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On the flip side there are plenty of examples of kids being pushed into higher education who would have been much better off going to a trade school. Working a

On the flip side there are plenty of examples of kids being pushed into higher education who would have been much better off going to a trade school. Working as a plumber, an electrician, or a carpenter can be quite lucrative, and they are certainly things that society needs. Being pushed into higher ed is so much different than having an internal drive to do it. I'm glad that she's doing well and hopefully they can resolve their differences. I have a number of friends who are teachers, and part of their job is to call the parents if the student is failing, falling behind, or not doing their work. The vast majority of the time the response on the other end of the line is "that's their problem, not mine." If the parents don't care, the students don't care, and life goes on as it always has for them.

caf 5y ago
Working as a plumber, an electrician, or a carpenter can be quite lucrative, and they are certainly things that society needs. I hear this kind of thing, but I have to say it is less than convincing when most of the people saying it don't seem to be sending their kids to trade school.
- oblio 5y ago
  Well, my logic is: if you go to university (ideally STEM) and have a modicum of practical skills, how hard really is it to become a plumber later in life? I'd imagine plumbing studies are shorter, some stuff you can probably transfer over from your university studies and you can probably apprentice reasonably easily somewhere.
  - oivey 5y ago
    Working with your hands is a practical skill that takes significant time and effort to become good at. I, personally, am terrible at it. I am highly educated, though. There are what, maybe 2.5 school years of degree related work in a STEM degree? That’s pretty comparable to an apprenticeship.
  - PaulDavisThe1st 5y ago
    > I'd imagine ... Yes, and imagining is what is actually happening here, because you clearly do not understand plumbing (or any of the trades). The studies aspect of it are the least part overall. Good plumbers (and electricians and builders) get good primarily through a delightful combination of attitude and experience. The experience comes from apprenticing early, and accumulating lots of "stories" along the way as a result of having to work in a large number of different contexts. You will get none of this while working on your STEM career, and you will likely find that most plumbers (and electricians and builders) will be reluctant to take you on as an apprentice later in life without overwhelming evidence that you'd be remarkably good at it.
    - fullstop 5y ago
      Yeah, this. The old guy on the job site knows more "tricks of the trade" than you will pick up in a trade school. Experience is paramount here. It's easy to watch a youtube video on something and think that it looks easy -- until you try it. I can sweat pipes but I'd wager that 10% of them have a pinhole leak when pressurized for the first time. If it was something that I did on a daily basis, over years, I surely would get better at it. Now try doing one through a small opening in the sheetrock, and don't burn anything. When I'm working on stuff in my house, that's when I call a professional because I recognize my limits.
    - oblio 5y ago
      Which you can side step by doing your own plumbing, helping friends out with that while talking to people, watching videos online, etc. Good luck apprenticing as a doctor without 6 years of medical school. Or as an architect without architecture school. Let's not overdo the "blue collar jobs are hard to get".
      - PaulDavisThe1st 5y ago
        I do my own plumbing. I'm quite good at it. I occasionally fix issues for friends. I am about as far from being a professional plumber as the plumber who tinkers with python is from doing what I do.
  - toast0 5y ago
    Many trades and plumbing in particular have a large complement of contortionism. I do a small amount of home owner plumbing, but I wouldn't be likely to do it as a second career because pretzeling to get to the sink fasteners gives me aches for a week; and I'm not going to dig out underground pipes in easy soil, but around here it's all rocky stuff. If I was apprenticing 20 years ago, the pretzel work would be fine, and I would probably be more willing to dig.
- fullstop 5y ago
  I have family in all of those professions. They're doing fine financially-- some of their kids went to college and some of them continued with the trade. The biggest difference is the ebb and flow of available work. There were some months which were good, _really_ good, and others which were quite lean. Because of this, budgeting was an important skill to have.
- throwawayzRUU6f 5y ago
  Based on my only social contact working in trades, the income follows a bathtub distribution - a lot of people taking below average, and a sizable minority getting upper middle class incomes, with almost nothing in between. This is the reason why we get the contradictory narratives of great fortunes in trades on one hand, and the statistics telling the opposite on the other hand. Allegedly, the talent pool is really shallow - with a modicum of intelligence, passion and human skills, it's not that hard to make it. But most of the guys who end up studying trades are the bottom of the barrel who would do badly in any endeavor (or so I was told).
- BTCOG 5y ago
  The caveat there is definitely whether the person then has the entrepreneurial drive to get the trade qualifications and start their own business with it. You're not going to be wealthy by any means of the definition by either becoming a plumber or an electrician working for another company. No way in hell, I know many of these people, as well as many carpenters both working their own business, or working for another company. I know one neighbor carpenter who owns his own carpentry/cabinetry business doing just well enough for himself, while another neighbor frames really nice houses and doesn't make nearly as much but does much harder work. Then, I have a couple good examples of some guys with absolutely no education whatsoever who decided to start their own cleaning services by powerwashing restaurant kitchens, doing deep cleaning. These guys doing this cleaning gig the past few years are raking in $1k cash per night, 6-7 nights a week and making more cash hand over fist than a doctor makes. It's obvious to see what is the real underlying factor in all cases. Drive, motivation, and a go-getter attitude is what it takes. Plenty of people with degrees work at coffee shops and retail positions because after schooling, they expected a job to just drop in their laps but they have no go get it attitude from the start.
zepto 5y ago
> "that's their problem, not mine." It’s worth noting that this attitude makes sense for someone who themselves found school to be a degrading and unsupportive experience, and dealing with a teacher complaining about their child is just more of the same dynamic.
mc32 5y ago
I want to second this. Ample kids go to college or uni just because that’s the normal thing to do even though they don’t have a good aptitude for studying and end up with two year liberal arts degrees which land them answering phones and lower tier office work. They would have been better served by a trade which can pay way better than these office jobs.
dahart 5y ago
> Working as a plumber, an electrician, or a carpenter can be quite lucrative This narrative about wealthy trades people like plumbers and welders is not well supported by any data. The ones who do well are the ones who start businesses and hire people, so they become business owners, but most trades people don’t end up there and they obviously can’t all do it. You should know that the U.S. Fed (St. Louis) published stats on higher education which shows that on average a 4 year degree doubles your income vs anything less. A graduate degree triples it. When I read that, I was blown away that the difference is that high on average. I would have thought maybe 10%, but double the earnings on average for all degree earners is so huge it’s something you can’t ignore. https://research.stlouisfed.org/publications/page1-econ/2018/10/01/get-an-education-even-if-it-means-borrowing https://research.stlouisfed.org/publications/page1-econ/2018... https://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2019/09/welding-doesnt-pay-as-well-as-republicans-think/597733/ https://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2019/09/weldin...
- adkadskhj 5y ago
  Have you seen any studies on it being a causal relationship between the education and the income doubling? Ie i'm curious if the people who complete a graduate are also inherently more likely to have higher earnings. I'm in full support of education, so this isn't a backhanded reason to argue against education. The disclaimer seems necessary these days :(
  - dahart 5y ago
    Yes, there are such studies, quite a few IIRC (there have been some deep threads on this topic here on HN before, I’ll see if I can dig any up), and there definitely is some component of education providing higher earnings purely due to employer selection, and/or social selection & bias. So earnings are a mix of the education and skills learned, and of the social signaling that the certificate provides, plus other causes. I’m also in full support of education, but you’re right the disclaimer is absolutely necessary, and there are some components of misleading social narrative surrounding education, just like there are surrounding social mobility.
- sokoloff 5y ago
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]

caf 5y ago

Working as a plumber, an electrician, or a carpenter can be quite lucrative, and they are certainly things that society needs. I hear this kind of thing, but I have to say it is less than convincing when most of the people saying it don't seem to be sending their kids to trade school.

oblio 5y ago
Well, my logic is: if you go to university (ideally STEM) and have a modicum of practical skills, how hard really is it to become a plumber later in life? I'd imagine plumbing studies are shorter, some stuff you can probably transfer over from your university studies and you can probably apprentice reasonably easily somewhere.
- oivey 5y ago
  Working with your hands is a practical skill that takes significant time and effort to become good at. I, personally, am terrible at it. I am highly educated, though. There are what, maybe 2.5 school years of degree related work in a STEM degree? That’s pretty comparable to an apprenticeship.
- PaulDavisThe1st 5y ago
  > I'd imagine ... Yes, and imagining is what is actually happening here, because you clearly do not understand plumbing (or any of the trades). The studies aspect of it are the least part overall. Good plumbers (and electricians and builders) get good primarily through a delightful combination of attitude and experience. The experience comes from apprenticing early, and accumulating lots of "stories" along the way as a result of having to work in a large number of different contexts. You will get none of this while working on your STEM career, and you will likely find that most plumbers (and electricians and builders) will be reluctant to take you on as an apprentice later in life without overwhelming evidence that you'd be remarkably good at it.
  - fullstop 5y ago
    Yeah, this. The old guy on the job site knows more "tricks of the trade" than you will pick up in a trade school. Experience is paramount here. It's easy to watch a youtube video on something and think that it looks easy -- until you try it. I can sweat pipes but I'd wager that 10% of them have a pinhole leak when pressurized for the first time. If it was something that I did on a daily basis, over years, I surely would get better at it. Now try doing one through a small opening in the sheetrock, and don't burn anything. When I'm working on stuff in my house, that's when I call a professional because I recognize my limits.
  - oblio 5y ago
    Which you can side step by doing your own plumbing, helping friends out with that while talking to people, watching videos online, etc. Good luck apprenticing as a doctor without 6 years of medical school. Or as an architect without architecture school. Let's not overdo the "blue collar jobs are hard to get".
    - PaulDavisThe1st 5y ago
      I do my own plumbing. I'm quite good at it. I occasionally fix issues for friends. I am about as far from being a professional plumber as the plumber who tinkers with python is from doing what I do.
- toast0 5y ago
  Many trades and plumbing in particular have a large complement of contortionism. I do a small amount of home owner plumbing, but I wouldn't be likely to do it as a second career because pretzeling to get to the sink fasteners gives me aches for a week; and I'm not going to dig out underground pipes in easy soil, but around here it's all rocky stuff. If I was apprenticing 20 years ago, the pretzel work would be fine, and I would probably be more willing to dig.
fullstop 5y ago
I have family in all of those professions. They're doing fine financially-- some of their kids went to college and some of them continued with the trade. The biggest difference is the ebb and flow of available work. There were some months which were good, _really_ good, and others which were quite lean. Because of this, budgeting was an important skill to have.
throwawayzRUU6f 5y ago
Based on my only social contact working in trades, the income follows a bathtub distribution - a lot of people taking below average, and a sizable minority getting upper middle class incomes, with almost nothing in between. This is the reason why we get the contradictory narratives of great fortunes in trades on one hand, and the statistics telling the opposite on the other hand. Allegedly, the talent pool is really shallow - with a modicum of intelligence, passion and human skills, it's not that hard to make it. But most of the guys who end up studying trades are the bottom of the barrel who would do badly in any endeavor (or so I was told).
BTCOG 5y ago
The caveat there is definitely whether the person then has the entrepreneurial drive to get the trade qualifications and start their own business with it. You're not going to be wealthy by any means of the definition by either becoming a plumber or an electrician working for another company. No way in hell, I know many of these people, as well as many carpenters both working their own business, or working for another company. I know one neighbor carpenter who owns his own carpentry/cabinetry business doing just well enough for himself, while another neighbor frames really nice houses and doesn't make nearly as much but does much harder work. Then, I have a couple good examples of some guys with absolutely no education whatsoever who decided to start their own cleaning services by powerwashing restaurant kitchens, doing deep cleaning. These guys doing this cleaning gig the past few years are raking in $1k cash per night, 6-7 nights a week and making more cash hand over fist than a doctor makes. It's obvious to see what is the real underlying factor in all cases. Drive, motivation, and a go-getter attitude is what it takes. Plenty of people with degrees work at coffee shops and retail positions because after schooling, they expected a job to just drop in their laps but they have no go get it attitude from the start.

zepto 5y ago

> "that's their problem, not mine." It’s worth noting that this attitude makes sense for someone who themselves found school to be a degrading and unsupportive experience, and dealing with a teacher complaining about their child is just more of the same dynamic.

mc32 5y ago

I want to second this. Ample kids go to college or uni just because that’s the normal thing to do even though they don’t have a good aptitude for studying and end up with two year liberal arts degrees which land them answering phones and lower tier office work. They would have been better served by a trade which can pay way better than these office jobs.

dahart 5y ago

> Working as a plumber, an electrician, or a carpenter can be quite lucrative This narrative about wealthy trades people like plumbers and welders is not well supported by any data. The ones who do well are the ones who start businesses and hire people, so they become business owners, but most trades people don’t end up there and they obviously can’t all do it. You should know that the U.S. Fed (St. Louis) published stats on higher education which shows that on average a 4 year degree doubles your income vs anything less. A graduate degree triples it. When I read that, I was blown away that the difference is that high on average. I would have thought maybe 10%, but double the earnings on average for all degree earners is so huge it’s something you can’t ignore. https://research.stlouisfed.org/publications/page1-econ/2018/10/01/get-an-education-even-if-it-means-borrowing https://research.stlouisfed.org/publications/page1-econ/2018... https://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2019/09/welding-doesnt-pay-as-well-as-republicans-think/597733/ https://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2019/09/weldin...

adkadskhj 5y ago
Have you seen any studies on it being a causal relationship between the education and the income doubling? Ie i'm curious if the people who complete a graduate are also inherently more likely to have higher earnings. I'm in full support of education, so this isn't a backhanded reason to argue against education. The disclaimer seems necessary these days :(
- dahart 5y ago
  Yes, there are such studies, quite a few IIRC (there have been some deep threads on this topic here on HN before, I’ll see if I can dig any up), and there definitely is some component of education providing higher earnings purely due to employer selection, and/or social selection & bias. So earnings are a mix of the education and skills learned, and of the social signaling that the certificate provides, plus other causes. I’m also in full support of education, but you’re right the disclaimer is absolutely necessary, and there are some components of misleading social narrative surrounding education, just like there are surrounding social mobility.
sokoloff 5y ago

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]