Arliya Martin accepted her high school diploma with relief and gratitude. It was her ticket to better-paying work, she felt, after getting kicked out of high school and toiling for eight years at factory jobs to support her children.
“This is a new path for me to get on with my life,” she said.
But Martin didn’t take any classes or pass any tests to receive her degree. She got it in July from a school where students can get a high school diploma for $465.
Unlike public schools, formal homeschooling programs or traditional private schools, nearly 9,000 private schools in Louisiana don’t need state approval to grant degrees. Nearly every one of those unapproved schools was created to serve a single homeschooling family, but some have buildings, classrooms, teachers and dozens of students.
Of course and trust me that aren’t well paying jobs. Been in the job market for 30 years with nothing but a GED. Even worked jobs that require high-school diploma required. They don’t check just put down last school I attended.
But they weren’t living wage jobs either. College degree jobs are the only well paying gigs and she won’t get that.
There are jobs that pay decently with only a highschool diploma. They’re called trades. You just start off low and work your way up. As long as you have some basic mechanical knowledge (which you can easily get from a factory job) they will teach you the rest on the job. Hell, I’ve only been a refrigeration tech for a bit over 2 years now and while I’m not super wealthy I do make enough that I was able to buy a cheap house in my area on my own.
The idea that you can’t make money without a college degree needs to die. That idea was always beat into my head all through highschool. But dropping out of college is the best decision I ever made. The world needs plumbers, electricians, HVAC techs, and mechanics just as much as it needs programmers and accountants. Right now theres even a shortage of trades people because for the past few decades schools haven’t even been presenting it as an option and the existing workforce is retiring.
People who are getting there degrees this way won’t be a damn at trades. And trades in my area are dying because they pay shit. Oklahoma pays crap for tradesman hence why they are “retiring”. Btw no one in trades I see retite they work until they die to me that sucks.