Quote Originally Posted by R2Dawg View Post
A large % of people have no reason to go to college.
Yes and no. They don't need college to learn something particularly relevant to what they eventually end up doing for a living. They just need the sheepskin to be given a shot at a job they think they want to do.

Quote Originally Posted by R2Dawg View Post
Many need to learn a skill.
Every body needs to learn some marketable skills. Anybody spending money on college without a specific application when they get out is rolling the dice when they don't need to.

Quote Originally Posted by R2Dawg View Post
They will make more money and have more success than most college graduates of whom many never really use their degrees.
This is still not true on average. Supposedly if you put college grads in one group and non-college grads in the other, the college graduate at the 25th percentile in earning in the college grad cohort out earns the the high school graduate that is at the 75th percentile in the non-college grad cohort.


Quote Originally Posted by R2Dawg View Post
I work in manufacturing and we have tons of college degree folks working shift that use nothing in their degree. They couldn't get a job in what they majored. Yes a few end up making more money but that is the rare exception not the rule.
We probably see the flip side. I see a lot marginal graduates that just barely get their foot on the bottom rung of a white collar ladder, and many of those end up moving up enough to be worth it and the ones that don't don't have a horrible deal. You probably see a lot of marginal graduates that don't get that bottom rung and get nothing out of it except debt and foregone earnings.

Even before the college bubble and credentialism really took off, only about 1/3 of college graduates worked in something related to their college degree.

But definitely agree that if you're a marginal student or your heart is just not in college, going the skilled trades route is probably a better option. We've gone so overboard with shuffling everybody with a pulse through college that it doesn't take much to stand out in skilled trades. And if you end up not liking it, it's a lot less painful to go do something else than it is to be a college graduate with $40k in debt and no real job skills.