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Im very skeptical of this post: 1. Many trades also pay like crap and have a very limited window in which you can do it. In addition many are not welcoming to

Im very skeptical of this post: 1. Many trades also pay like crap and have a very limited window in which you can do it. In addition many are not welcoming to women at all, regardless even if you take the highest paying trades, do they pay more than the highest paying careers that require higher education? 2. Which boot camp? How many people ended up like your daughter? How much was it? Without these facts no comparison can be made. 3. Some colleges perhaps, smart people can get full scholarships and even without that community college plus a cheap state school isn’t expensive. Link to your study? Did these people not go to college? 4. As you’ve already demonstrated college is hardly required let alone loans. I’m surprised this is the top post. Average College grads make more money over their lifetime, period. https://www2.ed.gov/policy/highered/reg/hearulemaking/2011/collegepayoff.pdf https://www2.ed.gov/policy/highered/reg/hearulemaking/2011/c...

meatsauce 5y ago
So why are the babies crying that they can't afford their loans?
zebraflask 5y ago
I think #1 needs to factor in cost of living. In many urban areas, 45K is near or even below the poverty level for a single worker.
- geodel 5y ago
  Well , one thing to consider is who more likely need to stay in urban area. I think it is required more for college educated compared to tradespeople.
  - zebraflask 5y ago
    To find white collar employment? At least before remote work became prevalent recently, I suppose so. On the other hand, the infrastructure for a large urban area doesn't run itself! Trade work is definitely needed to keep the roads paved and cars functional, the warehouses and stores stocked, the buildings in repair, etc., I would hazard even more so than in less urbanized areas. I think what I'm getting at is that it seems a little too facile to say uncritically that anyone can just go drive a forklift and expect to make a reasonably liveable income.
silisili 5y ago
Re 1, at least in the US, it's very dependent on market and path. I have two family members who have been pipefitters for 20 years. Both make more than I do as a software engineer. Another is a doctor, and makes more than they do. But another does boat repair, and makes more than the doctor. If the last decade is any indication, skilled labor - especially those not afraid to own their own business, are set to make a killing. It's nearly impossible to even get people to come out for normal household jobs anymore - they're all way too busy with more lucrative clients.
- patrick451 5y ago
  My dad owns a business (one man shop) adjacent to the construction industry. He makes as much as I do, and I work for FANG with a PhD. My dad trained a family friend to do the same thing in under a year. He now makes substantially more than I do. Nine extra years of school is a pretty substantial opportunity cost, debt or not.
- RC_ITR 5y ago
  It's kind of a political meme that welding is the key to everyone getting a middle class lifestyle, because good welders get paid a good amount. The joke ofc being that there is a 'shortage' of welders because it's actually very hard to become a good welder. If, somehow, we got a bunch of people to become really good welders, it would just go to being a low paid profession.
  - subsubzero 5y ago
    its very hard to be become a good welder and it usually takes about a decade to master that craft, so 10 years gone. Very similar to medical school except you are making money during that decade instead of paying it to schools and residency.
    - a9h74j 5y ago
      And you can fail to get a residency even after $300K to get through medical school.
rootsudo 5y ago
I'm not surprised at all - people with degrees try to find reasons to think they're better then the rest. 1. Many trades also are your own business, and can immediately scale for income - many plumbers, electricians, etc are millionaires with a small team of employees less than 15. 2. Google offers free marketing certification for this reason as well, it's not impossible for marketing/seo people to make 100k annually. It's very, very common. 3. Many colleges are not worth it and is debt- look at most state schools and you'd see a semester costs minimum $45,000. Yes there's community colleges. 4. Even community colleges require loans, and have programs of financial aid that is really "apply for fafsa, apply for stanford loans and then have pipelines for private debt.
- endisneigh 5y ago
  1. You can also start your own business with a college degree. Let’s compare like for like here. 2. Where are the stats? 3. Sure, many colleges are worth it too. State schools don’t cost 45k a semester. Don’t know how you can spread misinformation. 4. Community college can be very cheap, it depends on where you are and how poor you are so it’s hard to draw broad strokes here.
  - indymike 5y ago
    > 1. You can also start your own business with a college degree. Let’s compare like for like here. A degree is not required at all to start a business. Evidence: Microsoft, Dell.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- emaginniss 5y ago
  You're way off on 3. You're saying that tuition alone at a state school costs $45k per semester, which would be $90k per year. This site says that the average in-state public school is ~$25k all-in for a year. That includes tuition, room and board, books and transportation. https://www.valuepenguin.com/student-loans/average-cost-of-college https://www.valuepenguin.com/student-loans/average-cost-of-c...
light_hue_1 5y ago
> 2. Which boot camp? How many people ended up like your daughter? How much was it? Without these facts no comparison can be made. Plenty of coding bootcamps have great placement rates and great salaries. For example, the median salary at Boston's Launch academy is $72k. The median salary for Fullstack Academy Grace Hopper in NY is $90k. https://static.spacecrafted.com/b13328575ece40d8853472b9e0cf2047/r/f61982b609e0411e899aba1da57acdfc/1/Fullstack%20Academy%20New%20York%20City%20Grace%20Hopper%20H1%202019.pdf https://static.spacecrafted.com/b13328575ece40d8853472b9e0cf... https://static.spacecrafted.com/b13328575ece40d8853472b9e0cf2047/r/e006bca9407449e5a38d863fe0363bab/1/Launch%20Academy%20Boston%20Web%20Development%20H2%202020.pdf https://static.spacecrafted.com/b13328575ece40d8853472b9e0cf... This organization verifies outcomes independently: https://cirr.org/data https://cirr.org/data I know several people who have gone to both of these, the data is legit, that's the outcome I saw from the graduating class. > 3. Some colleges perhaps, smart people can get full scholarships and even without that community college plus a cheap state school isn’t expensive. Link to your study? Did these people not go to college? Even "cheap" state schools aren't so cheap https://educationdata.org/average-cost-of-college https://educationdata.org/average-cost-of-college We're still talking on average $25k/year. But that depends heavily on the state. In some states, you pay $14k in others $30k. Either way. Not cheap. The rise in cost has been amazing: https://nces.ed.gov/programs/digest/d07/tables/dt07_320.asp https://nces.ed.gov/programs/digest/d07/tables/dt07_320.asp In the 1960s total tuition + room + board inflation corrected was only $1000!
- endisneigh 5y ago
  2. Your stats are incomplete- how many of these people already have degrees? What’s the breakdown between that and wages? What’s the median pay for college graduates who go into the same professions? 3. Not cheap compared to what exactly? College graduates generally get paid more money over the lifetime.
  - wheelinsupial 5y ago
    Not perfect, but it’s the only attempt I’ve seen to try and answer the question about pre-boot camp education. https://www.coursereport.com/reports/2020-coding-bootcamp-alumni-outcomes-demographics-report-during-covid-19 https://www.coursereport.com/reports/2020-coding-bootcamp-al... (Difficult to read on mobile) This shows that 1% have no high school diploma, 5% have graduated high school and the remaining 94% have gone to or graduated from college. 15% have 1-4 years of college and no degree, 6% an associates, 55% a bachelor’s, 16% have a masters, 1% doctorate, 1% a professional degree. Data from 2018,2019,2020 is collected from the surveys. Average Wages: No college degree: $61,836 Associates: $57,762 Bachelor: $71,267 Masters: $74,774 Professional: $66,619 Doctorate: $83,250 Not clear if this is the first job only or if this includes the results of second and third jobs. There is a section showing average wages for first job is $69,079 and average wage for third job is $99,229. Also 15% of the graduates have never been employed from the boot camps. (16% for 2018 grads, 15% for 2019 grads, and 37% for 2020 grads.) There are a lot of other insights in there as well. Unfortunately the reporting doesn’t generally show quantiles or other information about the spread in wages. There are a few results where mean and median are shown. As it’s a survey and self-reported there are always going to be some limitations. If others have alternative data to offer up, please share!
nindalf 5y ago
A comment doesn't necessarily need to be accurate to reach the top, it could merely confirm the biases of enough people so they think "yeah, sounds right to me!"
- RealityVoid 5y ago
  I find it amusing your comment was greyed out when the the insight was so good.
ravitation 5y ago
> 1. Many trades also pay like crap and have a very limited window in which you can do it. In addition many are not welcoming to women at all, regardless even if you take the highest paying trades, do they pay more than the highest paying careers that require higher education? Exactly. These types of post often ignore the actual work being done. A graduate student might make a comparable hourly rate to an amazon warehouse employee, but he or she can also go to the bathroom and sit down.
- zaphod12 5y ago
  I don't know man - graduate student might be the only job that's more demanding that amazon warehouse employee.
- throwawayboise 5y ago
  Working in an Amazon warehouse would not be considered a "trade" by most definitions. It doesn't require much if any training and amost anyone in normal physical condition can do it. It's more of a pure "laborer" job, these have always paid less than skilled trades.
  - ravitation 5y ago
    You've missed the point. Very obviously working in an Amazon warehouse isn't a trade. The point isn't that working at an Amazon warehouse is a trade, nor the job's actual wage... The point is that two jobs with superficially equivalent wages can be far from equivalent in things like the toll it might take on one physically... The same could be said for the starting salary of graduates with undergraduate accounting degrees and entry level plumbers ($40k-$50k annually)... Similar in terms of wages, far from equivalent in terms of physical demands...
indymike 5y ago
> 1. Many trades also pay like crap and have a very limited window in which you can do it. I'm not sure what you mean by limited window unless we are talking about professional athletes and some categories of manual laborers. > In addition many are not welcoming to women at all, regardless even if you take the highest paying trades This is rapidly changing. Also, there are also skilled trades that are mostly women (e.g. cosmetologist, many medical roles). > do they pay more than the highest paying careers that require higher education? When we factor out jobs that require 8-12 years of education, in general, yes the trades aren't a bad deal. > 2. Which boot camp? How many people ended up like your daughter? How much was it? Without these facts no comparison can be made. I'm not turning this into an ad for the school my daughter went to. Cost was literally 1/2 of he first year salary over $40,000. It was capped at a maximum amount. She ended up paying about $6k, but it was contingent on her getting a job that payed better than $40k. 3. Some colleges perhaps, smart people can get full scholarships and even without that community college plus a cheap state school isn’t expensive. I have five kids. My first was straight As, great test scores, and we still ended up with $6-8k of expense per semester after the full ride scholarships paid for tuition at a small private college. Ok, here is the biggest community college in the US: Ivy Tech. $2,400 per semester for 12 hours, plus fees. It's not that expensive, but they also have less than 20% of students complete their degrees... > Link to your study? Did these people not go to college? It didn't matter what education level they attained, across the population the outcome was consistent. Having a job while young made a huge difference - almost as much as having a degree. 4. As you’ve already demonstrated college is hardly required let alone loans. Yep.
- endisneigh 5y ago
  > I'm not turning this into an ad for the school my daughter went to. Cost was literally 1/2 of he first year salary over $40,000. It was capped at a maximum amount. She ended up paying about $6k, but it was contingent on her getting a job that payed better than $40k. You already have. I want to see the graduation stats. > It didn't matter what education level they attained, across the population the outcome was consistent. Having a job while young made a huge difference - almost as much as having a degree. Where’s the link? Sorry but your point is way too centered on your anecdotes. Fact remains that college graduates make more money. https://www2.ed.gov/policy/highered/reg/hearulemaking/2011/collegepayoff.pdf https://www2.ed.gov/policy/highered/reg/hearulemaking/2011/c...
chaostheory 5y ago
> 1. Many trades also pay like crap and have a very limited window in which you can do it. Which is why the parent comment specifically mentioned "skilled trades". If you're not familiar with the term, think plumber or electrician instead of roofer or outdoor landscaper. The working window for skilled trades is also far greater than software engineering.
- endisneigh 5y ago
  There are skilled trades that don’t pay well. In any case there’s no canonical list of “skilled trades” to begin with. I fail to see how you can be an electrician longer than a software engineer, but even if that was true there are far more careers a college degree enable that pay more.
  - chaostheory 5y ago
    imo a "skilled trade" involves a hard to learn skill that is in high demand. Consequently, the demand yields a higher salary than a commodity "non-high skilled" trade that is not high in demand. > I fail to see how you can be an electrician longer than a software engineer Because electrical components and systems do not evolve and change as fast as software constructs, neither does plumbing. > but even if that was true there are far more careers a college degree enable that pay more. That's debatable when you account for student loans paired with less marketable degrees. Otherwise, I feel that student debt wouldn't be an issue.
    - bluGill 5y ago
      Many skilled trades are not that hard to learn, those who know it just pretend they are hard to keep people out. Of course with an engineering background I know how to read all the different tables and understand where the numbers came from. That might give me an advantage, but I can learn to do most of them pretty quickly if I want. (they are faster than me because they tend to have the tables memorized)
      - 5y ago
upsidesinclude 5y ago
What? you slam that post for not supplying the information and yet state >[trades] are not welcoming to women at all / last time I looked at ANY trade, they are begging women to come WORK. Maybe that's what you meant though
- BigRedDog1669 5y ago
  What do you mean by "last time I looked at ANY trade, they are begging women to come WORK."? By looking at trades, do you mean look at a website claiming to want women to work in them? The PR/advertising spins on jobs don't always align with the working conditions driving anyone with standards or a family away. See how "essential" workers have been treated during the pandemic. If you listen to the radio, they are being begged to work. But that work is conditional on bad pay and conditions often. Edit: I'm not trying to claim there aren't good trades, just that the "word on the block" about how easy it is to get a job doesn't always reflect reality.
  - upsidesinclude 5y ago
    Working in the trades and seeing tradesmen. Specifically large scale commercial construction. The more laborious the work the lower the participation rate by women. But, there were many women working as electricians and project managers.
hardtke 5y ago
> In addition many are not welcoming to women at all Economists are now finding that as more women move into a profession, the pay goes down. Similarly, when computer programming moved from a female dominated profession (early days) to male dominated (now) the pay went up. Medical fields that have higher proportions of women have lower pay. Along these lines, as college skews more female (college grads are like 60/40 female/male now) the "college grad" professions are having a declining wage premium compared to non college grad jobs.
- glasss 5y ago
  Would love to read more about this phenomenon, do you have links to articles or places to start? Edit: Found an article[0] that links to a study[1] [0] - https://www.nytimes.com/2016/03/20/upshot/as-women-take-over-a-male-dominated-field-the-pay-drops.html https://www.nytimes.com/2016/03/20/upshot/as-women-take-over... [1] - https://academic.oup.com/sf/article-abstract/88/2/865/2235342 https://academic.oup.com/sf/article-abstract/88/2/865/223534...
  - klipt 5y ago
    Correlation is not causation. It's possible that as fields pay more, they attract more men (because due to gender roles imposed on men, men lose more status from low income than women do) and conversely as fields pay less, men abandon them for other higher paying fields.
- serverholic 5y ago
  Source on programming starting out female dominated? Also, I'm curious what a programmer's job looked like in the beginning.
  - ipaddr 5y ago
    I've met many trained by IBM COBOL developers.
  - bluGill 5y ago
    Back in the 1930s - before computers existed it was considered boring women's work (sexism intended). There wasn't much demand because of course computers were a room full of people running this by hand. In the 1950s when computers were invented males discovered programming was interesting and took over. As such it is more the image is programming will be women's work than a reality because the reality is there weren't many programmers.
devwastaken 5y ago
1. Trades are overwhelmingly what people do when they don't go for a BA, and often have houses and children far before college graduates. Many more mechanics, plumber, hvac, electrical, welders, pipfitters, etc than we give credit for. 3. Scholarships are not based on intelligence. They are based on access to resources. Many good scholarships require references, achievements, good writing, and lower income. Hard to do that in a city school, if at all. Those that get the scholarships come from parents that know how to game the system. This leaves first generation students far out of the equation. To add to that, judging students based on their high school is a terrible method of educating. 4. A degree has become more required if you don't have the resources to already live in a major city for your work. For example, you can work in software if you live in cali cities far easier than if you live in Utah. If you're coming from Utah, you have to pass the "I'm a drone" test of getting a degree. Many people would like to work in something other than trades, hence university. University no longer functions like we think it does. Large amounts of it are now online, auto-graded, with instructors barely doing any work other than showing up. Housing and tuition costs have skyrocketed with far less scholarships than ever before. I recall a 40,000 scholarship 8 years ago that simply doesn't exist anymore, along with a number of others. Many of these are funded by various communities or collaborations of companies, and over time the over corporatization, lack of funds and lack of community have lead them to just not offer scholarships anymore. Why give away free money? A really easy way to upset a number of teachers, especially high school teachers, is to tell them to try to locate applicable scholarships for their students. They can't. Perhaps a couple that maybe add up to $800 one shots. Half of that being a local scholarship. They get very hand wavey and think 1 of 3 scholarships from Microsoft or Google is reasonably obtainable, yet realistically it would be similar to winning the lottery. There are many bright and hard working students I meet daily that simply cannot get the support they need and cannot devote their time to learning what they need to. It is absolutely brutal the number of hours some of these students are working just to survive. We give the largest amount of support to students whom are already well off and tell those that have to work for what they have to go away. That's American education as I see playing out as we speak.
- pb7 5y ago
  >Trades are overwhelmingly what people do when they don't go for a BA, and often have houses and children far before college graduates. Having a house and children as soon as possible isn't a win. It's what happens when you lack imagination. There's so much more to life than pumping out kids at 21 in your 3/2 in fly over country.
mikepurvis 5y ago
> In addition many are not welcoming to women at all... There's a long way to go on this, but there are definitely people pushing back on it in various ways, including a number of women welders, electricians, bricklayers, etc all posting about themselves and their experiences on Tiktok: https://www.tiktok.com/discover/women-in-trades https://www.tiktok.com/discover/women-in-trades
zetta0 5y ago
I feel like another caveat to college is that it is mentally exhausting. I went to a state college for 2 years and dropped out and pursued IT certifications. In my career and I am currently sitting at 75k after a year of experience. I'm also more knowledgeable than my coworkers who finished their graduation by a longshot. My 6 certifications covered more than their entire curriculum. The current college system is very broken.
pvarangot 5y ago
> Average College grads make more money over their lifetime, period. So that doesn't mean that if those people hadn't gone to college they wouldn't be making that extra money. No one is saying that people that go to college are less valuable, what's in question is exactly what is college attendance adding that can't just be created in a less expensive, less elitist and more efficient environment. Period.
- endisneigh 5y ago
  Sure, but the parent post is talking about salaries here. And no one is going to run an experiment on their own life but observationally, yes, that’s what’s happening in aggregate.
snomad 5y ago
> without that community college plus a cheap state school isn’t expensive. UCLA is 13k per year, *if* you are from California. Classes are likely impacted (even upper division) so even if a person goes to UCLA just for the last 2.5 - 3 years they could easily owe > 30k The real cost - rampant corruption (in california, if they ever opened the books on the non-profit entities it would be a major stunner and awakening for many people). Last I saw there was ~100 non-profits serving ~20 campuses . You can read more https://www.calstate.edu/csu-system/auxiliary-organizations/Pages/about-us.aspx https://www.calstate.edu/csu-system/auxiliary-organizations/.... But what they don't tell you, those books are private and not shared with the public. Rest assured, they are money laundering machines. - rent seekers like Pearson and Mcgraw Hill (fun fact, did you know the 2 joined forces to run a company called Follets that runs most campus bookstores (how is that allowed?) - administration bloat
- halpert 5y ago
  I think 30K is quite a reasonable cost. Parents have almost two decades to save the money, plus they can do so with a 529 plan and avoid capital gains taxes. Even saving $100 dollars a month invested in the market will net 42,000 after 18 years (assuming 7% return).
  - lapsedacademic 5y ago
    > assuming 7% return Tuition has been increasing at 8% per year.
  - jackfruitpeel 5y ago
    European here — that is an insane cost for college fees from my POV. I attended one of the most highly rated courses for my profession in Europe and only paid about €3K per year.
    - halpert 5y ago
      But your taxes are also much higher. You would pay more than 30K over 18 years most likely.
greedo 5y ago
"cheap state school"... The state school where I live charges $18K/year for tuition and housing. That sure isn't cheap, especially for a mediocre school. Graduating with $72K in debt from this school would be a waste of money if you aren't doing a STEM program, and if you are, there are far better schools.
paulpauper 5y ago
>2. Which boot camp? How many people ended up like your daughter? How much was it? Without these facts no comparison can be made. Bootcamps charge a lot upfront and success rates as measured by good-paying jobs are low.
hooande 5y ago
> Average College grads make more money over their lifetime, period. Stop this. The most accurate predictor of a person's lifetime income is the income of their parents. Children of wealthy parents are more likely to go to college. It's like saying "People who drive expensive cars in high school make more money over their lifetime, period". I question the statistical literacy of people who make the argument that going to college has a significant causal impact on future earnings.
- endisneigh 5y ago
  I didn’t say there’s a causal impact, I said that average college grads make more money.
  - hooande 5y ago
    The kid that's driving a new BMW at age 16 will make more money than everyone else too. Do you suggest that kids buy BMWs in order to increase their lifetime earning potential?
    - endisneigh 5y ago
      I don’t see the relevance - even among the poorest college grads have higher lifetime earnings: https://research.upjohn.org/empl_research/vol23/iss3/1/ https://research.upjohn.org/empl_research/vol23/iss3/1/ again, college grads make more money across all demographic groups. Not sure what you’re arguing
      - mlyle 5y ago
        Yes, but is this causal? Is it the college education itself that explains all of the earnings difference? Or is it that the most adept of each income block are more likely to complete college education, and some of the later income difference is because of intrinsic ability rather than the benefits and signaling advantages of a college degree?
- lapsedacademic 5y ago
zaidf 5y ago
The PDF you linked cites lifetime earning data collected from the previous century. It might tell you about how things were 1950-2000. But says little about our current Internet-driven world.
jimbokun 5y ago
> In addition many are not welcoming to women at all Many universities aren't welcoming to men at all.
deleted 5y ago
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nfw2 5y ago
The study you linked is over 10 years old. Furthermore, it is using lifetime earnings as the core metric, which means they are pulling in data about people who earned their degrees like 50 years ago. All the data that currently exists shows better outcomes for students that go to college. One would expect this even if college had no benefit to students because the population of students that go to college is pre-selected. Before they attend, students that go to college, on average, demonstrate better analytic skills than the students that do not go to college. They also, on average, have access to more existing wealth and other resources through their family. In the absence of perfect data (which is almost always the case in sociology), it is reasonable to look at case studies to try to make sense of reality. It is not bad practice. It is what Harvard Business School does. It's what product managers and UX designers do when creating products. It's what marketing teams do when selling products. Feel free to disagree with the interpretation of anecdotal data, but statements should not be dismissed out-of-hand because no p-value accompanies them.
- endisneigh 5y ago
  I disagree, the overemphasis of anecdotes is why so much misinformation is running rampant these days. Nothing is wrong with going to trade school or boot camp or whatever, or even just being a laborer.
  - nfw2 5y ago
    Show me the study that shows that people in this thread are taking it personally. Or did you just rely on anecdotes to determine that?
  - throwaway2331 5y ago
    There are a lot of things wrong with doing manual work: Pay sucks dick. Unless you bust ass and work overtime/meet management's obscene expectations (you won't unless you're on meth), your pay is going to suck. If you want a more relaxed environment (residential stuff, "small," few employees, lifestyle biz) your pay is going to be even lower. Commercial pays better, but it's more soul-sucking and kills your body quicker. If you're not in a skilled trade (big 3: plumber/pipefitter, electrician, or HVAC; physical IT/wire-pulling) it's even worse. If you don't have a family/friend connection, good luck breaking in to anything worth anything (that includes a union. If you're non-union, you're basically screwed, unless you're high-skilled/massive amount of certs and can negotiate for yourself). LUNA (or whatever the labor union goes by nowadays) is pretty decent if you've got a lot of problems in your life, but can come to work sober (and on time), do the work without bitching, and be productive. All the other unions worth anything are, once again, almost impossible to get into (unless you wait years, have a connection, or have a track record). Everyone wants to be an electrician (so much so, that even non-union shops aren't accepting any "apprentices,"---cheap labor---that don't already have experience; this is no different from the unions). If you get in, it's a golden meal ticket for the uneducated; but pay caps out quickly (and any white collar professional with a shred of ambition will surpass you in pay in their 30s). Hours are uncertain. You can sometimes be working 2 hours a day, and sometimes 12. Overtime is cool, but it doesn't beat getting home and having a few hours to do anything at all, instead of passing out on the couch and waking up at 5am to go back to work. Past that, any other jobs that pay better (tow truck operator, lineman, etc.) have even worse/more dangerous conditions. Your body will start hurting in your twenties, and you'll feel like you're 60. This won't go away unless you stop doing any physical labor for a while, but if you do that, you won't make money, nor gain "hours" (for those sweet union pay bumps after you pass a certain amount of hours -- regardless if you're the most efficient and most experienced apprentice, you'll still be getting paid the same as the bumfuck nephew of the owner who's only there because family takes care of family). If you're a citizen of the U.S., there's no real reason to do manual labor, unless you really don't care that much about money or starting a family (most people in manual labor). For illegal immigrants, the pay is fucking amazing compared to what they get paid back home. They can work for a few seasons, save up their cash, then go back home where American dollars let you live like royalty. I work in tech now. I get paid more than 2,000x what I did being a tradesmen, my body feels amazing now, I can fuck around all day doing whatever I want because I'm remote, and---in comparison---I barely do any work. These are my anecdotes.
deleted 5y ago
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csomar 5y ago
1. So does many degrees (ie: Art and Humanity?). At the upper-level with Skilled Trades, you usually go by your own company/name and then you can make substantially more. 2. Probably a little. These boot camps are mostly a scam like many colleges today. 3. You can do college cheap. You can also get a scholarship if you qualify. You can do college the expensive way if your parents will pay for it. Taking a $100-200k loan for it is stupid. 4. Yes. Which leads me to the conclusion: College degrees used to get you higher pay, people overbought that and someone filled the market, people now can't sell their college degrees for money. Worse, many of them have raked up debt to get that college degree. Sounds familiar? This is like people buying the top in a crypto, realestate, stock-market bubble. But you add a few steps and the thing sounds legit. (Did you ever wonder why people buy MLM and not go directly and buy a Ponzi Scheme).
tmule 5y ago
For someone who is finding holes in the OP’s reasoning, unfortunately, your linked post and statements lack rigor. “ Average College grads make more money over their lifetime, period.” There are huge selection effects in play. It is true that even after controlling for these effects, college has economic value. But the statement about making more money isn’t the right framing at all. There’s a whole chapter on this in the book called “Mastering metrics”. You might want to pick that up - it’s a coffee-table book for the quantitative-minded person.
muslikcat 5y ago
Yea, I am skeptical about top comment also. This is anecdotal, but I have a brother who is a welder w/ bunch of AWS certifications. For several years he worked at union and non-union shops here in Los Angeles. His experience is virtually the same in every shop - low pay (~$25-27/hr), physically challenging work, very limited vertical mobility. It was a sad struggle to observe from a position of someone w/ a FAANG job. I ended up loaning $80K to him, so that he can open his own small welding shop. It is likely that money is gone forever without return. Even now with his own welding/metal fab business it is a constant struggle - winning bids inconsistently, short cash runway, $28/hr, can't afford to pay for his medical insurance, late night work to ensure new projects are coming in, abuse from general contractors who exploit small subcontractor welders, big boys clubs (small subs can't get those projects), etc.
hardwaregeek 5y ago
Yeah the parent comment is trying to make college very cut and dry as a bad choice. That’s not true and removes the complicated aspect: college is still a very very good choice for most, and yet it’s horribly overpriced. Besides if you read the article, it’s not like kids are making hyper rational decisions about their future earning potential. They just want to avoid online classes and got hooked on making cash.
dna_polymerase 5y ago
> Average College grads make more money over their lifetime, period. That's a claim none of you sources can or even could support. Past performance is no guarantee of future returns.
randomdata 5y ago
> Average College grads make more money over their lifetime, period. And yet incomes have held stagnant through the entire rise of college attainment. That contradicts the notion that there is more money to be made. Within a given population, those who are born more capable will earn more than those who are less capable. Those who are born more capable are able to go further in school and be more productive in the workplace for the same reasons. Someone born with a crippling disability that forced them to drop out of high school also struggles to find gainful employment for the same reasons. However, over time, those in similar standing seem to end up making the same amount of money no matter what. If the existence of college and everything associated with it were to magically vanish, those born more capable would still earn more money over their lifetime than those born less capable.
- endisneigh 5y ago
  > However, over time, those in similar standing seem to end up making the same amount of money no matter what. Cool claim, have any supporting evidence? Personally, I don’t believe that. The opportunities that you have as a result of the skills that you have can create great divergence in lifetime earnings. You’re making a pretty extraordinary claim.
  - randomdata 5y ago
    Supporting evidence that incomes are stagnant? The aggregate data that is compiled from tax return information will naturally be your most accurate source, although I'm sure you can find thousands of articles that distill that further into a more digestible form as it seems to get reported on regularly.
    - endisneigh 5y ago
      I quoted the part I’d like a source on.
      - randomdata 5y ago
        Which you will find by looking at the income data, or any news article that covers income stagnation if you want the distilled version for easier reading.
inglor_cz 5y ago
"Average College grads make more money over their lifetime, period." Your "period" makes me think about more questions, not less. 1) Will that still hold in 2070? Kids who are now 18 are likely to be working at least until then. How do the developments over time look like? Won't the increasing shortage of tradespeople drive up their compensation? 2) How does a finer division by majors look like? I would be surprised if every major out there made more money than, say, an electrician. 3) Lifetime is a very long timespan. College grads are deeply in their debt in their 20s and 30s, so they can afford starting a family less. They will be better off when they are 50, but in the meantime they possibly sacrificed a an unborn kid or two to their tuition debt. This is a nasty tradeoff.
- telxosser 5y ago
  It is obviously a bogus statistic. You would need to compare those that went to college vs vs those in the exact same situation but didn't. "On average, smarter people make more over their lifetime than less smart people bro, that is a fact!"
- endisneigh 5y ago
  You’re buying into the propaganda: 1. Can’t predict the future. 2. How does the finer division by non college jobs look like? Electrician is one of the top- how does it compare to a doctor accounting the medical debt? 3. Average college debt is 30k. Hardly crippling.
  - inglor_cz 5y ago
    Which propaganda? 1) You cannot predict the future, but expecting that current situation will hold indefinitely isn't a safer bet either. I think the best you can do is observe the trends. 2) Of course, I would recommend anyone to take the more compensated route, trade or college but it is probably easier for someone of average academic aptitude to become a good electrician than a good surgeon or a good programmer. That is the point. 3) What are the interests? I heard quite a lot of horror stories regarding the interest rates on college debt. Interest rate for non-trivial principals is the most important parameter of any debt.

meatsauce 5y ago

So why are the babies crying that they can't afford their loans?

zebraflask 5y ago

I think #1 needs to factor in cost of living. In many urban areas, 45K is near or even below the poverty level for a single worker.

geodel 5y ago
Well , one thing to consider is who more likely need to stay in urban area. I think it is required more for college educated compared to tradespeople.
- zebraflask 5y ago
  To find white collar employment? At least before remote work became prevalent recently, I suppose so. On the other hand, the infrastructure for a large urban area doesn't run itself! Trade work is definitely needed to keep the roads paved and cars functional, the warehouses and stores stocked, the buildings in repair, etc., I would hazard even more so than in less urbanized areas. I think what I'm getting at is that it seems a little too facile to say uncritically that anyone can just go drive a forklift and expect to make a reasonably liveable income.

silisili 5y ago

Re 1, at least in the US, it's very dependent on market and path. I have two family members who have been pipefitters for 20 years. Both make more than I do as a software engineer. Another is a doctor, and makes more than they do. But another does boat repair, and makes more than the doctor. If the last decade is any indication, skilled labor - especially those not afraid to own their own business, are set to make a killing. It's nearly impossible to even get people to come out for normal household jobs anymore - they're all way too busy with more lucrative clients.

patrick451 5y ago
My dad owns a business (one man shop) adjacent to the construction industry. He makes as much as I do, and I work for FANG with a PhD. My dad trained a family friend to do the same thing in under a year. He now makes substantially more than I do. Nine extra years of school is a pretty substantial opportunity cost, debt or not.
RC_ITR 5y ago
It's kind of a political meme that welding is the key to everyone getting a middle class lifestyle, because good welders get paid a good amount. The joke ofc being that there is a 'shortage' of welders because it's actually very hard to become a good welder. If, somehow, we got a bunch of people to become really good welders, it would just go to being a low paid profession.
- subsubzero 5y ago
  its very hard to be become a good welder and it usually takes about a decade to master that craft, so 10 years gone. Very similar to medical school except you are making money during that decade instead of paying it to schools and residency.
  - a9h74j 5y ago
    And you can fail to get a residency even after $300K to get through medical school.

rootsudo 5y ago

I'm not surprised at all - people with degrees try to find reasons to think they're better then the rest. 1. Many trades also are your own business, and can immediately scale for income - many plumbers, electricians, etc are millionaires with a small team of employees less than 15. 2. Google offers free marketing certification for this reason as well, it's not impossible for marketing/seo people to make 100k annually. It's very, very common. 3. Many colleges are not worth it and is debt- look at most state schools and you'd see a semester costs minimum $45,000. Yes there's community colleges. 4. Even community colleges require loans, and have programs of financial aid that is really "apply for fafsa, apply for stanford loans and then have pipelines for private debt.

endisneigh 5y ago
1. You can also start your own business with a college degree. Let’s compare like for like here. 2. Where are the stats? 3. Sure, many colleges are worth it too. State schools don’t cost 45k a semester. Don’t know how you can spread misinformation. 4. Community college can be very cheap, it depends on where you are and how poor you are so it’s hard to draw broad strokes here.
- indymike 5y ago
  > 1. You can also start your own business with a college degree. Let’s compare like for like here. A degree is not required at all to start a business. Evidence: Microsoft, Dell.
deleted 5y ago
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emaginniss 5y ago
You're way off on 3. You're saying that tuition alone at a state school costs $45k per semester, which would be $90k per year. This site says that the average in-state public school is ~$25k all-in for a year. That includes tuition, room and board, books and transportation. https://www.valuepenguin.com/student-loans/average-cost-of-college https://www.valuepenguin.com/student-loans/average-cost-of-c...

light_hue_1 5y ago

> 2. Which boot camp? How many people ended up like your daughter? How much was it? Without these facts no comparison can be made. Plenty of coding bootcamps have great placement rates and great salaries. For example, the median salary at Boston's Launch academy is $72k. The median salary for Fullstack Academy Grace Hopper in NY is $90k. https://static.spacecrafted.com/b13328575ece40d8853472b9e0cf2047/r/f61982b609e0411e899aba1da57acdfc/1/Fullstack%20Academy%20New%20York%20City%20Grace%20Hopper%20H1%202019.pdf https://static.spacecrafted.com/b13328575ece40d8853472b9e0cf... https://static.spacecrafted.com/b13328575ece40d8853472b9e0cf2047/r/e006bca9407449e5a38d863fe0363bab/1/Launch%20Academy%20Boston%20Web%20Development%20H2%202020.pdf https://static.spacecrafted.com/b13328575ece40d8853472b9e0cf... This organization verifies outcomes independently: https://cirr.org/data https://cirr.org/data I know several people who have gone to both of these, the data is legit, that's the outcome I saw from the graduating class. > 3. Some colleges perhaps, smart people can get full scholarships and even without that community college plus a cheap state school isn’t expensive. Link to your study? Did these people not go to college? Even "cheap" state schools aren't so cheap https://educationdata.org/average-cost-of-college https://educationdata.org/average-cost-of-college We're still talking on average $25k/year. But that depends heavily on the state. In some states, you pay $14k in others $30k. Either way. Not cheap. The rise in cost has been amazing: https://nces.ed.gov/programs/digest/d07/tables/dt07_320.asp https://nces.ed.gov/programs/digest/d07/tables/dt07_320.asp In the 1960s total tuition + room + board inflation corrected was only $1000!

endisneigh 5y ago
2. Your stats are incomplete- how many of these people already have degrees? What’s the breakdown between that and wages? What’s the median pay for college graduates who go into the same professions? 3. Not cheap compared to what exactly? College graduates generally get paid more money over the lifetime.
- wheelinsupial 5y ago
  Not perfect, but it’s the only attempt I’ve seen to try and answer the question about pre-boot camp education. https://www.coursereport.com/reports/2020-coding-bootcamp-alumni-outcomes-demographics-report-during-covid-19 https://www.coursereport.com/reports/2020-coding-bootcamp-al... (Difficult to read on mobile) This shows that 1% have no high school diploma, 5% have graduated high school and the remaining 94% have gone to or graduated from college. 15% have 1-4 years of college and no degree, 6% an associates, 55% a bachelor’s, 16% have a masters, 1% doctorate, 1% a professional degree. Data from 2018,2019,2020 is collected from the surveys. Average Wages: No college degree: $61,836 Associates: $57,762 Bachelor: $71,267 Masters: $74,774 Professional: $66,619 Doctorate: $83,250 Not clear if this is the first job only or if this includes the results of second and third jobs. There is a section showing average wages for first job is $69,079 and average wage for third job is $99,229. Also 15% of the graduates have never been employed from the boot camps. (16% for 2018 grads, 15% for 2019 grads, and 37% for 2020 grads.) There are a lot of other insights in there as well. Unfortunately the reporting doesn’t generally show quantiles or other information about the spread in wages. There are a few results where mean and median are shown. As it’s a survey and self-reported there are always going to be some limitations. If others have alternative data to offer up, please share!

nindalf 5y ago

A comment doesn't necessarily need to be accurate to reach the top, it could merely confirm the biases of enough people so they think "yeah, sounds right to me!"

RealityVoid 5y ago
I find it amusing your comment was greyed out when the the insight was so good.

ravitation 5y ago

> 1. Many trades also pay like crap and have a very limited window in which you can do it. In addition many are not welcoming to women at all, regardless even if you take the highest paying trades, do they pay more than the highest paying careers that require higher education? Exactly. These types of post often ignore the actual work being done. A graduate student might make a comparable hourly rate to an amazon warehouse employee, but he or she can also go to the bathroom and sit down.

zaphod12 5y ago
I don't know man - graduate student might be the only job that's more demanding that amazon warehouse employee.
throwawayboise 5y ago
Working in an Amazon warehouse would not be considered a "trade" by most definitions. It doesn't require much if any training and amost anyone in normal physical condition can do it. It's more of a pure "laborer" job, these have always paid less than skilled trades.
- ravitation 5y ago
  You've missed the point. Very obviously working in an Amazon warehouse isn't a trade. The point isn't that working at an Amazon warehouse is a trade, nor the job's actual wage... The point is that two jobs with superficially equivalent wages can be far from equivalent in things like the toll it might take on one physically... The same could be said for the starting salary of graduates with undergraduate accounting degrees and entry level plumbers ($40k-$50k annually)... Similar in terms of wages, far from equivalent in terms of physical demands...

indymike 5y ago

> 1. Many trades also pay like crap and have a very limited window in which you can do it. I'm not sure what you mean by limited window unless we are talking about professional athletes and some categories of manual laborers. > In addition many are not welcoming to women at all, regardless even if you take the highest paying trades This is rapidly changing. Also, there are also skilled trades that are mostly women (e.g. cosmetologist, many medical roles). > do they pay more than the highest paying careers that require higher education? When we factor out jobs that require 8-12 years of education, in general, yes the trades aren't a bad deal. > 2. Which boot camp? How many people ended up like your daughter? How much was it? Without these facts no comparison can be made. I'm not turning this into an ad for the school my daughter went to. Cost was literally 1/2 of he first year salary over $40,000. It was capped at a maximum amount. She ended up paying about $6k, but it was contingent on her getting a job that payed better than $40k. 3. Some colleges perhaps, smart people can get full scholarships and even without that community college plus a cheap state school isn’t expensive. I have five kids. My first was straight As, great test scores, and we still ended up with $6-8k of expense per semester after the full ride scholarships paid for tuition at a small private college. Ok, here is the biggest community college in the US: Ivy Tech. $2,400 per semester for 12 hours, plus fees. It's not that expensive, but they also have less than 20% of students complete their degrees... > Link to your study? Did these people not go to college? It didn't matter what education level they attained, across the population the outcome was consistent. Having a job while young made a huge difference - almost as much as having a degree. 4. As you’ve already demonstrated college is hardly required let alone loans. Yep.

endisneigh 5y ago
> I'm not turning this into an ad for the school my daughter went to. Cost was literally 1/2 of he first year salary over $40,000. It was capped at a maximum amount. She ended up paying about $6k, but it was contingent on her getting a job that payed better than $40k. You already have. I want to see the graduation stats. > It didn't matter what education level they attained, across the population the outcome was consistent. Having a job while young made a huge difference - almost as much as having a degree. Where’s the link? Sorry but your point is way too centered on your anecdotes. Fact remains that college graduates make more money. https://www2.ed.gov/policy/highered/reg/hearulemaking/2011/collegepayoff.pdf https://www2.ed.gov/policy/highered/reg/hearulemaking/2011/c...

chaostheory 5y ago

> 1. Many trades also pay like crap and have a very limited window in which you can do it. Which is why the parent comment specifically mentioned "skilled trades". If you're not familiar with the term, think plumber or electrician instead of roofer or outdoor landscaper. The working window for skilled trades is also far greater than software engineering.

endisneigh 5y ago
There are skilled trades that don’t pay well. In any case there’s no canonical list of “skilled trades” to begin with. I fail to see how you can be an electrician longer than a software engineer, but even if that was true there are far more careers a college degree enable that pay more.
- chaostheory 5y ago
  imo a "skilled trade" involves a hard to learn skill that is in high demand. Consequently, the demand yields a higher salary than a commodity "non-high skilled" trade that is not high in demand. > I fail to see how you can be an electrician longer than a software engineer Because electrical components and systems do not evolve and change as fast as software constructs, neither does plumbing. > but even if that was true there are far more careers a college degree enable that pay more. That's debatable when you account for student loans paired with less marketable degrees. Otherwise, I feel that student debt wouldn't be an issue.
  - bluGill 5y ago
    Many skilled trades are not that hard to learn, those who know it just pretend they are hard to keep people out. Of course with an engineering background I know how to read all the different tables and understand where the numbers came from. That might give me an advantage, but I can learn to do most of them pretty quickly if I want. (they are faster than me because they tend to have the tables memorized)
    - 5y ago

upsidesinclude 5y ago

What? you slam that post for not supplying the information and yet state >[trades] are not welcoming to women at all / last time I looked at ANY trade, they are begging women to come WORK. Maybe that's what you meant though

BigRedDog1669 5y ago
What do you mean by "last time I looked at ANY trade, they are begging women to come WORK."? By looking at trades, do you mean look at a website claiming to want women to work in them? The PR/advertising spins on jobs don't always align with the working conditions driving anyone with standards or a family away. See how "essential" workers have been treated during the pandemic. If you listen to the radio, they are being begged to work. But that work is conditional on bad pay and conditions often. Edit: I'm not trying to claim there aren't good trades, just that the "word on the block" about how easy it is to get a job doesn't always reflect reality.
- upsidesinclude 5y ago
  Working in the trades and seeing tradesmen. Specifically large scale commercial construction. The more laborious the work the lower the participation rate by women. But, there were many women working as electricians and project managers.

hardtke 5y ago

> In addition many are not welcoming to women at all Economists are now finding that as more women move into a profession, the pay goes down. Similarly, when computer programming moved from a female dominated profession (early days) to male dominated (now) the pay went up. Medical fields that have higher proportions of women have lower pay. Along these lines, as college skews more female (college grads are like 60/40 female/male now) the "college grad" professions are having a declining wage premium compared to non college grad jobs.

glasss 5y ago
Would love to read more about this phenomenon, do you have links to articles or places to start? Edit: Found an article[0] that links to a study[1] [0] - https://www.nytimes.com/2016/03/20/upshot/as-women-take-over-a-male-dominated-field-the-pay-drops.html https://www.nytimes.com/2016/03/20/upshot/as-women-take-over... [1] - https://academic.oup.com/sf/article-abstract/88/2/865/2235342 https://academic.oup.com/sf/article-abstract/88/2/865/223534...
- klipt 5y ago
  Correlation is not causation. It's possible that as fields pay more, they attract more men (because due to gender roles imposed on men, men lose more status from low income than women do) and conversely as fields pay less, men abandon them for other higher paying fields.
serverholic 5y ago
Source on programming starting out female dominated? Also, I'm curious what a programmer's job looked like in the beginning.
- ipaddr 5y ago
  I've met many trained by IBM COBOL developers.
- bluGill 5y ago
  Back in the 1930s - before computers existed it was considered boring women's work (sexism intended). There wasn't much demand because of course computers were a room full of people running this by hand. In the 1950s when computers were invented males discovered programming was interesting and took over. As such it is more the image is programming will be women's work than a reality because the reality is there weren't many programmers.

devwastaken 5y ago

1. Trades are overwhelmingly what people do when they don't go for a BA, and often have houses and children far before college graduates. Many more mechanics, plumber, hvac, electrical, welders, pipfitters, etc than we give credit for. 3. Scholarships are not based on intelligence. They are based on access to resources. Many good scholarships require references, achievements, good writing, and lower income. Hard to do that in a city school, if at all. Those that get the scholarships come from parents that know how to game the system. This leaves first generation students far out of the equation. To add to that, judging students based on their high school is a terrible method of educating. 4. A degree has become more required if you don't have the resources to already live in a major city for your work. For example, you can work in software if you live in cali cities far easier than if you live in Utah. If you're coming from Utah, you have to pass the "I'm a drone" test of getting a degree. Many people would like to work in something other than trades, hence university. University no longer functions like we think it does. Large amounts of it are now online, auto-graded, with instructors barely doing any work other than showing up. Housing and tuition costs have skyrocketed with far less scholarships than ever before. I recall a 40,000 scholarship 8 years ago that simply doesn't exist anymore, along with a number of others. Many of these are funded by various communities or collaborations of companies, and over time the over corporatization, lack of funds and lack of community have lead them to just not offer scholarships anymore. Why give away free money? A really easy way to upset a number of teachers, especially high school teachers, is to tell them to try to locate applicable scholarships for their students. They can't. Perhaps a couple that maybe add up to $800 one shots. Half of that being a local scholarship. They get very hand wavey and think 1 of 3 scholarships from Microsoft or Google is reasonably obtainable, yet realistically it would be similar to winning the lottery. There are many bright and hard working students I meet daily that simply cannot get the support they need and cannot devote their time to learning what they need to. It is absolutely brutal the number of hours some of these students are working just to survive. We give the largest amount of support to students whom are already well off and tell those that have to work for what they have to go away. That's American education as I see playing out as we speak.

pb7 5y ago
>Trades are overwhelmingly what people do when they don't go for a BA, and often have houses and children far before college graduates. Having a house and children as soon as possible isn't a win. It's what happens when you lack imagination. There's so much more to life than pumping out kids at 21 in your 3/2 in fly over country.

mikepurvis 5y ago

> In addition many are not welcoming to women at all... There's a long way to go on this, but there are definitely people pushing back on it in various ways, including a number of women welders, electricians, bricklayers, etc all posting about themselves and their experiences on Tiktok: https://www.tiktok.com/discover/women-in-trades https://www.tiktok.com/discover/women-in-trades

zetta0 5y ago

I feel like another caveat to college is that it is mentally exhausting. I went to a state college for 2 years and dropped out and pursued IT certifications. In my career and I am currently sitting at 75k after a year of experience. I'm also more knowledgeable than my coworkers who finished their graduation by a longshot. My 6 certifications covered more than their entire curriculum. The current college system is very broken.

pvarangot 5y ago

> Average College grads make more money over their lifetime, period. So that doesn't mean that if those people hadn't gone to college they wouldn't be making that extra money. No one is saying that people that go to college are less valuable, what's in question is exactly what is college attendance adding that can't just be created in a less expensive, less elitist and more efficient environment. Period.

endisneigh 5y ago
Sure, but the parent post is talking about salaries here. And no one is going to run an experiment on their own life but observationally, yes, that’s what’s happening in aggregate.

snomad 5y ago

> without that community college plus a cheap state school isn’t expensive. UCLA is 13k per year, *if* you are from California. Classes are likely impacted (even upper division) so even if a person goes to UCLA just for the last 2.5 - 3 years they could easily owe > 30k The real cost - rampant corruption (in california, if they ever opened the books on the non-profit entities it would be a major stunner and awakening for many people). Last I saw there was ~100 non-profits serving ~20 campuses . You can read more https://www.calstate.edu/csu-system/auxiliary-organizations/Pages/about-us.aspx https://www.calstate.edu/csu-system/auxiliary-organizations/.... But what they don't tell you, those books are private and not shared with the public. Rest assured, they are money laundering machines. - rent seekers like Pearson and Mcgraw Hill (fun fact, did you know the 2 joined forces to run a company called Follets that runs most campus bookstores (how is that allowed?) - administration bloat

halpert 5y ago
I think 30K is quite a reasonable cost. Parents have almost two decades to save the money, plus they can do so with a 529 plan and avoid capital gains taxes. Even saving $100 dollars a month invested in the market will net 42,000 after 18 years (assuming 7% return).
- lapsedacademic 5y ago
  > assuming 7% return Tuition has been increasing at 8% per year.
- jackfruitpeel 5y ago
  European here — that is an insane cost for college fees from my POV. I attended one of the most highly rated courses for my profession in Europe and only paid about €3K per year.
  - halpert 5y ago
    But your taxes are also much higher. You would pay more than 30K over 18 years most likely.

greedo 5y ago

"cheap state school"... The state school where I live charges $18K/year for tuition and housing. That sure isn't cheap, especially for a mediocre school. Graduating with $72K in debt from this school would be a waste of money if you aren't doing a STEM program, and if you are, there are far better schools.

paulpauper 5y ago

>2. Which boot camp? How many people ended up like your daughter? How much was it? Without these facts no comparison can be made. Bootcamps charge a lot upfront and success rates as measured by good-paying jobs are low.

hooande 5y ago

> Average College grads make more money over their lifetime, period. Stop this. The most accurate predictor of a person's lifetime income is the income of their parents. Children of wealthy parents are more likely to go to college. It's like saying "People who drive expensive cars in high school make more money over their lifetime, period". I question the statistical literacy of people who make the argument that going to college has a significant causal impact on future earnings.

endisneigh 5y ago
I didn’t say there’s a causal impact, I said that average college grads make more money.
- hooande 5y ago
  The kid that's driving a new BMW at age 16 will make more money than everyone else too. Do you suggest that kids buy BMWs in order to increase their lifetime earning potential?
  - endisneigh 5y ago
    I don’t see the relevance - even among the poorest college grads have higher lifetime earnings: https://research.upjohn.org/empl_research/vol23/iss3/1/ https://research.upjohn.org/empl_research/vol23/iss3/1/ again, college grads make more money across all demographic groups. Not sure what you’re arguing
    - mlyle 5y ago
      Yes, but is this causal? Is it the college education itself that explains all of the earnings difference? Or is it that the most adept of each income block are more likely to complete college education, and some of the later income difference is because of intrinsic ability rather than the benefits and signaling advantages of a college degree?
lapsedacademic 5y ago

zaidf 5y ago

The PDF you linked cites lifetime earning data collected from the previous century. It might tell you about how things were 1950-2000. But says little about our current Internet-driven world.

jimbokun 5y ago

> In addition many are not welcoming to women at all Many universities aren't welcoming to men at all.

deleted 5y ago

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nfw2 5y ago

The study you linked is over 10 years old. Furthermore, it is using lifetime earnings as the core metric, which means they are pulling in data about people who earned their degrees like 50 years ago. All the data that currently exists shows better outcomes for students that go to college. One would expect this even if college had no benefit to students because the population of students that go to college is pre-selected. Before they attend, students that go to college, on average, demonstrate better analytic skills than the students that do not go to college. They also, on average, have access to more existing wealth and other resources through their family. In the absence of perfect data (which is almost always the case in sociology), it is reasonable to look at case studies to try to make sense of reality. It is not bad practice. It is what Harvard Business School does. It's what product managers and UX designers do when creating products. It's what marketing teams do when selling products. Feel free to disagree with the interpretation of anecdotal data, but statements should not be dismissed out-of-hand because no p-value accompanies them.

endisneigh 5y ago
I disagree, the overemphasis of anecdotes is why so much misinformation is running rampant these days. Nothing is wrong with going to trade school or boot camp or whatever, or even just being a laborer.
- nfw2 5y ago
  Show me the study that shows that people in this thread are taking it personally. Or did you just rely on anecdotes to determine that?
- throwaway2331 5y ago
  There are a lot of things wrong with doing manual work: Pay sucks dick. Unless you bust ass and work overtime/meet management's obscene expectations (you won't unless you're on meth), your pay is going to suck. If you want a more relaxed environment (residential stuff, "small," few employees, lifestyle biz) your pay is going to be even lower. Commercial pays better, but it's more soul-sucking and kills your body quicker. If you're not in a skilled trade (big 3: plumber/pipefitter, electrician, or HVAC; physical IT/wire-pulling) it's even worse. If you don't have a family/friend connection, good luck breaking in to anything worth anything (that includes a union. If you're non-union, you're basically screwed, unless you're high-skilled/massive amount of certs and can negotiate for yourself). LUNA (or whatever the labor union goes by nowadays) is pretty decent if you've got a lot of problems in your life, but can come to work sober (and on time), do the work without bitching, and be productive. All the other unions worth anything are, once again, almost impossible to get into (unless you wait years, have a connection, or have a track record). Everyone wants to be an electrician (so much so, that even non-union shops aren't accepting any "apprentices,"---cheap labor---that don't already have experience; this is no different from the unions). If you get in, it's a golden meal ticket for the uneducated; but pay caps out quickly (and any white collar professional with a shred of ambition will surpass you in pay in their 30s). Hours are uncertain. You can sometimes be working 2 hours a day, and sometimes 12. Overtime is cool, but it doesn't beat getting home and having a few hours to do anything at all, instead of passing out on the couch and waking up at 5am to go back to work. Past that, any other jobs that pay better (tow truck operator, lineman, etc.) have even worse/more dangerous conditions. Your body will start hurting in your twenties, and you'll feel like you're 60. This won't go away unless you stop doing any physical labor for a while, but if you do that, you won't make money, nor gain "hours" (for those sweet union pay bumps after you pass a certain amount of hours -- regardless if you're the most efficient and most experienced apprentice, you'll still be getting paid the same as the bumfuck nephew of the owner who's only there because family takes care of family). If you're a citizen of the U.S., there's no real reason to do manual labor, unless you really don't care that much about money or starting a family (most people in manual labor). For illegal immigrants, the pay is fucking amazing compared to what they get paid back home. They can work for a few seasons, save up their cash, then go back home where American dollars let you live like royalty. I work in tech now. I get paid more than 2,000x what I did being a tradesmen, my body feels amazing now, I can fuck around all day doing whatever I want because I'm remote, and---in comparison---I barely do any work. These are my anecdotes.

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csomar 5y ago

1. So does many degrees (ie: Art and Humanity?). At the upper-level with Skilled Trades, you usually go by your own company/name and then you can make substantially more. 2. Probably a little. These boot camps are mostly a scam like many colleges today. 3. You can do college cheap. You can also get a scholarship if you qualify. You can do college the expensive way if your parents will pay for it. Taking a $100-200k loan for it is stupid. 4. Yes. Which leads me to the conclusion: College degrees used to get you higher pay, people overbought that and someone filled the market, people now can't sell their college degrees for money. Worse, many of them have raked up debt to get that college degree. Sounds familiar? This is like people buying the top in a crypto, realestate, stock-market bubble. But you add a few steps and the thing sounds legit. (Did you ever wonder why people buy MLM and not go directly and buy a Ponzi Scheme).

tmule 5y ago

For someone who is finding holes in the OP’s reasoning, unfortunately, your linked post and statements lack rigor. “ Average College grads make more money over their lifetime, period.” There are huge selection effects in play. It is true that even after controlling for these effects, college has economic value. But the statement about making more money isn’t the right framing at all. There’s a whole chapter on this in the book called “Mastering metrics”. You might want to pick that up - it’s a coffee-table book for the quantitative-minded person.

muslikcat 5y ago

Yea, I am skeptical about top comment also. This is anecdotal, but I have a brother who is a welder w/ bunch of AWS certifications. For several years he worked at union and non-union shops here in Los Angeles. His experience is virtually the same in every shop - low pay (~$25-27/hr), physically challenging work, very limited vertical mobility. It was a sad struggle to observe from a position of someone w/ a FAANG job. I ended up loaning $80K to him, so that he can open his own small welding shop. It is likely that money is gone forever without return. Even now with his own welding/metal fab business it is a constant struggle - winning bids inconsistently, short cash runway, $28/hr, can't afford to pay for his medical insurance, late night work to ensure new projects are coming in, abuse from general contractors who exploit small subcontractor welders, big boys clubs (small subs can't get those projects), etc.

hardwaregeek 5y ago

Yeah the parent comment is trying to make college very cut and dry as a bad choice. That’s not true and removes the complicated aspect: college is still a very very good choice for most, and yet it’s horribly overpriced. Besides if you read the article, it’s not like kids are making hyper rational decisions about their future earning potential. They just want to avoid online classes and got hooked on making cash.

dna_polymerase 5y ago

> Average College grads make more money over their lifetime, period. That's a claim none of you sources can or even could support. Past performance is no guarantee of future returns.

randomdata 5y ago

> Average College grads make more money over their lifetime, period. And yet incomes have held stagnant through the entire rise of college attainment. That contradicts the notion that there is more money to be made. Within a given population, those who are born more capable will earn more than those who are less capable. Those who are born more capable are able to go further in school and be more productive in the workplace for the same reasons. Someone born with a crippling disability that forced them to drop out of high school also struggles to find gainful employment for the same reasons. However, over time, those in similar standing seem to end up making the same amount of money no matter what. If the existence of college and everything associated with it were to magically vanish, those born more capable would still earn more money over their lifetime than those born less capable.

endisneigh 5y ago
> However, over time, those in similar standing seem to end up making the same amount of money no matter what. Cool claim, have any supporting evidence? Personally, I don’t believe that. The opportunities that you have as a result of the skills that you have can create great divergence in lifetime earnings. You’re making a pretty extraordinary claim.
- randomdata 5y ago
  Supporting evidence that incomes are stagnant? The aggregate data that is compiled from tax return information will naturally be your most accurate source, although I'm sure you can find thousands of articles that distill that further into a more digestible form as it seems to get reported on regularly.
  - endisneigh 5y ago
    I quoted the part I’d like a source on.
    - randomdata 5y ago
      Which you will find by looking at the income data, or any news article that covers income stagnation if you want the distilled version for easier reading.

inglor_cz 5y ago

"Average College grads make more money over their lifetime, period." Your "period" makes me think about more questions, not less. 1) Will that still hold in 2070? Kids who are now 18 are likely to be working at least until then. How do the developments over time look like? Won't the increasing shortage of tradespeople drive up their compensation? 2) How does a finer division by majors look like? I would be surprised if every major out there made more money than, say, an electrician. 3) Lifetime is a very long timespan. College grads are deeply in their debt in their 20s and 30s, so they can afford starting a family less. They will be better off when they are 50, but in the meantime they possibly sacrificed a an unborn kid or two to their tuition debt. This is a nasty tradeoff.

telxosser 5y ago
It is obviously a bogus statistic. You would need to compare those that went to college vs vs those in the exact same situation but didn't. "On average, smarter people make more over their lifetime than less smart people bro, that is a fact!"
endisneigh 5y ago
You’re buying into the propaganda: 1. Can’t predict the future. 2. How does the finer division by non college jobs look like? Electrician is one of the top- how does it compare to a doctor accounting the medical debt? 3. Average college debt is 30k. Hardly crippling.
- inglor_cz 5y ago
  Which propaganda? 1) You cannot predict the future, but expecting that current situation will hold indefinitely isn't a safer bet either. I think the best you can do is observe the trends. 2) Of course, I would recommend anyone to take the more compensated route, trade or college but it is probably easier for someone of average academic aptitude to become a good electrician than a good surgeon or a good programmer. That is the point. 3) What are the interests? I heard quite a lot of horror stories regarding the interest rates on college debt. Interest rate for non-trivial principals is the most important parameter of any debt.