A high school or AS degree only would get thrown in the trash directly everywhere I've ever worked for even the most basic technical jobs. 50 years ago big com

A high school or AS degree only would get thrown in the trash directly everywhere I've ever worked for even the most basic technical jobs. 50 years ago big companies would take you with just a HS degree, and if you were smart and showed initiative, put you under the wing of an engineer - or pay to send you to school. This does not happen anymore. You're also SEVERELY limiting your career if all you complete is high school - you might be OK technically for now, but you will lack all kinds of foundations that would allow you to stay technical, and you'll certainly be disregarded completely as you age for any kind of leadership track. I think the root of this myth (that having only a HS degree you can still get a technical job) is twofold: One, a currently hot hiring market, and two, the "be what you dream!" movement that was big in the 90's. If you've worked through a recession (or even just a dulled market), and seen people around you lose their work, their homes, heard their struggles about how hard it is to find work - people would stop parroting this mantra about having minimal education. It's really doing damage to people who hear it.