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It's been a slow gradual boil since about the 1970's when college prices started increasing out of proportion to the cost of everything else, and no one stepped

It's been a slow gradual boil since about the 1970's when college prices started increasing out of proportion to the cost of everything else, and no one stepped in to reform things since it mostly worked for the universities that could charge more and more, and make more and more money, except as the article notes - to make it possible for students to get more loans. Combine this with healthcare costs in America rising faster than college and stagnating wages for the average American over the same period of time and the added debt of college crushes a lot of people as the individual examples in the article note. Companies have not very often sponsored college students in America, except for some profession like rural doctors where it's local government choosing to help pay for an exceptional debt load for an unpopular lifestyle choice (being primary care physician for a large geographical area). The other option off the top of my head for Americans is to join one of the military services to fund education. How did you find the apprenticeship and how did you decide to choose that route? Not sure of much like that in America except some of the construction trades like electricians/plumbers.

dimillian 8y ago
It's very common in France for private school to advertise apprenticeship. Because it's a way for them to get more students, and more money, as the company pay the school + the student. It's hard, but not impossible for a student to find a company willing to sponsor them. In the end it can be a bit cheaper than a full time employee + you get a few state taxes cut if you have student/apprentice in your payroll. For me, after college I was searching for that specific thing. That was my own requirement, I wanted to dev full time while getting a diploma as a "safeguard" and "to look good on my resume". Actually school is more a side effect of me working. I continued school because it was possible to work same time, if not I guess I would have stopped after college diploma (BAC in France).
- jbn 8y ago
  Watch out, "college" in US English means "university", while "college" in French means "high school". Your sentence "if not I guess I would have stopped after college diploma (BAC in France)" does not mean what you think it means. You meant (I believe, correct me if i'm wrong) that you would have stopped after high school (i.e. when passing the final "baccalaureate" exam). PS: note however that the baccalaureate diploma is in fact (this is a little-known fact, even in France) a University degree in France. it's the first univ degree that exists in the French education system, it sanctions the end of high school. Weird, I know.
- dnomad 8y ago
  That's not really how apprenticeships work in France or anywhere else. It's actually the French government that directly subsidizes the apprentice and all firms pay a tax into a general apprenticeship fund. Suffice to say it would never fly in America. It doesn't make any sense for any company to pay to train an employee if it can be avoided. The problem though is that when companies don't directly guide the training you get people who are trained... to do the wrong thing. This leads to the perverse situation where American workers are actually over-educated (lots of fancy college degrees, certifications, etc) but still lack the necessary skills. Overall the American system is obscenely inefficient, what with people buying $100K lottery tickets in the hope of landing a decent middle class job, but it's also very hard to disrupt because virtually all of the risk and downside is borne by less fortunate Americans whose lives don't matter anyways. For everybody else -- corporations, investors, and the government -- the system works great. It's a classic serfdom strategy where during good times the nobility takes takes a big cut and during bad times the nobility takes a big cut. Unfortunately, unlike serfs, these terminally indebted Americans don't kill themselves or run away and so there is a kind of macro-inefficiency that builds up slowly overtime. There may be an opportunity for individual companies to take a risk and train up employees but this is a very risky strategy and it isn't necessarily a good thing for workers. It can work only if you pay these untrained employees very little money and this is the other side of the hammer, wage suppression of highly indebted workers. The more you can trap young workers with enormous debt loads the less you actually need to pay them so even companies that "take a chance" on workers can still force the worker to bear most of the risk.
- ixacto 8y ago
  The trades e.g. electrician/plumber advertise apprenticeships all the time in the USA. They get paid + education which starts around $16/hr. If only some of the large tech companies would start adopting the same model.

dimillian 8y ago

It's very common in France for private school to advertise apprenticeship. Because it's a way for them to get more students, and more money, as the company pay the school + the student. It's hard, but not impossible for a student to find a company willing to sponsor them. In the end it can be a bit cheaper than a full time employee + you get a few state taxes cut if you have student/apprentice in your payroll. For me, after college I was searching for that specific thing. That was my own requirement, I wanted to dev full time while getting a diploma as a "safeguard" and "to look good on my resume". Actually school is more a side effect of me working. I continued school because it was possible to work same time, if not I guess I would have stopped after college diploma (BAC in France).

jbn 8y ago
Watch out, "college" in US English means "university", while "college" in French means "high school". Your sentence "if not I guess I would have stopped after college diploma (BAC in France)" does not mean what you think it means. You meant (I believe, correct me if i'm wrong) that you would have stopped after high school (i.e. when passing the final "baccalaureate" exam). PS: note however that the baccalaureate diploma is in fact (this is a little-known fact, even in France) a University degree in France. it's the first univ degree that exists in the French education system, it sanctions the end of high school. Weird, I know.
dnomad 8y ago
That's not really how apprenticeships work in France or anywhere else. It's actually the French government that directly subsidizes the apprentice and all firms pay a tax into a general apprenticeship fund. Suffice to say it would never fly in America. It doesn't make any sense for any company to pay to train an employee if it can be avoided. The problem though is that when companies don't directly guide the training you get people who are trained... to do the wrong thing. This leads to the perverse situation where American workers are actually over-educated (lots of fancy college degrees, certifications, etc) but still lack the necessary skills. Overall the American system is obscenely inefficient, what with people buying $100K lottery tickets in the hope of landing a decent middle class job, but it's also very hard to disrupt because virtually all of the risk and downside is borne by less fortunate Americans whose lives don't matter anyways. For everybody else -- corporations, investors, and the government -- the system works great. It's a classic serfdom strategy where during good times the nobility takes takes a big cut and during bad times the nobility takes a big cut. Unfortunately, unlike serfs, these terminally indebted Americans don't kill themselves or run away and so there is a kind of macro-inefficiency that builds up slowly overtime. There may be an opportunity for individual companies to take a risk and train up employees but this is a very risky strategy and it isn't necessarily a good thing for workers. It can work only if you pay these untrained employees very little money and this is the other side of the hammer, wage suppression of highly indebted workers. The more you can trap young workers with enormous debt loads the less you actually need to pay them so even companies that "take a chance" on workers can still force the worker to bear most of the risk.
ixacto 8y ago
The trades e.g. electrician/plumber advertise apprenticeships all the time in the USA. They get paid + education which starts around $16/hr. If only some of the large tech companies would start adopting the same model.