled laborers, lacking even a minimal high-school education. And many high-school educations are minimal indeed, in the South or the Midwest. They are low-skilled laborers by any definition you choose They are only low-skilled laborers until they're not. That's kind of the whole point of an apprenticeship. > Someone who is learning to weld at age 14 will usually not accrue even a secondary education let alone college So you're telling me they'll avoid throwing upwards of $100k on a worthless diploma for a bullshit humanities degree and actually start making good money right out of the gate? Damn, I wish I had done that. > Families should not be forced to rely on child labor as income, full stop. At what point did I ever suggest that families should be "forced to rely on child labor". You're tilting at windmills. Every single one of your responses to this thread have been chalk full of straw men. Just try to step outside your basic-income socialist anti-capitalism bubble for a moment and hear me out. When I talk about apprenticeships, I'm not talking about the lowest achieving students being whisked out of the system to languish in a low income field. I mean apprenticeships at high tech companies, non-profits, etc; white-collar jobs where they are trained very specific skills that transfer to any company within that given industry. I'm basing this on the reality that most of what people learn in terms of being productive members of society happens on the job, regardless of the field. Our liberal arts experiment has failed miserably and we're facing the next big financial crisis in the form of student loan debt because of it.