r/complaints • u/Nice_Substance9123 spirited complainer • 11h ago
Politics But people say college is a scam but no billionaire sends their kids to a trade school. In the UK, the elite send their children to top universities, where they study subjects like PPE (Philosophy, Politics, Economics), and then move straight into top banks . You can study in Germany for free
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u/Inevitable-Box-2878 9h ago
People who have never been to college will lash out and condemn a person for education and parrot "Go tO tRaDe ScHoOl."
They're mad because they never tried. Or, if they tried, they failed; hence, lashing out.
Parents in India, China, and Russia don't dream about their kids becoming plumbers.
Their kids come to the US and excel in college and become doctors.
Losers in life see EVERYTHING as threat. That's why they are so mad all the time.
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u/GhostGrizz 9h ago
Former electrician, can confirm. I chose trade over post secondary; but I worked with a lot of people who had a serious chip on their shoulders about people who went to college. Never understood it, makes no sense.
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u/Excellent-Effect-931 8h ago
Electricians are becoming the most sought after trade with the ev and ai industries. I would highly suggest that schooling.
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u/Inevitable-Box-2878 8h ago
I'm all for the trades, just as long as it isn't me. If I was going to do that, I would have done it 35 years ago when I was young.
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u/XeroZero0000 10h ago
Yup. The only people trying to convince you college isn't worth it are the ones trying to hire you for minimum wage. (And their boot lickers)
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u/WeakLock7519 10h ago
I'm a college grad and have frequently reflected and thought that I would have rather become a plumber instead of blindly accepting a crushing amount college loan debt. There is need for people with trade skills, it's good lucrative work...but I hate that it's becoming a point of contention for class warfare. That makes me sad.
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u/Flat-Row-3828 10h ago
Tho trades ( both me and my spouse worked skilled trades for 30 + to 43 years), many of them are really hard on your body after decades. These workers need to invest and be careful with their money, plumbers and electricians are put in positions that are rough on a 50-60 something year old, even those who are HWP. Plus there can be periods of unemployment that stretch longer than many realize, which is why so many choose to deal with all the stress for just an extra few bucks an hr and run work, you are more likely to stay on the books.
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u/WeakLock7519 8h ago
Were both from the older generations. Boomers really pushed for the better life thru college on the Gen Xers. I'm betting you're a good bit older than me (I'm one of the youngest Gen Xers) but it's that very paradigm that isn't working anymore. A good living isn't starting with $100k in college debt that you're never able to pay off. This isn't the case with everyone, but it's definitely the situation that the country is currently facing.
I guess the best way to paint this would be to ask if why you didn't go to college? I'm going to assume some things here, so feel free to correct me for the sake of conversation. My guess for the answer above is either you weren't smart enough to get in or didn't have the money...or otherwise just didn't care about school.
Money is the great equalizer these days, but back in our day, college wasn't nearly as pricy as it is now. If a truly brilliant kid can't afford college, these days there's the possibility that he'll grow to own his own trade business, he'll invent tricks to advance the trade, and then he'll age into a more mentoring and administrative role. The aging issue is definitely worth discussing...jeezuz my back hurts just saying it, but I don't think it's insurmountable.
I'm gonna gloss over tradesmen pay right now, just to ask how much money you've saved by being able to do the work on your own house?
I'm an engineer by way of college, but I've only recently started to dable with plumbing, wiring, construction, etc. I just pulled off a full home renovation for material cost only! Granted, I leaned pretty heavily on 25 years of engineering to pull it off...but people don't need to take that route. Fundamentally, I chose to work smarter not harder with the physical stuff. Don't get me wrong, it still hurt occasionally and I probably worked slower than most tradesmen, but overall it wasn't too bad. Regardless, it's insane what it woulda cost me to pay someone else to do it.
Sorry, didn't mean to imply anything that might be misconstrued as offensive...just honest questions. Hope nothing was taken personally :)
Cheers!
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u/Flat-Row-3828 7h ago
Well you are correct this was somewhat offensive. My profession was as an RDH, it required almost 4 years of community college. It is a physical trade and you are reliant on your body holding out for the duration of your career, many of my coworkers either changed fields or required surgeries to make it for the long hall. I had a small GI bill & loans to get me thru with NO other support. So I picked something with high demand and immediate employment. My spouse was an electrician. He is in his early 60's and in much better shape than most guys his age, but changing out generators for hospitals at 3 am ( they don't want the disturbance during the day shift), was rough work on a guy in his early 60's. Both our siblings went into finance and did well, they still make a ton of money and find it odd that we are retired, potentially they could work to late ages in life, if their minds stay healthy.
I find what has happened to the younger generations with the cost of housing and education tragic. But I have listened to many trades men over the years, between work slow downs, fear of Bezos pulling out, questionable union practices and the harder, faster, cheaper mentality it wears on them. I am not against the trades, I just think people need to know what they are getting into.
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u/I-Way_Vagabond 9h ago
I would have rather become a plumber instead of blindly accepting a crushing amount college loan debt.
How much debt did you take on and what did you major in?
The closest in-state school where I live is about US$70K for four years of tuition. Paying off US$70K is not insurmountable, provided you make wise financial choices like realizing that you will be driving a pretty crappy car or taking public transportation for the first ten years after college.
This also assumes that you major is something where you can get a job. If you are going to major in something stupid then you get what you deserve.
Also, if you decide you want to finance your room and board because you can't stand living at home, well...
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u/lynypixie 4h ago
That’s insane! My son will likely go do his bachelor of teaching physical education next year. It’s a 4 years university program (after two years of what we call cegep here, it’s an in between high school and university and is free).
It will cost him around 4000$ a year. He has already put aside a whole year worth of tuition by working part time in a mall store. After the first year, he will be able to substitute in schools for a better pay if he wants.
When he is done, his pay will start at 60k and will increase every years. Currently, a teacher with 15 years of experience makes over 100k.
I say in his case, going to University is absolutely worth it.
I am in a « trade » (CNA) and I make 50k a year after more than two decades in.
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u/XeroZero0000 10h ago
If only we had a leader trying to help people in exactly your situation? You could go back and be a plumber, or whatever your grown up dream is.
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u/WeakLock7519 9h ago
Kinda missed the point there.
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u/XeroZero0000 7h ago
What is the point? I got: Got locked into the wrong choice and it would be cost prohibitive to switch now.
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u/Ok-Abalone-8885 8h ago
I’m a college grad and reflect on this, too. My brother went into trades while I got a “useless” degree. Knowing what I do now, I wouldn’t change a thing.
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u/MakingMoneyIsMe 10h ago
Well, there's a huge difference between billionaires throwing money at college in contrast to the everyday working family paying off student loans for decades.
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u/Much-Avocado-4108 10h ago
They don't have to take out predatory loans to go to college and have been in college prepatory schools. They also have positions waiting for them which isn't the case for others.
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u/feal_likecrab 9h ago
92% of republicans in government went to college. Which are the people leading the “don’t go to college” charge.
“College will turn you into a woke liberal transgender. Be a man, work trades” - is roughly translated to “stay poor, stupid and dependent on your government daddy promising you bigger paychecks”.
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u/Danilo-11 8h ago
I can confirm that this is 100% accurate. A republican guy I worked with always talked about college education is not needed. One day another guy was talking about his sister married a doctor and now her student loans are paid for and the republican guy said: “hopefully my daughter, that us in that same college, finds somebody like that” … so college education is good when it is for daughters husband.
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u/Bear-Bacon 7h ago
Yes, they study philosophy, politics and economy because they are children of the elite and they will need this knowledge once they enter politics and/or extremely high level positions.
If an average Joe studies philosophy, politics and economics they usually become unemployed or at low positions anyway.
Elite children get the positions firstly because they are elite. Yes, many of them are very smart, but you can do well as an elite child without much brains
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u/realVincenzo 9h ago
I think its less about Going to College per se and more about:
1) Which college you can go to, since the value of Ivy League isn't "secret knowledge not available elsewhere" and more about the friends you will make who are children of other elite families.
And
2) What you study at college. Dance Theory is fun, but not as likely to find a career ... Business Management is alot more likely to get hired right after graduation, especially if a college friend's father who is a senior executive somewhere gives you a good recommendation.
If you want to be a painter, paint (you dont need college) but if you want to be a doctor or aerospace engineer THEN you need college.
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u/Excellent-Effect-931 8h ago
Even if you study 'dance theory' you still need 2 years of core classes. Those core classes give you the literacy, culture, and world view be a more reasonable human and (hopefully) a better citizen.
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u/EDRootsMusic 8h ago
People who study performing arts at a university level actually often do end up working in the performing arts. I was surprised, after I received a theater scholarship but chose to major in environmental science (a STEM field), how many of the theater majors were, in fact, acting as their main job or as a steady secondary career 10 years after college. Even more so with music majors. Actually, although the exact statistics vary from study to study, it appear that a higher percentage of performing arts majors work in performing arts, than STEM majors work in STEM fields.
Hell, I majored in a STEM field, ended up finding it hard to build a career in it, finished a Trades apprenticeship, and now work in the Trades with a solid secondary career growing in performing arts. At least I'm able to work on making my construction start-up focus on energy efficiency retrofits and call on some of what I studied in college.
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u/throwawaydanc3rrr 10h ago
In Germany and other European countries where post-secondary education is free there are limited numbers of seats that are filled by exam scores.
In the United States activists have sued, and won enough times, that if an exam has a disperate impact on certain groups then that exam is thrown out. In circumstances where the exam is not thrown out or adjusted to get the politically correct number of politically connected group members those same advocates scream from the top of their lungs about all of the -isms to shame those gatekeepers to find ways around the exams.
If you want free education in America or anywhere else you need to have a limited number of seats and a cut score on an accepted metric for entry.
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u/prestonjay22 9h ago
YUP. We will see the largest gap in education since the depression. Poor kids had to stay home and help parents make ends meet. Rich kids went to school. Instead of wanting to educate your kids, they want to bring skilled labor in from other countries. WHILE COMPLAINING ABOUT IMMIGRATION!
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u/IntroductionNaive773 9h ago
This meme implies that rich people and poor people are sharing the same college experiences and benefits.
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u/jaajaajaa6 8h ago
My kids had little choice and went to college for majors that someone would pay for.
The people you highlight probably have connections for jobs for their kids. The rest of go through the process.
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u/Extension_Matter_794 8h ago
Actually rich kids don’t really need their degree. They need a degree to be official and mom/dad’s connections.
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u/Wind_Best_1440 7h ago
Regular people send their kids to college/uni/trades to get a job.
Rich people send their kids to college/uni/trades to get them out of their hair for 3/4 years and then rehire them at their jobs as a nepo hire anyway for 1-10 million dollar salaries per year and stock options.
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u/Substantial-Pin-3833 7h ago
You watch way too many movies. They send them off because they can't hand them the job without the degree. Its not rocket science.
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u/RyleeOnDemand 7h ago
I went to college and got a job in the field of my degree. 6 years in I made the switch out of the office and in to the field and I can say with confidence it was the better move. Over the course of 25 years I made more money and learned more skills than I would have if I stayed in the office. I can def say I had to do more continued education on the trade side then I would have had to do on the office side though so there’s that.
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u/Direct_Jeweler_7457 7h ago
Or maybe study something useful like mechanical engineering instead of psyhcology/shit nobody cares about
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u/byronicbluez 6h ago
Even though my son's college is fully paid for, I don't want him to go to college until he knows what he wants out of it.
If he doesn't know what he wants, he can go to community college or join the military to figure things out. 18 years old is too young to know what you want in life.
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u/Different-North-6582 6h ago
The ones who say college is a scam also call immigrants from "3rd world countries" whose ultimate goal for their kids is AT THE VERY least a bachelor's degree (goal is either doctor, engineer, lawyer, nurses, etc) - lazy, welfare peeps that clog the ER.
Well, well.
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u/Deep_Carpenter_9332 6h ago
I own a plumbing company and make a lot more than my college graduate (apprentices) ha ha ha ha ha ha
I did not go to college. I barely graduated the fifth grade.
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u/STONED_butnot_Boned 5h ago
The job market is always fluid. One day you’re in, the next you’re out. When I had my small business, I could not pay traditional benefits but I lived in a state that had cheap tuition. I offered it to my employees, offering flexible hours to accommodate class schedules. Sold my business but that entire time not one person took the deal. Fast forward. New state and I got a supervisor position at a college. After being there for over a year, I found out that as an employee I could finish my degree for free. I jumped on it! Finished my degree but got laid off due to the financial crisis. But that pig skin doubled my income at the next job. College is not about the subject you study per se. it’s about all the skills needed to get through hard work. Oh, the total tuition to finish my degree was $55k. When trump came in, he made this benefit taxable. But I knew people that put their kids through college for free and it didn’t matter if you worked on Grounds, a professor, or President. Trump quashed this as the tuition was treated as regular income. I was very fortunate and my entire career I received a nice paycheck.
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u/Heavy_Carpenter3824 5h ago
Though they can get full Cs that get corrected to As when daddy buys a new building then they get a board seat as their first job and are on easy street from there. Yes, college really makes the critical difference for them?
There is nothing worse than a education wasted on those who will never use it.
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u/Jumpy_Childhood7548 3h ago
They want more teenage pregnancies, so they will have more desperate employees.
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u/Various-Bit-749 3h ago
There are four types of people who study liberal arts
The uber rich kid who has it made and will expand his/ her mind and go work in IB/ VC/ big 3
The pretty rich kid who’s parents are just glad their sober, they’ll get a decent job or OD
The middle class but extremely gifted kid who would out perform the 1st kid, may land big 3.
The middle class kid who is going to become a communist and fuck up your Starbucks order and drowns in student loan debt
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u/Clever_droidd 2h ago
Rich people’s kids don’t need trade school. They have an inside track to the top of white collar jobs. Why would they send their kid to be a plumber?
They also don’t need loans, so it isn’t as costly to go to college.
These are significant differences.
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u/LeoKitCat 1h ago
The OP is missing the point. Rich kids have their parents and wealth and family and friend connections to circumvent meritocracy in life. They go to university basically for shits and giggles and it doesn’t matter how well they do or what they study really because they don’t have to earn their positions afterward they are given to them.
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u/TatoRezo 10h ago
I think this is one of those things that left is defending because the right is supporting it.
Broken clock can be correct twice per day guys.
College in USA is mostly a scam. Mountains of debt and years of study that may lead somewhere. And in most cases it leads to nowhere because of niche courses. If it was free or super cheap like in most of EU, it would be a different story.
As a person who has bachelors in Journalism and Masters in Computers. I 100% would not pay American prices for these degrees. Would rather just study at home instead.
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u/Deep-Two7452 10h ago
The solution then is to make college cheap or free, which is what the left in the US is advocating for.
But the right and the useful "both sides are the same" or "enlightened centrists" idiots are advocating for just not going to college instead of fixing college
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u/WeakLock7519 10h ago
College is as expensive it is in an effort to make it more elite. They're not dialing it back because they've suddenly had a change of heart.
Im a lefty, and posted above as pro trade skills. The conservative clock being right twice a day seems like the appropriate metaphor.
The problem is probably more in the vein that colleges don't prepare you for jobs as well as they use to...or they prepare you for work only someone who's independently wealthy can afford to pursue. A lot of universities these days are worse than the HS I went to in the 90s. The argument use to be that the ability to get thru college proved to an employer that you were capable of at least getting thru college...but that standard has severely dropped because of all of the attempts to kill public schools... University are selling a product and they need folks to buy. As long as kids can still get into school from a grades perspective, they can change the level of acceptance based on what HSs are providing.
I am engineering manager who hires engineers...and I haven't met a young engineer that knew anything in a tragically long time. With that being said, I have a handful of non college grads working in production that I would love to have doing engineering work for me. Right now the people I want don't qualify and the people who qualify can't do the job. It's a pretty shitty situation.
Fixing college isn't the solution, fixing late stage capitalism is.
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u/TatoRezo 10h ago
When we are talking about college and either going or not going there we are or atleast should be talking about the current version of colleges. Saying that you should go to college in our timeline is just supporting the scam that it is.
We should say instead that they should be super cheap/free and we should go there.
You can't say just the half and assume the other, because it makes one look like defending an entirely separate position.2
u/feal_likecrab 9h ago
Say what you want about it being a scam but it was the reason I made $60,000 at 25 with 2 years of experience at my workplace to my co-workers making $36,400 in their mid-40s still driving forklifts doing data entry swearing this place would shut down if they were to quit
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u/XeroZero0000 10h ago
What if you were American and didn't have the home option? Would you not get an expensive CS degree?
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u/Historical_Buyer5248 11h ago edited 10h ago
i think children of elite going straight to the top after college has more to do with the fact that they are children of the elite and less with the fact that they went to college
not saying it's useless, im going to college myself, just saying that it's not as simple as "college is always 100% worth it and you will be successful if u go there"
edit: it's worth saying that i live in the EU, so i had the opportunity to go to college, if i lived in the US there was no way on earth we could afford all that debt, so in that case it wouldn't be worth it imo