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I think this trade school obsession is foolish. Everyone cargo-cults it as "pragmatic" without actually analyzing what the jobs entail and what you can actually

I think this trade school obsession is foolish. Everyone cargo-cults it as "pragmatic" without actually analyzing what the jobs entail and what you can actually expect to make. Statistically, you still earn way more with a degree than without. You EARN that pay in the trades, and being an electrician is dangerous. The work is hard on your body. A lot of electricians end up on disability. I wasn't very academic growing up. But then I grew up, and now I am a pretty successful computer programmer making a lot more than that, for way better perks and less dangerous, damaging work. You can make that kind of money as a manager at Walmart and you do not run the risk of getting your arm fried off or falling off a telephone pole. And where does a few years as an electrician leave you if you don't end up liking the career? "Sorry son, the internet told me trades were a good idea. Maybe go back to school now that you are an adult with a family?" Part of the reason you go to school as a young person is that you do not have a family to feed or a house to pay off.

seattle_spring 7y ago
> Part of the reason you go to school as a young person is that you do not have a family to feed or a house to pay off. If you go to art school as a young person, you won't have the problem of paying off a house because you won't have a job that qualifies you for a mortgage.
- seanmcdirmid 7y ago
  My wife went to art school and is (somewhat embarrassing to me) supporting our family with her job at Amazon while I (a CS PhD) am looking for work. We even qualify for a mortgage with her income. (Lesson: UX designers are as important as programmers)
  - seibelj 7y ago
    That’s surprising to me. Why is it so hard to find a job with your CS PhD? Are you trying to get a specific research-oriented job?
    - seanmcdirmid 7y ago
      There aren’t a lot of PL positions open right now, and I didn’t network as much as I should before. Along with the standard problems in applying for jobs (high stakes leetcode, ghosting after multiple successful rounds of interviewing, etc...), that I can’t just apply to a lot of positions means that it takes a bit longer than I would like. I also have the luxury of waiting for a better opportunity rather than just taking the first one that matches.
- elil17 7y ago
  A B.A., even in fine art, still opens up a ton of okay-paying jobs. Jobs like paralegals, retail managers, and HR often require a bachelors degree but don’t care what that degree was in.
  - seibelj 7y ago
    But you can get a generic degree in English or business admin at a community college and have a fine career as a paralegal. Don’t see why you need to go to an expensive art school.
    - fiblye 7y ago
      Bachelors and associates degrees aren’t equivalent. Whenever I’ve seen a job posting asking for a degree, they explicitly ask for a 4 year degree.
- honkycat 7y ago
  Agreed, I would never recommend someone go to art school unless they are absurdly talented ( and at that point: The school would probably give you a scholarship. )
  - deleted 7y ago
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starpilot 7y ago
Factoring in tuition costs, plumbers earn almost the same lifetime income as doctors: https://www.high-profile.com/plumber-vs-doctor-who-brings-in-more-benjamins/ https://www.high-profile.com/plumber-vs-doctor-who-brings-in... And it's generally not a life threatening career.
- learc83 7y ago
  That's complete bullshit. I've known plenty of plumbers, I've never met one who had almost $1 million saved up by 33--which is the example they are using. Sure some small percentage of plumbers might make $90k after 5 years and manage to seriously save. But that's not anywhere close to normal. Also even with the cherry picked example of a union plumber who is unbelievably disciplined with respect to saving. And a doctor who does an optional fellowship. The doctor still comes out WAY ahead over their lifetime.
  - deleted 7y ago
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  - smileysteve 7y ago
    I'd guess this might have some confusion of average and median one way or the other. Example: In 2010 the median lawyer made 78k a year while the average made 120k. Note the 50% difference.
  - throwawayhhakdl 7y ago
    Plumber != Plumbing business owner. That’s the distinction most people gloss over.
- throwno 7y ago
  So, I assume you pushed your kids to skip medical school and enroll in plumbing classes instead right? How did it go? Are they in the one percent now?
marcus_holmes 7y ago
Is this correlation or causation though? Are young people who get through a degree course then super focused on getting as much money as they can because they have all this debt? As opposed to people who don't have mountains of student debt, and can then afford to take lower-paying, better-for-their-life jobs? Huge debt is really stressful, and hard on mental health. I don't know the comparative suicide rates of electricians and art grads, but I'd suspect art school is effectively worse for your health than a trade. People generally have two or even three careers now. Migrating from electrician to manager is about as easy as migrating from software developer to manager.
- learc83 7y ago
  >As opposed to people who don't have mountains of student debt, and can then afford to take lower-paying, better-for-their-life jobs With income based repayment, you pay 10% of your disposable income (income over 1.5x the poverty rate) , so this isn't really much of an issue.
  - marcus_holmes 7y ago
    To maintain your debt, yes. But to clear it, and finally be free of it, you need to earn a lot of money. That is bound to focus the mind somewhat.
    - learc83 7y ago
      Or wait 20 years until it's cancelled. People regularly take out 30 year home loans much larger than the average student loan debt without debilitating psychiatric problems.
      - tengbretson 7y ago
        This isn't comparable in the least, since there's no equity built up over the course of paying off student debt.
        7y ago
seiferteric 7y ago
> Statistically, you still earn way more with a degree than without. I would need to see better information on this. I would think a lot of people without a degree don't do much of anything at all and bring the average way down. It would be better to see what the average is for people who complete a trade school program vs the average of people earning a degree.
- LoSboccacc 7y ago
  earning is a misleading figure anyway, a lot of these high paying jobs for graduates are in big cities where the cost of living offsets the higher income
deleted 7y ago
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djaque 7y ago
The other issue is the health toll many of the trade jobs have. See what 40 years of running cable on your hands and knees as an electrician will do to you vs a cushy desk job.
- honkycat 7y ago
  Yep, exactly. I went down this "trades are great!" rabbit hole a while ago because I had a cousin who had a friend telling him: "You can be making 6 figures in 5 years as an electrician!" I was surprised when I found out his buddy didn't have a bridge to sell him as well. Your career is not just about money earned. It is about the lifestyle. It is about your physical health over a long period of time. It is about your chance for advancement. It is about what you are going to be doing day-to-day.
  - LoSboccacc 7y ago
    yeah because the average dev guy can run marathons, right?
    - filoleg 7y ago
      Working as a dev doesn't inherently prevent one from being healthy and active enough to be able to run a marathon, just gotta spend some time being active in your spare time. But killed knees and back due to a job in trades certainly will prevent you from running a marathon, no matter what you do with your free time.
      - mythrwy 7y ago
        Sitting in a chair all day is horrible for people though. (To say nothing of what it does for your attitude and personality).
        filoleg 7y ago
        You can easily mitigate that by making adjustments to your workplace (adjustable sitting/standing desk), as well as by avoiding spending a lot of time in a chair and being active outside of work. With trades, you cannot really do anything outside of work to successfully mitigate the damage done to your body, unfortunately.
simonsarris 7y ago
> Statistically, you still earn way more with a degree than without. This is becoming less and less true for lots of cohorts. I suspect it will stop correlating for everyone soon. From a few days ago: "Is College Still Worth It? The New Calculus of Falling Returns" by Center for Household Financial Stability, St Louis Fed https://www.stlouisfed.org/~/media/files/pdfs/hfs/is-college-worth-it/emmons_kent_ricketts_college_still_worth_it.pdf?la=en https://www.stlouisfed.org/~/media/files/pdfs/hfs/is-college... > The college wealth premium is at a historic low; among other races and ethnicities, it is statistically indistinguishable from zero > Our results suggest that college & post-grad education may be failing some recent graduates as a financial investment."
- everdev 7y ago
  I went to a 4-year college, but earned almost all of my money from self-taught programming and design skills. It's hard to justify the ROI on college. At $25k/year for a low-tier college, you'll spend $100k (if you don't need loans). If you take that $100k and put it in the market (avg. 7% annual returns) with 0 contributions for 45 years, you could spend every penny you make and retire at 63 with $2.1M. At more expensive colleges ($50k/yr+) the math seems less and less in your favor.
  - learc83 7y ago
    Low tier college should be about $10k a year and that's assumimg you don't do 2 years a community college. You shouldn't live on campus if you're price sensitive. And you cant include room and board in your calculations because you'd need that anyway. 7% annual returns are also misleading because it ignores inflation. Edit--I've since learned that 7% average already adjusts for inflation.
    - everdev 7y ago
      7% is adjusted for inflation. It's about 10% without: https://www.investopedia.com/ask/answers/042415/what-average-annual-return-sp-500.asp https://www.investopedia.com/ask/answers/042415/what-average...
    - 7y ago
beatgammit 7y ago
Personally, I think learning a trade should be an option in high school. A trade is better than a high school diploma both in pay and practical usefulness, whereas "college prep" is almost always useless. If you learn a trade and dislike it, you should have as much time as possible to pivot to something else. I think high schoolers should have two choices: - Associates Degree track at a local university - apprenticeship at a local trade organization The AA/AS by itself isn't particularly useful (a little better than a diploma though), but it gives you an introduction into college life. A trade by itself isn't particularly useful (need years of practice to master it), but it's a practical introduction to what's available without a college degree. Our current approach of teaching to standardized tests seems like the worse option since it's neither practical (college doesn't really work like the tests) nor in demand (your employer doesn't care about your standardized test scores). Our whole education system is out of whack, and just making it free isn't going to fix it. We need more paths to success, and we currently only have one that's pushed by our education system: STEM degrees.
- eitland 7y ago
  Sounds a bit like what we have in Norway where you have (roughly) three choices for your 11 to 13 free years in school (1 - 10 is mandatory and while you can choose Montessori and a couple of other options they all share the same subjects): - Vocational: 2 or 3 years followed by 2+ years as an apprentice in a real company, often with a master craftsman where the apprentices pay increases from approx 30% of full pay and up towards full pay during the time you stay. In return for the limited pay they have to take time to teach you and they cannot easily let you go before your apprenticeship has ended. - Study preparations: three years of languages (typically the two Norwegian ones, English and German but some people will choose French or Spanish or something instead of or in addition to German.) Students who aim for engineering or medicine studies will typically add math, physics and another sciency subject: chemistry and biology were popular back when I went to school. - leave school and get a job (or more and more likely it seems: fall behind) As for why I say roughly, there's been a very nice option where you could get certified as a craftsman and get enough subjects to enter engineering in four years. Also there are some options for transitioning from vocational to other studies. Going the other way is pretty hard and probably involves getting a job as uncertified worker in the field, then work for 5 years, takes some courses and pass the certification test. Note: I'm not saying this is unique. It would surprise me if something like this isn't common in many other countries.
lr4444lr 7y ago
The trades also tend to be unionized with good workers' comp and disability pensions, though.
- asdff 7y ago
  It's good that they pay for it but I still wouldn't want to be subjected to an opioid prescription for the rest of my life.
Aloha 7y ago
> You can make that kind of money as a manager at Walmart and you do not run the risk of getting your arm fried off or falling off a telephone pole. Yes, but we need many more trades people than managers at Wal-Mart.
- throwawayhhakdl 7y ago
  Not really. We need more trade people than managers at Wal-Mart specifically, but there’s plenty of equivalent positions at other companies.
katzgrau 7y ago
Both of my parents were union tradespeople, one of them IBEW, working on telephone poles. I agree that the "trades" meme is merely a "grass is greener" perspective. The low capped pay and lack of personal autonomy (if not strong discouragement of it by the union perks) can make one miserable, especially when you're pushed into it at such an early age based on others' perceived assessment of your abilities. Also, I was a terrible math and science student in high school, and found my groove in college, only to graduate with a BS in CS in the top 1% of the class of almost 1k. Just a late bloomer I guess.
- dragonwriter 7y ago
  > I agree that the "trades" meme is merely a "grass is greener" perspective Nah, it's a meme being pushed with organized campaigns that take lots of money: it's an attempt to manipulate the labor pool to bring wages down in certain fields by increasing competition for jobs and increasing return to capital. Of course, so is the similarly heavily promoted “train everyone to code” push.
  - johnchristopher 7y ago
    Hmm. Any source on that or a piece of journalism ?
hajile 7y ago
I worked in that particular trade for quite a while, so I'm not speaking from ignorance. You move away from bucket truck work and the serious injury rates plummet (and bucket truck work -- especially line work -- pays way above average). Work for the union where safety is actually enforced and that rate plummets again. While freak accidents happen, most are due to foolish people doing foolish things. For example, you mention getting your arm fried, but "working it hot" is almost always going to break safety regulations. I got hit with 480v once, but only because someone flagrantly broke safety regulations and cut my lockout off of a breaker. If you think injuries don't happen at walmart, try working as a stocker for a few weeks. Only a fraction of a fraction of walmart employees are ever managers and it seems they are very often put there due to nepotism rather than merit. At least if you broke your back as an electrician, you make enough to save for retirement and the IBEW has great disability benefits. Your last statement disregards three important facts of life. First, if everyone could get that computer job, it would pay next to nothing. Most people simply don't have what it takes. Second, as long as you like having electricity, there will be a demand for electricians. Somebody must do that job and the pay is very good. Thirdly, liking a job is not a pre-requisite. I very seriously doubt most people in the service sector like their jobs. If you're going to dislike your job anyway, you might as well go for the one with higher compensation. If you do decide to switch careers later, you'd be a lot better off with all that extra money.
- ntsplnkv2 7y ago
  > Work for the union where safety is actually enforced and that rate plummets again. Not that easy given how weak unions are now in much of the US .
lbatx 7y ago
Taking your comment to its logical conclusion, then, no one should become an electrician. Too dangerous. Low (relative to a degree) pay. Well, who then is going to fulfill this necessary role?
- lotsofpulp 7y ago
  The licensed electricians I know make far more than degree holders, outside of comp engineers/doctors/MBA from select schools. For the vast majority of non selective schools and non rigorous degrees, an electrician should easily outearn them. Electrician pay will also continue to rise quite a bit over the next decade. I already pay far more every year than the year before, if I can even book a decent electrician.
- eirini1 7y ago
  Perhaps people who really want to be electricians because they like the trade itself?
  - lbatx 7y ago
    And how do people decide they like the trade itself? Fine line there. How are people to know about the trades if all they hear is "go to college"?
- chongli 7y ago
  If fewer people decide to be electricians, then pay must go up to attract them, changing the calculus. If we force every high school student into trade school, on the other hand, there will be a glut of electricians and pay will go down. Then what do we have? A lot of very angry people who feel betrayed by our insistence on trade school. And they'd be right to feel betrayed! We should be encouraging people to pursue fields that suit their interests, talents, and ambitions. If there are financial barriers then we need to tear them down. The economy exists for the people, not people for the economy.
slowhand09 7y ago
I think you overestimate the number of people attending college who "aren't college material" and underestimate the number who excel at trades. I've seen data indicating a majority portion of student loan defaults are by people who did NOT finish college, thus the worst-case scenario: they're responsible for the debt, and haven't the degree or the job to pay it back. Truly a sad place to be. You might consider the average readership of this forum isn't even your typical college-educated tech worker, but likely a more curious and intellectual type. Who is going to repair his electrical, communications, automotive, mass transit, etc infrastructure. Plumbing in non-glamorous. If you do it after hours I bet his billed rate is higher than yours. And he doesn't pay 7% on $125k of debt. His house is paid for already. My stepson has ADD and other initials to factor in. He makes $75-80k operating heavy equip. His tech school cost $25k. He owns a home. He is still close with his HS friends. 1 in 10 owns a home.
nine_k 7y ago
I think it's not just black and white. Is college universally useful? No, it may leave you without knowledge on how to earn decent money, while crippling you with a heavy debt. Is college completely useless? No, it's quite useful for some, and even indispensable for certain professions (e.g. medical doctors). I'd say that college is useful for those who actively extract knowledge and experience from it, and that knowledge can help pay the tuition. This is definitely not 100% of students. Going to college just to hang out with kids and obtain a diploma for decoration, expecting to be passively taught, or studying stuff no business wants to pay for, is silly, of course.
oarabbus_ 7y ago
Trade school is a good, viable path, but you do make a good point. Ask an old electrician what they want their kid to be, and (excluding the scenario of a family business) it's usually "not an electrician"
chadcmulligan 7y ago
I come from a family of tradies, I was one myself for a few years, then went to uni. You can't expect to do this after about 40, maybe 50, and expect to have a lot of health problems - bad back, foo-foo valves burst etc. Whereas with the professions you can expect to work as long as you want. Then of course there are the tradies I knew of when I was young who are dead from it, not many but a couple, I don't know anyone who is dead from computer programming. There is perhaps one trade that seems to be OK in my experience - plumbing, its not particularly hard work and there's always demand, but you know, digging up sh*t all your life is the trade off. You don't see many old plumbers though - they're probably out in their yachts. Worked with nurses in health for a while - the number of nurses with bad backs is incredible. Go to uni
mixmastamyk 7y ago
Older developer here with a same age friend that’s an electrician for the city. He often makes a lot more than me with overtime. He wasn’t unemployed for a year either due to interview games and ageism bullshit.
js8 7y ago
> Statistically, you still earn way more with a degree than without. Hate to be so negative, but it looks like it's all the game of prestige in the hierarchy as it always was: https://www.academia.edu/41235398/Personal_Income_and_Hierarchical_Power https://www.academia.edu/41235398/Personal_Income_and_Hierar...
Barrin92 7y ago
>Statistically, you still earn way more with a degree than without. You don't actually. Among non-hispanic white individuals the college premium is at a historic low, for all other groups it's indistinguishable from zero.[1] And as for realism or pragmatism. I am German and in Germany the majority of people still learn trades and do not go to university. They start earning a paycheck at 17 or 18, they contribute to their social security from the same point, they have good chances of taking over a business given the demographic transition, and they do not have to participate in the competitive hamster wheel that is the American college system or the overrun white-collar service sector including dozens of applications. And while I can't speak to the crafts and trade sector in the US, in Germany being an electrician is not particularly dangerous, there are strict safety regulations in place and you don't overwork yourself, companies painfully pay attention to it. This isn't the 1920s with people balancing around on steel beams. When I see the constant anxiety in the US of the millenial generation, the debt driven barely sustainable lifestyles and the constant competition I can only say I am thankful to have grown up in a country where there is a path for normal people to take on jobs that guarantee secure income, without largely useless academic training for a population that is frankly largely unsuited for it. [1]https://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2019/12/is-the-college-wealth-premium-zero.html https://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2019/12/is...
braindeath 7y ago
> Statistically, you still earn way more with a degree than without. Applying population statistics to individuals is a fool’s errand. Not everyone is cut out to be a software engineer.
JamesBarney 7y ago
> Statistically, you still earn way more with a degree than without. This isn't quite true. What's true is people with degrees earn way more than people without them. But people /w degrees don't equal people without degrees.
burfog 7y ago
Why it worked for you: "computer programmer" There was a decent chance to get that success without college. Meanwhile, what of the others who go to college? Most are not computer programmers. Lots of people get a BA in psychology, criminal justice, early childhood education, music, sociology, Spanish, drama, anthropology, journalism, or art history. These people seldom find success.
bfuller 7y ago
Not every position is physically demanding or dangerous. Its quite easy to move into different fields and positions that are not physically demanding and just require a little bit of critical thinking or smart work. This idea that every trade job is dangerous or will leave you disabled is insane. If you don't like being an electrician, you could move over into HVAC and make twice as much since you have an electrician's license. I feel your view is rather narrow. With trades you have the ability of taking a 2 week intensive program and getting hired for $20/hr right out of school. Its a way better deal than some liberal arts education that gets you deep into debt and qualifies you to be a barista.

seattle_spring 7y ago

> Part of the reason you go to school as a young person is that you do not have a family to feed or a house to pay off. If you go to art school as a young person, you won't have the problem of paying off a house because you won't have a job that qualifies you for a mortgage.

seanmcdirmid 7y ago
My wife went to art school and is (somewhat embarrassing to me) supporting our family with her job at Amazon while I (a CS PhD) am looking for work. We even qualify for a mortgage with her income. (Lesson: UX designers are as important as programmers)
- seibelj 7y ago
  That’s surprising to me. Why is it so hard to find a job with your CS PhD? Are you trying to get a specific research-oriented job?
  - seanmcdirmid 7y ago
    There aren’t a lot of PL positions open right now, and I didn’t network as much as I should before. Along with the standard problems in applying for jobs (high stakes leetcode, ghosting after multiple successful rounds of interviewing, etc...), that I can’t just apply to a lot of positions means that it takes a bit longer than I would like. I also have the luxury of waiting for a better opportunity rather than just taking the first one that matches.
elil17 7y ago
A B.A., even in fine art, still opens up a ton of okay-paying jobs. Jobs like paralegals, retail managers, and HR often require a bachelors degree but don’t care what that degree was in.
- seibelj 7y ago
  But you can get a generic degree in English or business admin at a community college and have a fine career as a paralegal. Don’t see why you need to go to an expensive art school.
  - fiblye 7y ago
    Bachelors and associates degrees aren’t equivalent. Whenever I’ve seen a job posting asking for a degree, they explicitly ask for a 4 year degree.
honkycat 7y ago
Agreed, I would never recommend someone go to art school unless they are absurdly talented ( and at that point: The school would probably give you a scholarship. )
- deleted 7y ago
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starpilot 7y ago

Factoring in tuition costs, plumbers earn almost the same lifetime income as doctors: https://www.high-profile.com/plumber-vs-doctor-who-brings-in-more-benjamins/ https://www.high-profile.com/plumber-vs-doctor-who-brings-in... And it's generally not a life threatening career.

learc83 7y ago
That's complete bullshit. I've known plenty of plumbers, I've never met one who had almost $1 million saved up by 33--which is the example they are using. Sure some small percentage of plumbers might make $90k after 5 years and manage to seriously save. But that's not anywhere close to normal. Also even with the cherry picked example of a union plumber who is unbelievably disciplined with respect to saving. And a doctor who does an optional fellowship. The doctor still comes out WAY ahead over their lifetime.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
- smileysteve 7y ago
  I'd guess this might have some confusion of average and median one way or the other. Example: In 2010 the median lawyer made 78k a year while the average made 120k. Note the 50% difference.
- throwawayhhakdl 7y ago
  Plumber != Plumbing business owner. That’s the distinction most people gloss over.
throwno 7y ago
So, I assume you pushed your kids to skip medical school and enroll in plumbing classes instead right? How did it go? Are they in the one percent now?

marcus_holmes 7y ago

Is this correlation or causation though? Are young people who get through a degree course then super focused on getting as much money as they can because they have all this debt? As opposed to people who don't have mountains of student debt, and can then afford to take lower-paying, better-for-their-life jobs? Huge debt is really stressful, and hard on mental health. I don't know the comparative suicide rates of electricians and art grads, but I'd suspect art school is effectively worse for your health than a trade. People generally have two or even three careers now. Migrating from electrician to manager is about as easy as migrating from software developer to manager.

learc83 7y ago
>As opposed to people who don't have mountains of student debt, and can then afford to take lower-paying, better-for-their-life jobs With income based repayment, you pay 10% of your disposable income (income over 1.5x the poverty rate) , so this isn't really much of an issue.
- marcus_holmes 7y ago
  To maintain your debt, yes. But to clear it, and finally be free of it, you need to earn a lot of money. That is bound to focus the mind somewhat.
  - learc83 7y ago
    Or wait 20 years until it's cancelled. People regularly take out 30 year home loans much larger than the average student loan debt without debilitating psychiatric problems.
    - tengbretson 7y ago
      This isn't comparable in the least, since there's no equity built up over the course of paying off student debt.
      - 7y ago

seiferteric 7y ago

> Statistically, you still earn way more with a degree than without. I would need to see better information on this. I would think a lot of people without a degree don't do much of anything at all and bring the average way down. It would be better to see what the average is for people who complete a trade school program vs the average of people earning a degree.

LoSboccacc 7y ago
earning is a misleading figure anyway, a lot of these high paying jobs for graduates are in big cities where the cost of living offsets the higher income

deleted 7y ago

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djaque 7y ago

The other issue is the health toll many of the trade jobs have. See what 40 years of running cable on your hands and knees as an electrician will do to you vs a cushy desk job.

honkycat 7y ago
Yep, exactly. I went down this "trades are great!" rabbit hole a while ago because I had a cousin who had a friend telling him: "You can be making 6 figures in 5 years as an electrician!" I was surprised when I found out his buddy didn't have a bridge to sell him as well. Your career is not just about money earned. It is about the lifestyle. It is about your physical health over a long period of time. It is about your chance for advancement. It is about what you are going to be doing day-to-day.
- LoSboccacc 7y ago
  yeah because the average dev guy can run marathons, right?
  - filoleg 7y ago
    Working as a dev doesn't inherently prevent one from being healthy and active enough to be able to run a marathon, just gotta spend some time being active in your spare time. But killed knees and back due to a job in trades certainly will prevent you from running a marathon, no matter what you do with your free time.
    - mythrwy 7y ago
      Sitting in a chair all day is horrible for people though. (To say nothing of what it does for your attitude and personality).
      - filoleg 7y ago
        You can easily mitigate that by making adjustments to your workplace (adjustable sitting/standing desk), as well as by avoiding spending a lot of time in a chair and being active outside of work. With trades, you cannot really do anything outside of work to successfully mitigate the damage done to your body, unfortunately.

simonsarris 7y ago

> Statistically, you still earn way more with a degree than without. This is becoming less and less true for lots of cohorts. I suspect it will stop correlating for everyone soon. From a few days ago: "Is College Still Worth It? The New Calculus of Falling Returns" by Center for Household Financial Stability, St Louis Fed https://www.stlouisfed.org/~/media/files/pdfs/hfs/is-college-worth-it/emmons_kent_ricketts_college_still_worth_it.pdf?la=en https://www.stlouisfed.org/~/media/files/pdfs/hfs/is-college... > The college wealth premium is at a historic low; among other races and ethnicities, it is statistically indistinguishable from zero > Our results suggest that college & post-grad education may be failing some recent graduates as a financial investment."

everdev 7y ago
I went to a 4-year college, but earned almost all of my money from self-taught programming and design skills. It's hard to justify the ROI on college. At $25k/year for a low-tier college, you'll spend $100k (if you don't need loans). If you take that $100k and put it in the market (avg. 7% annual returns) with 0 contributions for 45 years, you could spend every penny you make and retire at 63 with $2.1M. At more expensive colleges ($50k/yr+) the math seems less and less in your favor.
- learc83 7y ago
  Low tier college should be about $10k a year and that's assumimg you don't do 2 years a community college. You shouldn't live on campus if you're price sensitive. And you cant include room and board in your calculations because you'd need that anyway. 7% annual returns are also misleading because it ignores inflation. Edit--I've since learned that 7% average already adjusts for inflation.
  - everdev 7y ago
    7% is adjusted for inflation. It's about 10% without: https://www.investopedia.com/ask/answers/042415/what-average-annual-return-sp-500.asp https://www.investopedia.com/ask/answers/042415/what-average...
  - 7y ago

beatgammit 7y ago

Personally, I think learning a trade should be an option in high school. A trade is better than a high school diploma both in pay and practical usefulness, whereas "college prep" is almost always useless. If you learn a trade and dislike it, you should have as much time as possible to pivot to something else. I think high schoolers should have two choices: - Associates Degree track at a local university - apprenticeship at a local trade organization The AA/AS by itself isn't particularly useful (a little better than a diploma though), but it gives you an introduction into college life. A trade by itself isn't particularly useful (need years of practice to master it), but it's a practical introduction to what's available without a college degree. Our current approach of teaching to standardized tests seems like the worse option since it's neither practical (college doesn't really work like the tests) nor in demand (your employer doesn't care about your standardized test scores). Our whole education system is out of whack, and just making it free isn't going to fix it. We need more paths to success, and we currently only have one that's pushed by our education system: STEM degrees.

eitland 7y ago
Sounds a bit like what we have in Norway where you have (roughly) three choices for your 11 to 13 free years in school (1 - 10 is mandatory and while you can choose Montessori and a couple of other options they all share the same subjects): - Vocational: 2 or 3 years followed by 2+ years as an apprentice in a real company, often with a master craftsman where the apprentices pay increases from approx 30% of full pay and up towards full pay during the time you stay. In return for the limited pay they have to take time to teach you and they cannot easily let you go before your apprenticeship has ended. - Study preparations: three years of languages (typically the two Norwegian ones, English and German but some people will choose French or Spanish or something instead of or in addition to German.) Students who aim for engineering or medicine studies will typically add math, physics and another sciency subject: chemistry and biology were popular back when I went to school. - leave school and get a job (or more and more likely it seems: fall behind) As for why I say roughly, there's been a very nice option where you could get certified as a craftsman and get enough subjects to enter engineering in four years. Also there are some options for transitioning from vocational to other studies. Going the other way is pretty hard and probably involves getting a job as uncertified worker in the field, then work for 5 years, takes some courses and pass the certification test. Note: I'm not saying this is unique. It would surprise me if something like this isn't common in many other countries.

lr4444lr 7y ago

The trades also tend to be unionized with good workers' comp and disability pensions, though.

asdff 7y ago
It's good that they pay for it but I still wouldn't want to be subjected to an opioid prescription for the rest of my life.

Aloha 7y ago

> You can make that kind of money as a manager at Walmart and you do not run the risk of getting your arm fried off or falling off a telephone pole. Yes, but we need many more trades people than managers at Wal-Mart.

throwawayhhakdl 7y ago
Not really. We need more trade people than managers at Wal-Mart specifically, but there’s plenty of equivalent positions at other companies.

katzgrau 7y ago

Both of my parents were union tradespeople, one of them IBEW, working on telephone poles. I agree that the "trades" meme is merely a "grass is greener" perspective. The low capped pay and lack of personal autonomy (if not strong discouragement of it by the union perks) can make one miserable, especially when you're pushed into it at such an early age based on others' perceived assessment of your abilities. Also, I was a terrible math and science student in high school, and found my groove in college, only to graduate with a BS in CS in the top 1% of the class of almost 1k. Just a late bloomer I guess.

dragonwriter 7y ago
> I agree that the "trades" meme is merely a "grass is greener" perspective Nah, it's a meme being pushed with organized campaigns that take lots of money: it's an attempt to manipulate the labor pool to bring wages down in certain fields by increasing competition for jobs and increasing return to capital. Of course, so is the similarly heavily promoted “train everyone to code” push.
- johnchristopher 7y ago
  Hmm. Any source on that or a piece of journalism ?

hajile 7y ago

I worked in that particular trade for quite a while, so I'm not speaking from ignorance. You move away from bucket truck work and the serious injury rates plummet (and bucket truck work -- especially line work -- pays way above average). Work for the union where safety is actually enforced and that rate plummets again. While freak accidents happen, most are due to foolish people doing foolish things. For example, you mention getting your arm fried, but "working it hot" is almost always going to break safety regulations. I got hit with 480v once, but only because someone flagrantly broke safety regulations and cut my lockout off of a breaker. If you think injuries don't happen at walmart, try working as a stocker for a few weeks. Only a fraction of a fraction of walmart employees are ever managers and it seems they are very often put there due to nepotism rather than merit. At least if you broke your back as an electrician, you make enough to save for retirement and the IBEW has great disability benefits. Your last statement disregards three important facts of life. First, if everyone could get that computer job, it would pay next to nothing. Most people simply don't have what it takes. Second, as long as you like having electricity, there will be a demand for electricians. Somebody must do that job and the pay is very good. Thirdly, liking a job is not a pre-requisite. I very seriously doubt most people in the service sector like their jobs. If you're going to dislike your job anyway, you might as well go for the one with higher compensation. If you do decide to switch careers later, you'd be a lot better off with all that extra money.

ntsplnkv2 7y ago
> Work for the union where safety is actually enforced and that rate plummets again. Not that easy given how weak unions are now in much of the US .

lbatx 7y ago

Taking your comment to its logical conclusion, then, no one should become an electrician. Too dangerous. Low (relative to a degree) pay. Well, who then is going to fulfill this necessary role?

lotsofpulp 7y ago
The licensed electricians I know make far more than degree holders, outside of comp engineers/doctors/MBA from select schools. For the vast majority of non selective schools and non rigorous degrees, an electrician should easily outearn them. Electrician pay will also continue to rise quite a bit over the next decade. I already pay far more every year than the year before, if I can even book a decent electrician.
eirini1 7y ago
Perhaps people who really want to be electricians because they like the trade itself?
- lbatx 7y ago
  And how do people decide they like the trade itself? Fine line there. How are people to know about the trades if all they hear is "go to college"?
chongli 7y ago
If fewer people decide to be electricians, then pay must go up to attract them, changing the calculus. If we force every high school student into trade school, on the other hand, there will be a glut of electricians and pay will go down. Then what do we have? A lot of very angry people who feel betrayed by our insistence on trade school. And they'd be right to feel betrayed! We should be encouraging people to pursue fields that suit their interests, talents, and ambitions. If there are financial barriers then we need to tear them down. The economy exists for the people, not people for the economy.

slowhand09 7y ago

I think you overestimate the number of people attending college who "aren't college material" and underestimate the number who excel at trades. I've seen data indicating a majority portion of student loan defaults are by people who did NOT finish college, thus the worst-case scenario: they're responsible for the debt, and haven't the degree or the job to pay it back. Truly a sad place to be. You might consider the average readership of this forum isn't even your typical college-educated tech worker, but likely a more curious and intellectual type. Who is going to repair his electrical, communications, automotive, mass transit, etc infrastructure. Plumbing in non-glamorous. If you do it after hours I bet his billed rate is higher than yours. And he doesn't pay 7% on $125k of debt. His house is paid for already. My stepson has ADD and other initials to factor in. He makes $75-80k operating heavy equip. His tech school cost $25k. He owns a home. He is still close with his HS friends. 1 in 10 owns a home.

nine_k 7y ago

I think it's not just black and white. Is college universally useful? No, it may leave you without knowledge on how to earn decent money, while crippling you with a heavy debt. Is college completely useless? No, it's quite useful for some, and even indispensable for certain professions (e.g. medical doctors). I'd say that college is useful for those who actively extract knowledge and experience from it, and that knowledge can help pay the tuition. This is definitely not 100% of students. Going to college just to hang out with kids and obtain a diploma for decoration, expecting to be passively taught, or studying stuff no business wants to pay for, is silly, of course.

oarabbus_ 7y ago

Trade school is a good, viable path, but you do make a good point. Ask an old electrician what they want their kid to be, and (excluding the scenario of a family business) it's usually "not an electrician"

chadcmulligan 7y ago

I come from a family of tradies, I was one myself for a few years, then went to uni. You can't expect to do this after about 40, maybe 50, and expect to have a lot of health problems - bad back, foo-foo valves burst etc. Whereas with the professions you can expect to work as long as you want. Then of course there are the tradies I knew of when I was young who are dead from it, not many but a couple, I don't know anyone who is dead from computer programming. There is perhaps one trade that seems to be OK in my experience - plumbing, its not particularly hard work and there's always demand, but you know, digging up sh*t all your life is the trade off. You don't see many old plumbers though - they're probably out in their yachts. Worked with nurses in health for a while - the number of nurses with bad backs is incredible. Go to uni

mixmastamyk 7y ago

Older developer here with a same age friend that’s an electrician for the city. He often makes a lot more than me with overtime. He wasn’t unemployed for a year either due to interview games and ageism bullshit.

js8 7y ago

> Statistically, you still earn way more with a degree than without. Hate to be so negative, but it looks like it's all the game of prestige in the hierarchy as it always was: https://www.academia.edu/41235398/Personal_Income_and_Hierarchical_Power https://www.academia.edu/41235398/Personal_Income_and_Hierar...

Barrin92 7y ago

>Statistically, you still earn way more with a degree than without. You don't actually. Among non-hispanic white individuals the college premium is at a historic low, for all other groups it's indistinguishable from zero.[1] And as for realism or pragmatism. I am German and in Germany the majority of people still learn trades and do not go to university. They start earning a paycheck at 17 or 18, they contribute to their social security from the same point, they have good chances of taking over a business given the demographic transition, and they do not have to participate in the competitive hamster wheel that is the American college system or the overrun white-collar service sector including dozens of applications. And while I can't speak to the crafts and trade sector in the US, in Germany being an electrician is not particularly dangerous, there are strict safety regulations in place and you don't overwork yourself, companies painfully pay attention to it. This isn't the 1920s with people balancing around on steel beams. When I see the constant anxiety in the US of the millenial generation, the debt driven barely sustainable lifestyles and the constant competition I can only say I am thankful to have grown up in a country where there is a path for normal people to take on jobs that guarantee secure income, without largely useless academic training for a population that is frankly largely unsuited for it. [1]https://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2019/12/is-the-college-wealth-premium-zero.html https://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2019/12/is...

braindeath 7y ago

> Statistically, you still earn way more with a degree than without. Applying population statistics to individuals is a fool’s errand. Not everyone is cut out to be a software engineer.

JamesBarney 7y ago

> Statistically, you still earn way more with a degree than without. This isn't quite true. What's true is people with degrees earn way more than people without them. But people /w degrees don't equal people without degrees.

burfog 7y ago

Why it worked for you: "computer programmer" There was a decent chance to get that success without college. Meanwhile, what of the others who go to college? Most are not computer programmers. Lots of people get a BA in psychology, criminal justice, early childhood education, music, sociology, Spanish, drama, anthropology, journalism, or art history. These people seldom find success.

bfuller 7y ago

Not every position is physically demanding or dangerous. Its quite easy to move into different fields and positions that are not physically demanding and just require a little bit of critical thinking or smart work. This idea that every trade job is dangerous or will leave you disabled is insane. If you don't like being an electrician, you could move over into HVAC and make twice as much since you have an electrician's license. I feel your view is rather narrow. With trades you have the ability of taking a 2 week intensive program and getting hired for $20/hr right out of school. Its a way better deal than some liberal arts education that gets you deep into debt and qualifies you to be a barista.