They also are not hiring, or require someone to help you get through the door, just like everything else these days. Telling people to do trade work is incredibly tone-deaf.
Not to mention, most trades are “Dirty”. Thanks, but no thanks, id rather work in a clean office with nice clean AC, minimal bugs and where the sun stays TF outta my face.
On the flip side, there’s also people who see working 8 hours/day inside at a desk as a death sentence.
So saying “Just do a trade” isn’t just tone deaf, it’s as tone deaf as “Just go-to college”
The real answer is everyone should be able to take the education path best suited for them and their career choices
I teach electrical and we take 40 a year in my county, just electrical. We have plumbing and pipefitting and HVAC programs as well. The union program is down the road.
You just have to look for the programs, generally through a local community college. I’d gladly teach the respondent above you.
I live close by to a community college that allows basically anyone to fairly quickly (1-2 yrs) get into a trade. I know several people who did. It’s not “easy” in the sense that yeah, you’re still learning a whole fucking skillset and trying to land your first adult job, but it’s definitely… extremely doable…?
Exactly. Presenting people with real solutions to their problems is important and getting into a well paying trade job is a solution the average worker can achieve if they so choose.
Yep. Trades, nursing (and related fields, lab-related medical jobs), hell, even skilled manufacturers are great paths to go into. They’re not glitzy, and you still have to like… do work. But that’s just part of living in society. Someone’s gotta clean the toilets, someone’s gotta fix the power lines.
The government also made huge student loans widely available. So government tried to narrow the wealth gap. In response, colleges just raised their prices, and students were forced to take out bigger and bigger loans.
Yep. You hand out tens to hundreds of thousands of dollars to people who haven’t yet had to balance a bank account and it’s going to get spent en-mass. Why go to a trade school or a community college when you can go to [insert most expensive school that accepted you]?
A potential solution here is to cap the maximum amount of loan that is immune to bankruptcy discharge. This will have the effect of depressing the total amount of loans an average student has access to and force colleges to follow suit if they want to see continued enrollment.
I agree in principle, but I think that would do the opposite in practice. It would just elevate those whose families have the means to go above the maximum loan amount. So if tuition is X, they would still reach saturation if they charged X + $10k, or whatever. So the less fortunate wouldn’t have the opportunity to get a good education again, the bar would just be higher.
What they really need to do is either nationalize college education (extremely controversial), or put requirements on maximum tuition as a prereq to the loan. I.E., a school is disqualified from federal loans entirely unless tuition is under X, even if the maximum loan is X - 10k
People are willing to pay it, therefore they will charge it.
We badly need people in the skilled trades. The jobs pay well, are in high demand, and don’t require you go go into massive college debt.
They also are not hiring, or require someone to help you get through the door, just like everything else these days. Telling people to do trade work is incredibly tone-deaf.
Not to mention, most trades are “Dirty”. Thanks, but no thanks, id rather work in a clean office with nice clean AC, minimal bugs and where the sun stays TF outta my face.
On the flip side, there’s also people who see working 8 hours/day inside at a desk as a death sentence.
So saying “Just do a trade” isn’t just tone deaf, it’s as tone deaf as “Just go-to college”
The real answer is everyone should be able to take the education path best suited for them and their career choices
That’s one hell of a wise post. Good job!
I teach electrical and we take 40 a year in my county, just electrical. We have plumbing and pipefitting and HVAC programs as well. The union program is down the road.
You just have to look for the programs, generally through a local community college. I’d gladly teach the respondent above you.
Which trades are you referring to?
I live close by to a community college that allows basically anyone to fairly quickly (1-2 yrs) get into a trade. I know several people who did. It’s not “easy” in the sense that yeah, you’re still learning a whole fucking skillset and trying to land your first adult job, but it’s definitely… extremely doable…?
Exactly. Presenting people with real solutions to their problems is important and getting into a well paying trade job is a solution the average worker can achieve if they so choose.
Yep. Trades, nursing (and related fields, lab-related medical jobs), hell, even skilled manufacturers are great paths to go into. They’re not glitzy, and you still have to like… do work. But that’s just part of living in society. Someone’s gotta clean the toilets, someone’s gotta fix the power lines.
For $100000 you can start your own company.
But you gotta get the loan first.
Uneducated people are willing to pay that much. It should be considered predatory lending to sign up a 19 year old for $100k of debt
The government also made huge student loans widely available. So government tried to narrow the wealth gap. In response, colleges just raised their prices, and students were forced to take out bigger and bigger loans.
Yep. You hand out tens to hundreds of thousands of dollars to people who haven’t yet had to balance a bank account and it’s going to get spent en-mass. Why go to a trade school or a community college when you can go to [insert most expensive school that accepted you]?
A potential solution here is to cap the maximum amount of loan that is immune to bankruptcy discharge. This will have the effect of depressing the total amount of loans an average student has access to and force colleges to follow suit if they want to see continued enrollment.
I agree in principle, but I think that would do the opposite in practice. It would just elevate those whose families have the means to go above the maximum loan amount. So if tuition is X, they would still reach saturation if they charged X + $10k, or whatever. So the less fortunate wouldn’t have the opportunity to get a good education again, the bar would just be higher.
What they really need to do is either nationalize college education (extremely controversial), or put requirements on maximum tuition as a prereq to the loan. I.E., a school is disqualified from federal loans entirely unless tuition is under X, even if the maximum loan is X - 10k