You guys think the oversupply of college grads means there is a labor shortage in the trades? I'm not so sure about that. It's not like carpenters are getting paid more than accountants.

"very poor economic decisions" is a little harsh, given the vast amount of people who have improved their station in life over the past few hundred years.

Lots of women go to college. Women are hypergamous by nature and college educated women generally don't want to date a guy without a college degree. Men not taking trade jobs is not a wholly irrational decision when monetary considerations aren't the only things there.

It is truly amazing how crippling student debt can be. If you graduate with $60k in student debt, and you save $500/month, you are paying that off until you're 32.

Saving $500 a month is an absurd amount, especially for somebody at an entry-level position.

http://www.pewsocialtrends.org/2013/...winner-moms/3/
men apparently are even more insistent on a partner w/ at least as much education as themselves

drink!

This is a good point that hardly seems to get addressed. Nobody ever encourages people to work trades. It doesn't make any sense. It's not like someone who is a plumber can't read, and their overall job experience and pay is probably better than most. I have a good friend who is a pipefitter and I think he makes like $80 an hour.

I don't think the baby boomers were wrong about the need for college educated labor. If anything I just think that they overestimated how many people would be needed to fulfill the labor requirement.

One person with a college degree, a desk, a phone, a computer, and an internet connection can output multiples of what a person with much more intelligence, a better work ethic, and more relevant skills could do even 15 years ago. Think about how much work you get done and how well you can multitask due to a hi speed internet connection and possibly multiple screens in front of you and and now imagine that you had to do the same job with technology from 1998. The same people who work 4 hours of their 8 hour day would probably be maximizing every second just to get everything done. Now go back and look at it from the point of view of someone working in the 80s and having kids then. I doubt they could really envision the ability to output so much with so little effort.

I don't think a carpenter would ever be paid as much as an accountant barring some ridiculous extreme conditions that would never ever happen. More like, the pay gap between carpenters and accountants has probably been narrowed somewhat.

Graph doesn't necessarily support the conclusion unless you take into account average educational attainment of men vs. women. These days more women are getting degrees than men so it could just be a reflection of that.

i see it every day. good kids. instead of saying to them, "hey you like working on your car/house/etc. and you just got a D in algebra 1, why don't you consider our vo-tech school and study auto mechanics/welding/building trades/etc.?"

nope. we say to them, "hey you can go to college! never mind that you worked your ass off and got a D in algebra 1, let's go ahead and double up next year with algebra 2 and geometry. got to get ready for college!" fast forward to the end of the year: "oh, hey. you failed both of of your math classes. that's too bad. good luck in the future!"

shark sandwich makes a good point about women but also culturally we've built up college into 'the best years of your life'

if its not then I feel pretty damn good about where this whole life thing is headed.

i live near quite a few vocational schools. seems like plenty of kids go there. but agree that kids that end up at the normal high school all get pushed towards college.

my HS was especially bad, because they pushed kids to college, but not particularly good ones. An embarrassing % of our top 10 ended up UMass Dartmouth (fine school, but when you have kids who could easily get great packages to top schools, it's a huge fail).

I'm getting AJ soprano flashbacks.

I'm wondering where the big dearth of college aged labor is tho. We know it's not in the legal field. I actually don't think trades fits this description, as the construction industry has been AIDS since 2008. Comp Sci is the only field I can think of.

Obama has told me Science Technology Engineering Math (STEM) is where its at

yep, nath's cool.

Also being skilled in a trade can be extremely useful away from work. I kind of doubt I'm going to "do biotechnology" anytime soon at home.

I think I've said this here before but imo mid/late-20s >>> college. Independence, money, and (some) wisdom and you're not old yet.

also, jtg is Confirmed Alive

Now SE is hating on nath? Man SE has plummeted downhill.

isnt college complete independence in that class is way more optional and way less time consuming than a job? I also may view this uniquely as I had more excess income over my expenses my last 3 years in college than I do now due to poker. Between more money and way more free time plus living in close quarters with friends and being able to travel in a way my job won't allow I don't think I can get back to that level of flexibility for quite a while.

didn't say it was or wasn't, just that it might take a lot for someone to pass on doing it because we've made college so important culturally

when has SE not hated on nath? actually, hating on nath I would've thought went down when epi and tut got axed. i don't really participate in the threads nath did, but my guess is he just got tired of SE in general.

Yeah wouldn't mind nath coming back at all. Especially for football season, dude knows a lot more about the saints than me