At my niece’s high school graduation I was chatting with her boyfriend. I asked what came next for him.
He bashfully muttered he was going on to Technical school to become an electrician.
To his utter amazement I showered him with praise! I told him that was the absolute most brilliant thing he could ever have chosen to do!
My niece went on to college, whereupon she ended up dropping out because she couldn’t handle the pressure.
He went on, after completing his training and apprenticeship, to make upwards of $90k+ per year, married a nurse, (also making in the upper 5-figures), own a home and are expecting their first baby.
Yup. I’m watching a trans grandchild get all buffed up to attend a fine university--with no real skills to live away on his own, his applications, essays, federal loan apps were pulled together by a firm his parents hired. He is on the spectrum as well. High functioning. With a couple of health problems from trans drugs the parents are ignoring or can’t figure out why. I try to stay positive and since I don’t live close I’m not part of his daily life. But I worry. We will not be helping the cause with money. We are financially fine but in good health so we need to take care of ourselves. No way will I go live in my daughter’s nice basement 1000 miles from here on Long Island. Absolutely not. Crossing fingers.
It has come to light that many young people who “identify as trans” are on the ‘Spectrum’. I have read this from a couple of mental health professionals who deal with this ‘population’. And how did these kids (generally boys) develop ‘autism’ and or end up on the ‘Spectrum’? Through the insane childhood vaccine schedule that the Medical Industrial Healthcare Delivery System (pediatricians under Big Pharma’s Thumb), push.
Ya know... last night a friend and I started on a Star Wars meme war but I got sidetracked by Family Guy Star Wars which turned in to the Family Guy episode, where Peter becomes gay. Hadn't seen it before.
I’m aware. I believe he was damaged by the HPV vac as everything started around the age they get that poison. Most harmful after covid jabs. Don’t get them. I can’t say anything either. I get shut down real quick. Born a girl. The trans boys don’t seem to get the attention which is good. I read that trans boys may be protecting themselves because of past sex abuse. Makes me wonder about my grandkid. It’s so evil.
I hope your grandchild does not opt for any mutilation surgery (of his/her) breasts. It’s an irreversible surgery and from a ‘hormonal’ POV your ‘system’ never works as it once did prior to these ‘mutilation surgeries’. For boys or girls. Shoot just dress as the sex you identify with. Or chose to be a lesbian or homosexual. That seems are far more ‘adjusted’ life to lead.
The ‘childhood’ vaccines seem to have altered their brain chemistry. Thus the rise of ‘autism’ and being on ‘the Spectrum’.
I grew up in the 50’s & 60’s, in CA. I never knew of anyone being autistic. Some kids were born with, as was used to be referred to, ‘mental retardation’, but I never knew any kids in my small town like that.
These ‘autistic cases’ started ramping up after the Childhood Vaccine Schedule dramatically increased the amount of childhood vaccinations on the ‘schedule’, after President Reagan signed the ‘National Vaccine Injury Act’, which “eliminated potential financial liability of vaccine manufacturers due to vaccine injury claims, to insure a stable supply of vaccines.”
>> his applications, essays, federal loan apps were pulled together by a firm his parents hired.
I'm maybe one generation younger than this person and I can't imagine this kind of outlay just to ENTER college. My parents and I would NOT have been able to afford that.
It has. He did write his own essays and they are good. He’s very intelligent but practical life—he’s a teen and that won’t come until later. There is a lot of striving and competition going on on the east coast. His mom came home from college after the first semester. A private college. We live in the Midwest. Said she could but had to get a job and go to community college. In time she was ready again and graduated. No loans because we could afford the tuition then and she worked while in a state university. It’s soooo different now. The kid wants to go into plant science research. It might work out. It would suit his personality and the “plants are everything” now direction. I pray s lot for him.
Honestly, he sounds like he could turn out just fine. I certainly wasn't really mature enough to enter college at 17, and I think that's even truer of teens today. I fucked up my first year, transferred to a cheap community school just like your daughter, grew up and kicked ass, transferred back out to finish degrees, did fine. Of course, I was able to pay for myself working through school and savings my parents had squirreled since I was born. But
If he's genuinely smart and isn't going into Lesbian Flower Arranging Studies he has an okay shot if he matures soon. Have a little hope. :) Send him to Mouth Farm to shovel some manure for a semester, and I'll generously call it an internship.
I have recently gotten more hopeful. I don’t think he’s on antidepressants anymore and gets good support from family nearby. Like many autistics or asburgers (sp?) he is intensely interested and gifted in subjects. Like plants and nature plus extremely artistic—both areas that are my interests as well so we have things to talk about. I wish he wasn’t vaccinated but I’m not aware of if he is still getting them. He’s a liberal like parents so I’m thinking he is. That’s a prayer focus as well. Sending 18 year olds off to college with little idea of the realities of their studies seems normal these days. My husband didn’t teach school for very long either and we did fine in the end. I didn’t go to college until I was 50 something and loved every minute of it.! It got me s job I loved with no stress and and even a small pension. All good. Thanks Guttermouth for the encouraging word. I kind of needed it. 😀☮️. Substack is part of my family.
Just keep ‘hanging’ with your grandchild and share your mutual ‘interests’! You may not be able to ‘influence’ this child’s parents but you can have serious ‘backdoor’ influence on your grandchild. 🙏🏻💓
Absolutely. In my work I have seen literally thousands of people who have permanently fucked up their lives or are almost certain to do so by the time they're 25, and he doesn't sound like one. He sounds awkward and mostly ok.
Plenty of room for faith and hope in this equation. :)
The Iiea that if you go through the rituals and trappings of the opposite sex, you become the opposite sex. This is yet another Western civilization cargo cult.
I’m relieved they never shunned me nor demanded shots to engage. I’m thankful for that. We have great relationships even at a distance but all this other stuff we can’t talk about. I only had one sister who did shun me and she eventually apologized but in her mind I’m still an antivaxxer and trump lover. I can live with that.
Yes. Also, a recent change in the law permits you to roll the balance of the 529 account into an IRA for the benefit of the child if not used for education expenses. This is likely what I will do with the bulk of my daughter's 529 plan since at this point she is showing little interest in four-year college.
Here's the big if about that, though, because I agree with you:
The opportunities to do that have to exist. There has to be a WAY for the millions that will hopefully opt out of college to walk into apprenticeships to learn these skills. What I mostly see around me is the catch-22 of "experience required."
I know I sound like a broken record here, but my gut is immigration explains a ton of it.
Just like there are basically no paid summer jobs for teens in most places anymore, a lot of the entry-level "trade" or "labor" jobs are filled with illegals, who can be underpaid and worked like dogs.
Those jobs, like McDonald's (or, in teen GM's case, McDonald's and secretary and busboy/girl) mostly served in our lifetimes in the role of the bottom rung of ladders for teens and young adults. In every big city I've ever lived in with a surplus population, those jobs are careers for illegals, who remit the majority of it.
As a counterpoint, in the small rural town I live in now, ALL the teens have summer jobs. It stunned me the first year I lived here, all the fucking teenagers everywhere working. It was like I'd come home from a 30-year vacation on Children of Man Island. Those who don't have family farms or other family businesses to work at can ALL find jobs babysitting (remember hiring teen babysitters???), waiting tables, changing tires, and basically doing every other job that doesn't involve alcohol or firearms that is now normally done in any larger area by a man 3 times their age that speaks no English.
Nailed it. Nothing like having the pleasure of paying to be invaded by replacements.
There is NO WAY that, since 2002, 52 million additional people should have ever been let in. Period.
And people stupidly wonder why our lower class can't seem to find a "living wage" (whereby they are not dependent on Government assistance) as well as why this country continues to be ghettoized, polarized, and bankrupt.
My dad was president of a vo-tech college—the only president in our state with an actual degree (Masters) in vo-tech. And he had worked and taught automotive mechanics for years. All the others were politicians who were out of a job. The GI Bill for Vietnam veterans paid for a majority of the students back then. At identical numbers started dropping as the time limit came to an end. Many of the schools closed or merged. I guess the Middle East wars have helped lately.
As with damn near everything in my life, I was outside the box on this. Due to a number of factors, I decided I had to give up my "career" in technical showbiz and retrain in something less physical. X-ray tech seemed a good choice, but the schools cost way more than I could afford. So I figured, damn, if I'm going to spend a bundle, I might as well do it on something that actually interests me, not just a way to make money. Thus, at 49, I went back to college and got a no-frills degree from a state college. This was back in the mid-'90s. I got the degree thinking I would learn stuff, which I did, and also and mainly, because you couldn't get work above minimum wage without one. Turned out that even with a BA, minimum wage was about all you'd get anyway. The school, and this is epidemic in Academia, did NOT give students a realistic picture of what the working, as opposed to the school, world was actually like, because if they did, most students would never major in most of the courses. They'd become plumbers, electricians, theatrical technicians...Anyway, the point here is that many students get degrees because the companies in the fields they want to go into require them. There is a sick, cannibalistic, symbiotic relationship twixt Academia and fields dominated by large corporations, and trust me, telling the truth about it is NOT something either does willingly. Times have changed, not necessarily for the better, and though modern technology gives the illusion of progress, as Gato has pointed out, the wooden airplane builders are still among us, and lonelier and sadder than ever.
At least if we pay for it we won't have to figure in interest. We will be looking at all options. Internships, corporate programs, and a few select sane colleges. If it's going to cost 1/2 a million, maybe we start a business. Go work 5 years in the type of business that interests you, then start your own. My husband and I each have our own construction businesses. I'm not up for throwing away 500k.
A (female) guidance counselor in my middle school encouraged the 9th graders to strongly consider going to the tech school, then getting a job--and 'do college' later if it still seemed desireable. Interestingly to me, she had recently 'come down' from the high school--so had a closer vision of the situation. This would have been around 2017-19.
Interestingly I was that college student who got good grades (.01 below honors), worked 20 hours per week and still partied/had fun. Ironically this did not translate into a hugely successful career path (at least in terms of $$$ or prestige although those things have never been of much importance to me so I didn't seek them out particularly). I am happy working part time currently at a mid sized privately owned company (while I also take care of my young family). And I escaped essentially without student loans (thanks to scholarships and working). I won't be funding my children's indoctrination into woke garbage cargo cult.
I was a co op student in engineering. Work a quarter for a firm that has engineers employed, go to school a quarter. Pay your way while gaining experience. Worked for me
Being a Doctor these days is almost working for the government. And if you're an upstanding moral person, viewing the fraud in the healthcare and not having any recourse is rather depressing.
Depends on the kid. If I had to guess, Your brother who is an oral surgeon is OCD as hell, booksmart, and interested in being a subject matter expert and helping people. While he may be a decent businessman, it’s not what primarily drives him. Your brother who owns a lawn service company is likely more entrepreneurial and understands leverage. He’s not in love with cutting the lawn. He sees the business as a business, not his identity. There’s no single formula for all of us. Some will be happier as moguls and some as Chaucer scholars. But most kids are wasting their time and money in college with nothing to show for it. Trust my checkbook, the HVAC guy, the electrician, and the contractors doing remodeling projects on homes are doing very nicely.
I am a developer. My top guys make $225,000 a year. Bottom guys start at around $50,000, but if you have a half decent work ethic you will be $70-$80 in no time. And the electricians top out at about $150,000. Not the electrical company owner. A paid employee!
Victoria BC is one of the most beautiful spots on earth. I've visited a few times. once when we were at Olympic Nat Park and another time when I was on business in Vancouver
Back in the 70's college was a bust for me. My disapointed Dad got me in the Electrician's Union, (third genration). After twenty years (12 as a contractor) I decided to go to Nursing School. Pushing 70 and still loving it. (Conditioned space, scenery is better, sometime you get to Really help someone, your life is still in danger from invisible forces.)
If I was personally better with money and choices I would be sitting pretty.
Encouraged my sons towards trades. Oldest is 37, 3 kids, moved from Massachusetts to Tennessee last year, homeschooling his kids, she writes curricula for a national company and is trying to steer it away from woke, he has his master electrician license in two states and has a great house on 20 acres and building greenhouses. He says he can collect a 6 figure salary from companies that need a master’s license and he just does inspections. Building resilience at home and in children.
Nov 16, 2023·edited Nov 16, 2023Liked by el gato malo
It starts at kindergarten. Studies show that kids that eat breakfast score better on tests, so we'll give every kid breakfast. No thought to the stable home environment that kids who eat breakfast at home have. Kids with higher self esteem score higher, so we'll give kids self esteem by praising everything they do. No thought to the fact that a kid has self esteem because he studied hard for a test and sees the results of his hard work reflected in the test score.
Increase minimum wage so poorer people have more money. “Uh, a burger which would have cost $10 then will cost $15. Practically after the initial raise they will be in the same position. But the immediate loser is the next level up from the bottom person. He or she doesn’t get a raise equal to the bottom person.” Rents are too high! Cap them. Stop rental increases! “Uh, no one will build. No one will maintain their buildings because they won’t be able to afford to. In a decade or so you will see massive rental
The push to raise the minimum wage always bugged me, knowing the next rungs up would be squeezed and making the same, or even less than, the new person even though they've been working their job for a decade.
Welcome to California, where a fast food job is now a minimum $20 an hour but administrative assistants with college degrees and 4 years of experience get offered $19 an hour. 🙄
Here in Victoria BC. If you have worked somewhere three to six months you will be at $22-$25 an hour. $22 with zero skill required. Anyone with a work ethic can be making $30 in a year or so. Because within a year or so you will have seniority. Almost no one young can work, or will
It’s cargo cults all the way down. Is the accumulation of wealth a measure of one’s worth as a person? That seems to be the embedded assumption, but is that not also a cargo cult? Are wealth and contribution to the lives of loved ones synonymous?
And this is the logical conclusion to the student debt crisis. The government will entice them with a government service for debt forgiveness scheme. And the already extremely bloated federal leviathan will fatten up even more.
And you the plumber and me the electrician will be paying $10 for a gallon of milk and $130,000 for a Ford Taurus.
Interesting that you would comment on that - my friends who spend time in Africa comment on the Africans operating schools with the bureaucratic structure of European schools without the substance. The Africans don't seem to understand that to the extent European schools succeed, they succeed in spite of administration - not because of administration.
I would venture that many of those touting the relationship between things like breakfast and test scores are the same ones dismissing the Bradford Hill verified relationship between the new jabs and increased deaths and other health problems. It is more about buttressing their belief system than actually proving anything. BTW, I am not claiming to be completely free from such things (likely innately human).
Perhaps the most successful people were children who ate "nails" for breakfast?...I mean that figuratively. A child can live in a healthy home and eat nails.
One way to do that is expose them to individual sports and/or activities (drama,etc.). There's nothing that will tell you where you stand better than only having yourself to measure against the field.
We've produced a nation of buttercups by leveling the steps on the podium. This does a disservice to those who earned their place on the podium and the ones that just had their names penciled in the bracket.
The sad part is I've seen club level sports organizations push out and ostracize successful high achieving athletes. The other kids (and their parents) that don't want to put the work in don't feel comfortable around these high performing athletes that have a strong work ethic. So, it is easier for them to push the strong out of the organization then it is to put the work in and have the lower performing rise higher. The remaining ones left in the organization can then feel comfortable and safe in their mediocrity now that they got rid of the troublesome high achiever.
Regarding the breakfast for all, 'free breakfast' for so many, I wonder how many of those pressing the program have any experience at all of what those 'students' actually do with that food, what food choices they make. Did a.m. caf duty for a couple of years. I have seen it.
Incidentally, I myself had one of 'those' educations--for me, at the oldest of the Seven Sisters. Back, as my Little Three husband likes to remark, when it meant something. For this my college-educated parents scrimped and saved throughout our childhood--and every $ gift to us for Christmas or birthday went into our individual savings-for-college bank account.
There was a great example of this... I wanna say about 20 years ago in Chicago, which was already beginning to simmer as a notorious shithold of life outcomes.
Some children's research group got the idea that "having books in the home" correlated with all these other outcomes. And so... you guessed it, began giving crates of children's books to "inner city families." Not cheaply, either.
Jokes aside, I hope the point of the cargo cultism was clear: it was "revealed" in fairly short order that this was an attribution error: homes that already have books in them are likely stable family environments where a full array of things better for child development are happening. It wasn't the reading of the books that made this occur, it's that they were already stable and middle class.
Yes, and they READ books. Getting kids to read is, arguably, the most important thing you can give them. The parents must read, too--read to the kids, model reading themselves, etc. I'm a retired community college English instructor, and I was on the front lines of marginal literacy and an endemic lack of reading. I still have PTSD. Hah.
Well, add in that the "breakfast" they get typically means they're on a sugar buzz for a couple of hours, followed by a crash after that. So that doesn't help things, either. :(
Mom's when they're a mom-- "You'll eat what I fix or you'll go hungry." Mom's when they're grandmas-- "Now honey, do your want your grilled cheese cut into hearts or stars?" 😁
That's exactly why, at some point, during our evolution it was "economical" for parents to live long enough after fertility to cut little hearts into sandwiches.
golden grahams and raising bran or I went hungry! If I'd only known that John Kellogg invented that crap to lower sex drive, I would have been drinking raw eggs instead!
My mom actually made me a milkshake with a raw egg in it for breakfast every single day. My breakfast for at least 20 years, and nary an issue from a raw egg:)
All well said. But 'higher education' in the humanities and social sciences has become a cargo cult in ANOTHER way too. Never mind about the chimera of increased earning power; parents dream of their kids going to university so's they will come out more EDUCATED and ENLIGHTENED. But now they typically emerge from their 3+ years at university more IGNORANT and BIGOTED. https://grahamcunningham.substack.com/p/how-diversity-narrows-the-mind
In the 80s, my babysitters could put *themselves* through college on summer jobs and weekend work. By the time I went to boarding school, my middle class parents were like yours, cat-they could do it, but my mother joked that it was like driving a car off a cliff every year. I went to state and they paid for that, too. I’m eternally grateful (although it was the only way to get me to go-I didn’t want to attend college. Boarding school felt like enough).
My husband and I both have college degrees, but he left his field when he fell in love with wooden boats and timber frame carpentry. We lived small and rented after I left finance because I hated it, and then stayed home with babies. Once I knew what I wanted to do, we cashflowed the education for it, with help from family.
Now I’m in my late 40s, and my only debt is a manageable mortgage on a 1000 square foot house. I live a rich life. I spent the day in the car with my kids yesterday. My FIL is on my 17yo homeschooled son to go to college. We had a deep talk about what he wants life to look like at 27. I said, “nothing you’ve described requires, or even benefits from, going to college. If you want to be a professional comic, learn to wait tables where the comics work, and sit at their feet. Hustle for gigs, bomb, succeed, bomb, repeat. If you need to know the history of 17th century textiles at some point, go to night school.”
I wish I’d had someone to tell me. I wasted a lot of time.
On the bright side, the experience you gained from that wasted time will likely afford your children not to make the same mistakes and that is so worth it. God bless you!
It’s a good point. As trying as these times are and look to remain for a while, I would much rather endure this period of transition and collapse than leave it for them.
Whether that time can be wasted is debatable, but the more important and positive point I see in the story is that you and your husband made it to middle adulthood with a home and not drowning in six-figure college debt.
My professional path was extremely windy after college, and I'm probably overeducated, but it was an affordable mistake at the time, and the sheepskin has been my permit to keep getting jobs.
It is nice to read an economically sound and emotion free description of the problem. Far too often such articles are written from the perspective either of college should be free for everyone in one camp or that’s what happens when you get a worthless degree in dance theory in the other camp. It’s very hard to get people in the second camp to understand the economic reality that even a degree in a useful field with “good” pay is so overpriced that it’s no longer a viable opportunity. It’s hard to get people in the first camp to understand that giving everyone a free university education doesn’t guarantee the kind of upward mobility they think it does. Bravo and well done.
People ask me if my kids are going to be a vet like me and they look at me crazy when I say “nope they are going to trade school”, but my cousins who went to trade school are all financially secure and I will be a debt slave for the rest of my life. Who would knowingly do that to their kids? My parents didn’t know any better, but no way will my kids fall into this trap.
You almost never hear anyone say, "50% of people can't have 10% of jobs," but it's so obviously true. This is one of the best things about the Bad Cat.
The thing is I don’t think most people thought about it that way in the first place. I don’t think most people have any idea of how inflated the price of an education is. So in their mind a degree in a good field= a good job = financial stability. They don’t think that it’s the 10% of jobs that 50% are fighting for. I mean teachers generally don’t make the top 10% of earners, but they need degrees. A four year degree at our local public university is set to cost about $100,000. I think we pay teachers about $35,000 to start out in my town (although that may be too high an estimate). That math doesn’t work and the problem isn’t that we flooded the market with too many teachers and drove down the salary or that there was a sudden drop in demand. The price of the education just rose so high so fast that there was no way to keep up. So while Gato is absolutely right most people weren’t looking at it that way to begin with.
I didn’t just mean the students, I mean parents or the general public. Almost every conservative I have talked to about student debt feels that, and the prevailing conservative narrative is that, student debt was only a problem if you went to a fancy private school and got a useless degree. They simply couldn’t fathom it when I told them that nearly every job or profession that requires a university degree is in crisis. Yes that means doctors and lawyers and veterinarians and teachers and a pile of other professions. They also struggled to understand when I pointed out that if you want these students to “pay the damn money back on their own” it meant that they were going to have to pay more for those services so they had no room to complain about their doctor bill or vet bill or divorce lawyer costs being too high because they were just trying to pay their loans off. Even those in the effected industries who graduated fifteen or more years ago just cannot fathom the price increase.
Yes it is very nice, but Gato is still only telling parts of the story and omits quite a bit. Why did it suddenly become required that people go to college in the 80's? What was different then from say, the 50's thru the 70's?
I would argue increased job competition, at both the top and the bottom, had quite a lot to do with the artificial inflating of standards. And that sort of thing definitely occurred in the time period you're talking about, with the massive increase in immigration, offshoring of professional jobs, and demographic bump of millennials.
I agree with most of what you wrote, and why in the past would we have protected our own industries, but not in the recent past? Why was China granted access to the WTO in 2000? Why as a child in the 80's was i watching Big Bird goes to China? What Gato leaves out is that it isn't government that is the problem, but empire. And hell, do you and i really have an outcome on what policies government enacts? Or is it the corporations that really run everything? Why does Gato never discuss QE and Zirp?
I agree, we're largely completely powerless in the face of this and most things gato writes about, and that's largely not addressed in his essays- I honestly don't know whether by omission or choice of focus.
I would add that it isn't simply empire (but this is still a REALLY good point for you to have made). We've always been an empire. There have been a handful of pivotal corruptions of government where empire fully detached itself from polis, and has been drifting ever since.
I am familiar with a cohort of “millennials” who took on huge debt to attend a very good professional college and subsequently enter a profession at which few get rich. Most of them did it out of passion for the field.
Apparently they’re relying on a provision of their federal loans that the principal remaining after some career-long period of good payment history is forgiven. Their minimum monthly payments are indexed to their income.
In my view, the whole college tuition thing is a money laundering scheme for the Democrats: Taxpayer money channeled through naïfs to reliable Democrat donors. Thus the explosion of “administrators” and “diversity officers”.
It will come crumbling down before too long -- young men are beginning to crack the code. They’re staying away from college in droves.
The problem though is most of those young men are not going into the trades or starting up their own businesses, instead they are taking low level dead end jobs or bouncing between gig work. Working part time at Walmart and part time as an Uber driver isn’t going to allow for financial security either.
You’re probably right. But then, if that’s all they can muster, what are their chances even with a degree? I think that’s part of Señor Gato’s point: the degree isn’t all that is required.
That’s absolutely true. I’m just pointing out that it’s not that these young men have consciously made a healthy decision and are blazing their own trail, or are even following the well worn trails before them. Most of them are opting out of society and essentially of adult responsibilities. So while it’s good they aren’t pointlessly accruing debt they represent a different yet equally urgent problem in our society. Avoid student debt is good advice. But if the most common alternative is dead end gig work, living with your parents, and playing video games every waking moment then we have simply traded one tragedy for another.
This was a very interesting read and I couldn't agree more with your assessment of the disaster in thinking that a college degree is a ticket to success. I have many people in my family that never went for a higher education but where able to build their own business and employ many people to work together to make a good living and provide many benefits.
One irritating thing is that because pretty much everybody goes to college, jobs that never required a college degree in the 1980s require one now. I have an aunt and uncle who had multi-decade careers in the insurance industry, without college degrees. There's no way either of their former employers would hire a high school grad now, even though there is nothing about college that prepares anyone for doing those jobs. Learning a skilled trade and building your own business is outside that self-defeating circle, and it's awesome that your relatives have been sharp enough to make that choice.
My brother experienced this same thing. It was the early 2000's. He wanted to work in IT and was self-taught. But because he hadn't finished college, he couldn't even get an interview in the field. He lucked into his first IT job, and ultimately went back to one of those "degree factory" online places to get the "BS" certificate by his name. Now every time he gets laid off b/c the IT dept has been offshored, he easily gets an interview because he checks the "degree" box, and when they find out his experience he gets hired. Oh, credentialism.
My eldest brother got his MBA from the University of Chicago. I thought it was a waste of money and at his graduation asked him what he really learned. "Networking".
As the fraud grows larger, merit has less and less impact on life within the corporate world. You still might be able to apply your merit within your own buisness (unless that market has been completely become corporate) Someone with merit and integrity might point out the fraud!
excellent read - thought provoking. I am familiar with the concept of the token being perceived as the real thing - everyone does it. I read a book years ago about risk and the author explained how he was in South Africa - had his wallet stolen and inside his wallet was a photo of his wife and kids. In his mind the photo represented the real people which drove him to take enormous risks going to a local township to try to get his wallet back. It was only when someone told him to leave imediately before it was too late that he managed to wake himself up and leave swiftly.
He went back to his hotel in the city and considered how stupid he had been to endanger his own safety over a photo. I wish I could remember the name of the book. I read it 10 + years ago and it was about the 'perception gap' or how human brains are not good at assessing risk in our modern world.
"human brains are not good at assessing risk in our modern world".. all the more difficult with the fear mongering, institutional gaslighting, and general bullshit we have been bombarded with in the New Recent Unpleasantness.
My mother wanted a career so got one. Along the way, as she paid for private schools for four children together with my dad it was implicit I would do my part to allow her her valued and modern career by doing her work in the home and raising/caring for the others while she did her career and had an unbelievably sparkly social life after work.
So through hard work and study at a posh private school, I too could become a career woman and adopt *her* most important life goal to buy my own house, and be the woman that... had it all.
By the time I left school with the stress of grades, housework, personal-debt for tertiary education and then ran screaming from the intensity of home I figured fuck it.
It's a great fat fucking scam.
So I went out in to the wilds of reality to find the right way to live and the right sort of man to marry so I never had to work and compromise the role of motherhood as she did, which taught me everything that has held me in great stead every since, while my mother shuffles around on Thorazine in a dementia home. Thanks Mother, honestly - a world class teacher... We all sacrifice for each other.
Yes, we *were* taught to abhor it: the contemptible loser option in secondary school. I'm still amazed at how brazen and manipulated lessons were against motherhood- they used economics, vanity, biology, the old ball and chain preventing travel etc.
I have been a stay at home mom for 21 years now (5 kids, 21-6) and I try to be ALWAYS positive about it, especially with my girls! We talk about homemaking and how much we live babies. I try to point out the big, happy families we see and compliment them.
I am 72. Reasonably accomplished. Probably would be considered rich by most people. And NOTHING has any meaning other than family. In my case three sons, four grandkids. I am so sorry for my many friends without children. What in the world fills their lives at 70 with no kids!!
Ha! That is funny. I am 72. How old are you? If you are childless and in your 70s then I am happy for you if you don’t miss anything. If you’re 40 and you are then you don’t know what I am referring to.
All true, and all stuff that needs to be said repeatedly. Another thing about those top jobs is that they're in expensive cities. Yes, WFH is more of a reality now, but I don't know if it's at the point where the top entry-level jobs will go to people living in Peoria and "telecommuting" to Manhattan. Knowing some of the details of these jobs, I tend to doubt it... which means that your cost of living is insane. Yes, you're making more in nominal terms than your friends who live in a small town, but you're also spending 1/3 of your income on rent, and *everything* costs more, including extremely basic groceries. Also (not related to whether college is a good deal financially if you're just doing it for the promise of a higher-paying job): It makes me sad that pretty much no college anywhere is about pursuing in-depth knowledge in a particular field for four years. A field that isn't, you know, "management" or "communications." I hear people complain that college didn't prepare them for X job, and I wonder, why did they think it would? And then I meet someone who graduated with a degree in something like "sports management," and I wish we could bring back apprenticeships, because that's what those folks really want. It's a train you can't stop, though, Gato, because banks and lots of others are making money from it.
likely more like half. and that's to have roomates. we used to joke about it back in SF in the 90's. 4 roommates sharing a (big, nice) place in pacific heights all of us making 6 figures, but none able to afford our own place.
"welcome to the 6 figure club! here's your roomate!"
Clearly, I am old, that I am citing 1/3... and yes, I had roommates, even in the very unfashionable neighborhood in Brooklyn where I started out. (This was in an era when to live in any part of Brooklyn was infra dig; I was once at a party where people literally pretended they had never heard of Bay Ridge.) SF might have been worse than NYC, though, even in my era. Standard of living is another reason not to send kids to college for the wrong reasons: They will become accustomed to things they won't be able to afford for many years, if ever (24-hour gym in their own building, prepared hot buffet 3x/day or some variety of food court, 24-hour super, etc.). I recognize that not every college provides those amenities, but just about every private, non-competitive college does.
I laughed whan I read your comment about Peoria. I have a cousin that lives there and works for a company in Europe or Japan (sorry, I don't remember which), makes really good money, works from home, and loves it.
Ha ha! Well, maybe we're reaching the point where it works out for people. I wonder, though, how long the salaries for WFH will be the same as the people who actually live in the expensive cities...
I don't know if they do make what people in the expensive cities make. I just know my cousin makes good money. They have worked for them for quite awhile as a contract employee. I'm sure there's some big place here in the US for this company, but haven't a clue where it is located. Probably, sucky, CA.
I could not agree more with the ending salvo. I spent some of the early post-college years working with what they would now call under served communities (I quickly shifted my focus to the trades for the freedom and the money), I preached other avenues to the future like small business ownership and the trades to the kids while the NGO's constantly preached college for all. This was in the mid- to late 90's.
Ever since, I have raged against this machine to nods and "yeah, yeah's" from parents as they recount their own college years and how formative and special they were. It does no good to point out that there is an extra zero attached to the price now.
Simple alternative: we need high line workers on electrical utilities. They will pay for training and a year or 2 in, your kid will make over $100k. They can still live it up like young folks, but with more money. Unfortunately, most want to be influencers or some other vague fantasy while this sort of work ain't very glamorous.
Yup. I went to a well respected college. It is not an exaggeration to say it's 15X more expensive than when I graduated in 92'.
I eventually went on to grad school. Which was the right decision for me...however I wouldn't have been able to pull that off with the cost for higher education now.
Much of what drives the college racket is class considerations, not strictly financial ones. A adjunct college professor making poverty wages likely enjoys a higher class status, at least in view of her parents and social circle, than an electrician making decent money. Of course, that's not to justify any of this behavior, and I entirely concur that student loans are approaching usury (though I'm not entirely sympathetic to those taking them out ... they should be able to run the same basic numbers you did in this post, and if they can't/won't, then college probably isn't for them anyway) with the colleges pricing tuition at wholly unjustified levels (well, other than the fact that when they raise prices, people still pay). None of this gets fixed without destroying the federal student loan program, but that will require revisiting some of our culture's egalitarian fantasies, and that will prove very painful.
TL/DR: No one puts "Proud parent of a plumber" stickers on their Volvo.
We’re turning out more watered-down college grads, with increasingly useless majors (thanks to all the extra capacity). That piece of paper that once acted as a screening mechanism for employers doesn’t mean what it used to. Supply and demand. More supply (college grads), means lower prices (wages). Poor bastards, cap-and-gown in hand, forced to take jobs at Starbucks, living in mom’s basement, like modern-day indentured servants.
“Congrats, Timmy, you spent four (to six) years and $200,000 at a marginal institution to get a bachelor’s degree in gender studies”.
Who would hire these kids? Sure, you might hire and train them, in spite (not because) of their degree. How long can we delude our children into this terrible deal?
The good news is, the s--- is hitting the fan. One in four borrowers is delinquent or in default. Kids, ill-educated and wide-eyed, victims of a rotten system, are now calling for government to pay for free college educations. “Great idea, Chip. Maybe unicorns can provide it?” Sorry, but (a) nothing is free, and (b) it was your well-intentioned and all-knowing government that made it so expensive and watered down.
The answer, instead, is as old as the act of lending itself. The loans must go bad, the lenders stiffed. Because of government-backing, the ones stiffed will be taxpayers. Banks will be bailed out, and kids may be forgiven of (some) debt. Maybe.
Universities will take it on the chin, but they gorged already. Capacity will be reduced, worthless majors and departments eliminated, bloated administrations downsized. The cranes will come down in college towns, but the most beautiful campuses will remain (others sold and repurposed), an ode to another bizarre experiment with central planning, money printing, and groupthink.
Where will tuitions land? Historically, a university education at a private school costs about 22% of median household income, or $12,000 annually in today’s dollars. A public school is about 5%, or $3,000 per year.’
I predicted it would burst before my daughter graduates high school. She was 7 then -- now she’s 14. We’ll see 😬
I saw that happening as far back as the 1970's. My parents, especially my father, pushed me to go to college and openly looked down on those who did not. Here's the kicker. They did not set aside any money for any of us kids to go to school. There was very little financial aid back then, definitely no student loans, and my family made just enough to make me ineligible for what little aid did exist. I saw the writing on the wall and wanted to take secretarial classes in high school, not because I wanted to be a secretary but working my way through college would be a lot easier on a secretary's pay than flipping burgers. No, that was not allowed. I had to take college prep courses. So when I graduated I had a head full of nearly useless knowledge and absolutely no job skills. Well I tried working my way through college washing dishes; it didn't work out, and I ended up dropping out. But even back then there were people I knew who had gone to college and got degrees and were STILL flipping burgers because they couldn't find anything in their field. Also, what they don't tell you about this expensive degree is that it comes with a sell-by date and when you hit your 40's-50's you'd better be putting on your parachute 'cause you ain't retiring with a comfy package. Nuh huh. You're going to be out looking for a job competing with the 20 somethings who will work for less. My parents told me go to school so you won't have to work in a factory--I did and STILL ended up working in a factory!
In the 70s and early 80s it really didn't matter what you studied, what your grades were, if you didn't already have prior experience in the job you were applying for, you didn't get the job. UNLESS, some influential relative pulled some strings to get you that job.
At my niece’s high school graduation I was chatting with her boyfriend. I asked what came next for him.
He bashfully muttered he was going on to Technical school to become an electrician.
To his utter amazement I showered him with praise! I told him that was the absolute most brilliant thing he could ever have chosen to do!
My niece went on to college, whereupon she ended up dropping out because she couldn’t handle the pressure.
He went on, after completing his training and apprenticeship, to make upwards of $90k+ per year, married a nurse, (also making in the upper 5-figures), own a home and are expecting their first baby.
‘Nuff said.
Yup. I’m watching a trans grandchild get all buffed up to attend a fine university--with no real skills to live away on his own, his applications, essays, federal loan apps were pulled together by a firm his parents hired. He is on the spectrum as well. High functioning. With a couple of health problems from trans drugs the parents are ignoring or can’t figure out why. I try to stay positive and since I don’t live close I’m not part of his daily life. But I worry. We will not be helping the cause with money. We are financially fine but in good health so we need to take care of ourselves. No way will I go live in my daughter’s nice basement 1000 miles from here on Long Island. Absolutely not. Crossing fingers.
It has come to light that many young people who “identify as trans” are on the ‘Spectrum’. I have read this from a couple of mental health professionals who deal with this ‘population’. And how did these kids (generally boys) develop ‘autism’ and or end up on the ‘Spectrum’? Through the insane childhood vaccine schedule that the Medical Industrial Healthcare Delivery System (pediatricians under Big Pharma’s Thumb), push.
Ya know... last night a friend and I started on a Star Wars meme war but I got sidetracked by Family Guy Star Wars which turned in to the Family Guy episode, where Peter becomes gay. Hadn't seen it before.
6min. version: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kdwm_DibkJw
He's a human guinea pig in the doctors office and must take an injection for the 'gay gene' and next thing you know, he's gay.
With all the crazy sh*t with vaccines today, it really makes me wonder if that is the standard result after three or four generations.
I’m aware. I believe he was damaged by the HPV vac as everything started around the age they get that poison. Most harmful after covid jabs. Don’t get them. I can’t say anything either. I get shut down real quick. Born a girl. The trans boys don’t seem to get the attention which is good. I read that trans boys may be protecting themselves because of past sex abuse. Makes me wonder about my grandkid. It’s so evil.
I hope your grandchild does not opt for any mutilation surgery (of his/her) breasts. It’s an irreversible surgery and from a ‘hormonal’ POV your ‘system’ never works as it once did prior to these ‘mutilation surgeries’. For boys or girls. Shoot just dress as the sex you identify with. Or chose to be a lesbian or homosexual. That seems are far more ‘adjusted’ life to lead.
Too late.
😢🙏🏼
Oh no! :(
agree.
they are the ones easily lured in to this weirdo sex ID thing?
I just can not figure it out
The ‘childhood’ vaccines seem to have altered their brain chemistry. Thus the rise of ‘autism’ and being on ‘the Spectrum’.
I grew up in the 50’s & 60’s, in CA. I never knew of anyone being autistic. Some kids were born with, as was used to be referred to, ‘mental retardation’, but I never knew any kids in my small town like that.
These ‘autistic cases’ started ramping up after the Childhood Vaccine Schedule dramatically increased the amount of childhood vaccinations on the ‘schedule’, after President Reagan signed the ‘National Vaccine Injury Act’, which “eliminated potential financial liability of vaccine manufacturers due to vaccine injury claims, to insure a stable supply of vaccines.”
yep, its a slow kkill.
>> his applications, essays, federal loan apps were pulled together by a firm his parents hired.
I'm maybe one generation younger than this person and I can't imagine this kind of outlay just to ENTER college. My parents and I would NOT have been able to afford that.
The game has gotten ridiculous.
It has. He did write his own essays and they are good. He’s very intelligent but practical life—he’s a teen and that won’t come until later. There is a lot of striving and competition going on on the east coast. His mom came home from college after the first semester. A private college. We live in the Midwest. Said she could but had to get a job and go to community college. In time she was ready again and graduated. No loans because we could afford the tuition then and she worked while in a state university. It’s soooo different now. The kid wants to go into plant science research. It might work out. It would suit his personality and the “plants are everything” now direction. I pray s lot for him.
Honestly, he sounds like he could turn out just fine. I certainly wasn't really mature enough to enter college at 17, and I think that's even truer of teens today. I fucked up my first year, transferred to a cheap community school just like your daughter, grew up and kicked ass, transferred back out to finish degrees, did fine. Of course, I was able to pay for myself working through school and savings my parents had squirreled since I was born. But
If he's genuinely smart and isn't going into Lesbian Flower Arranging Studies he has an okay shot if he matures soon. Have a little hope. :) Send him to Mouth Farm to shovel some manure for a semester, and I'll generously call it an internship.
I have recently gotten more hopeful. I don’t think he’s on antidepressants anymore and gets good support from family nearby. Like many autistics or asburgers (sp?) he is intensely interested and gifted in subjects. Like plants and nature plus extremely artistic—both areas that are my interests as well so we have things to talk about. I wish he wasn’t vaccinated but I’m not aware of if he is still getting them. He’s a liberal like parents so I’m thinking he is. That’s a prayer focus as well. Sending 18 year olds off to college with little idea of the realities of their studies seems normal these days. My husband didn’t teach school for very long either and we did fine in the end. I didn’t go to college until I was 50 something and loved every minute of it.! It got me s job I loved with no stress and and even a small pension. All good. Thanks Guttermouth for the encouraging word. I kind of needed it. 😀☮️. Substack is part of my family.
Just keep ‘hanging’ with your grandchild and share your mutual ‘interests’! You may not be able to ‘influence’ this child’s parents but you can have serious ‘backdoor’ influence on your grandchild. 🙏🏻💓
Absolutely. In my work I have seen literally thousands of people who have permanently fucked up their lives or are almost certain to do so by the time they're 25, and he doesn't sound like one. He sounds awkward and mostly ok.
Plenty of room for faith and hope in this equation. :)
university is a racket now. I am sure you saw that when you went, or in your time
I was probably the last generation to attend remotely affordable college and not get a political indoctrination at the same time.
Dang, I feel for you. And that spectrum => trans pipeline. Ugh. Stay strong.
It is scary. His parents are clueless and doing the best they can. I have my opinions but not allowed to share under penalty of maybe loosing them.
Wow 😯
The Iiea that if you go through the rituals and trappings of the opposite sex, you become the opposite sex. This is yet another Western civilization cargo cult.
That sucks. Man! I love my grandkids. It’s insane how much.
Independant, happy parents are a gift to adult children. Keep communication open, sometimes you need family, however you get them.
I’m relieved they never shunned me nor demanded shots to engage. I’m thankful for that. We have great relationships even at a distance but all this other stuff we can’t talk about. I only had one sister who did shun me and she eventually apologized but in her mind I’m still an antivaxxer and trump lover. I can live with that.
Recently saw a business with a large sign out front seeking a diesel mechanic at $45/hr. College is for chumps.
Damn. This is what has me questioning college for my kids every time I contribute to their 529's.
It just doesn't seem like it's worth it.
There's something to be said for gaining 4-8 years on the field.
Can use the 529 for any legitimate training I believe, not just college
Yes. Also, a recent change in the law permits you to roll the balance of the 529 account into an IRA for the benefit of the child if not used for education expenses. This is likely what I will do with the bulk of my daughter's 529 plan since at this point she is showing little interest in four-year college.
Good point.
Here's the big if about that, though, because I agree with you:
The opportunities to do that have to exist. There has to be a WAY for the millions that will hopefully opt out of college to walk into apprenticeships to learn these skills. What I mostly see around me is the catch-22 of "experience required."
Agree G. what happened to all the vo-tech training centers?
I know I sound like a broken record here, but my gut is immigration explains a ton of it.
Just like there are basically no paid summer jobs for teens in most places anymore, a lot of the entry-level "trade" or "labor" jobs are filled with illegals, who can be underpaid and worked like dogs.
Those jobs, like McDonald's (or, in teen GM's case, McDonald's and secretary and busboy/girl) mostly served in our lifetimes in the role of the bottom rung of ladders for teens and young adults. In every big city I've ever lived in with a surplus population, those jobs are careers for illegals, who remit the majority of it.
As a counterpoint, in the small rural town I live in now, ALL the teens have summer jobs. It stunned me the first year I lived here, all the fucking teenagers everywhere working. It was like I'd come home from a 30-year vacation on Children of Man Island. Those who don't have family farms or other family businesses to work at can ALL find jobs babysitting (remember hiring teen babysitters???), waiting tables, changing tires, and basically doing every other job that doesn't involve alcohol or firearms that is now normally done in any larger area by a man 3 times their age that speaks no English.
Nailed it. Nothing like having the pleasure of paying to be invaded by replacements.
There is NO WAY that, since 2002, 52 million additional people should have ever been let in. Period.
And people stupidly wonder why our lower class can't seem to find a "living wage" (whereby they are not dependent on Government assistance) as well as why this country continues to be ghettoized, polarized, and bankrupt.
My dad was president of a vo-tech college—the only president in our state with an actual degree (Masters) in vo-tech. And he had worked and taught automotive mechanics for years. All the others were politicians who were out of a job. The GI Bill for Vietnam veterans paid for a majority of the students back then. At identical numbers started dropping as the time limit came to an end. Many of the schools closed or merged. I guess the Middle East wars have helped lately.
As with damn near everything in my life, I was outside the box on this. Due to a number of factors, I decided I had to give up my "career" in technical showbiz and retrain in something less physical. X-ray tech seemed a good choice, but the schools cost way more than I could afford. So I figured, damn, if I'm going to spend a bundle, I might as well do it on something that actually interests me, not just a way to make money. Thus, at 49, I went back to college and got a no-frills degree from a state college. This was back in the mid-'90s. I got the degree thinking I would learn stuff, which I did, and also and mainly, because you couldn't get work above minimum wage without one. Turned out that even with a BA, minimum wage was about all you'd get anyway. The school, and this is epidemic in Academia, did NOT give students a realistic picture of what the working, as opposed to the school, world was actually like, because if they did, most students would never major in most of the courses. They'd become plumbers, electricians, theatrical technicians...Anyway, the point here is that many students get degrees because the companies in the fields they want to go into require them. There is a sick, cannibalistic, symbiotic relationship twixt Academia and fields dominated by large corporations, and trust me, telling the truth about it is NOT something either does willingly. Times have changed, not necessarily for the better, and though modern technology gives the illusion of progress, as Gato has pointed out, the wooden airplane builders are still among us, and lonelier and sadder than ever.
Well said
Garcias see-nor!
At least if we pay for it we won't have to figure in interest. We will be looking at all options. Internships, corporate programs, and a few select sane colleges. If it's going to cost 1/2 a million, maybe we start a business. Go work 5 years in the type of business that interests you, then start your own. My husband and I each have our own construction businesses. I'm not up for throwing away 500k.
i agree!
A (female) guidance counselor in my middle school encouraged the 9th graders to strongly consider going to the tech school, then getting a job--and 'do college' later if it still seemed desireable. Interestingly to me, she had recently 'come down' from the high school--so had a closer vision of the situation. This would have been around 2017-19.
Interesting. I have one brother who is an oral surgeon and one who started a lawn service company when he was 16. Guess who has more wealth?
Here's the litmus test imo for whether a kid should go to college:
Could they maintain good grades AND work 20 hours a week?...and have fun?
It would be interesting to see if there was a correlation between those types of students and their earning percentile.
Remember when working through college was a rite of passage?
Interestingly I was that college student who got good grades (.01 below honors), worked 20 hours per week and still partied/had fun. Ironically this did not translate into a hugely successful career path (at least in terms of $$$ or prestige although those things have never been of much importance to me so I didn't seek them out particularly). I am happy working part time currently at a mid sized privately owned company (while I also take care of my young family). And I escaped essentially without student loans (thanks to scholarships and working). I won't be funding my children's indoctrination into woke garbage cargo cult.
Then you are successful!
There is no higher achievement or satisfaction then clipping wings of children who are well adjusted to the real world.
My wife is a living example.
Kudos to you Andrea!
I was a co op student in engineering. Work a quarter for a firm that has engineers employed, go to school a quarter. Pay your way while gaining experience. Worked for me
Yup. You have discipline.
Something sorely lacking in most kids these days.
I'll take lawn service for $1,000 Alex.
Correct! They're both doing well....but one is much happier than the other.
Wealth is not solely based on money.
I'm sure you would guess that correctly too!...:)
Being a Doctor these days is almost working for the government. And if you're an upstanding moral person, viewing the fraud in the healthcare and not having any recourse is rather depressing.
My own doctor is also my friend, and he said exactly the same thing the other day.
I bet. It has to weigh heavy on you .
I blame the quality of care and a doctors autonomy directly to Bill Clinton.
Or at least it was started by Clinton and then Obama put the nail in the coffin
Depends on the kid. If I had to guess, Your brother who is an oral surgeon is OCD as hell, booksmart, and interested in being a subject matter expert and helping people. While he may be a decent businessman, it’s not what primarily drives him. Your brother who owns a lawn service company is likely more entrepreneurial and understands leverage. He’s not in love with cutting the lawn. He sees the business as a business, not his identity. There’s no single formula for all of us. Some will be happier as moguls and some as Chaucer scholars. But most kids are wasting their time and money in college with nothing to show for it. Trust my checkbook, the HVAC guy, the electrician, and the contractors doing remodeling projects on homes are doing very nicely.
Yeah you just described my brother's to T.
And I'm just the batshit crazy one Tanto!
Yes!, my husband just told me college 8k a year, he earned it in the summer and paid his way. 7 in his family all paid their own way all successful.
Construction and all aspects of it are very lucrative.
I am a developer. My top guys make $225,000 a year. Bottom guys start at around $50,000, but if you have a half decent work ethic you will be $70-$80 in no time. And the electricians top out at about $150,000. Not the electrical company owner. A paid employee!
Yup- the company owner is probably making seven figures if it’s a decent sized company.
Hey me too!
We need more people on these stacks that sign checks.
I think it would lend perspective on some of the issues often discussed/debated on this board.
Where are you located? I am in Victoria BC.
Victoria BC is one of the most beautiful spots on earth. I've visited a few times. once when we were at Olympic Nat Park and another time when I was on business in Vancouver
I have considered Florida. Canada is getting crazy.
Sarasota, FL
Back in the 70's college was a bust for me. My disapointed Dad got me in the Electrician's Union, (third genration). After twenty years (12 as a contractor) I decided to go to Nursing School. Pushing 70 and still loving it. (Conditioned space, scenery is better, sometime you get to Really help someone, your life is still in danger from invisible forces.)
If I was personally better with money and choices I would be sitting pretty.
Encouraged my sons towards trades. Oldest is 37, 3 kids, moved from Massachusetts to Tennessee last year, homeschooling his kids, she writes curricula for a national company and is trying to steer it away from woke, he has his master electrician license in two states and has a great house on 20 acres and building greenhouses. He says he can collect a 6 figure salary from companies that need a master’s license and he just does inspections. Building resilience at home and in children.
It starts at kindergarten. Studies show that kids that eat breakfast score better on tests, so we'll give every kid breakfast. No thought to the stable home environment that kids who eat breakfast at home have. Kids with higher self esteem score higher, so we'll give kids self esteem by praising everything they do. No thought to the fact that a kid has self esteem because he studied hard for a test and sees the results of his hard work reflected in the test score.
big government is, itself, a cargo cult belief.
successful countries have governments so it must be government that makes them successful. let's add more and really thrive!
every successful country has a "department of education" so...
Increase minimum wage so poorer people have more money. “Uh, a burger which would have cost $10 then will cost $15. Practically after the initial raise they will be in the same position. But the immediate loser is the next level up from the bottom person. He or she doesn’t get a raise equal to the bottom person.” Rents are too high! Cap them. Stop rental increases! “Uh, no one will build. No one will maintain their buildings because they won’t be able to afford to. In a decade or so you will see massive rental
Shortages.”
The push to raise the minimum wage always bugged me, knowing the next rungs up would be squeezed and making the same, or even less than, the new person even though they've been working their job for a decade.
Welcome to California, where a fast food job is now a minimum $20 an hour but administrative assistants with college degrees and 4 years of experience get offered $19 an hour. 🙄
Here in Victoria BC. If you have worked somewhere three to six months you will be at $22-$25 an hour. $22 with zero skill required. Anyone with a work ethic can be making $30 in a year or so. Because within a year or so you will have seniority. Almost no one young can work, or will
Work. Unless they are in trades.
It’s cargo cults all the way down. Is the accumulation of wealth a measure of one’s worth as a person? That seems to be the embedded assumption, but is that not also a cargo cult? Are wealth and contribution to the lives of loved ones synonymous?
No. But being competent usually is. No work ethic? No competence? You are unlikely to be a great contribution to anyone.
Of course you are right, but this is an exmination of investment of big money and the return.
And this is the logical conclusion to the student debt crisis. The government will entice them with a government service for debt forgiveness scheme. And the already extremely bloated federal leviathan will fatten up even more.
And you the plumber and me the electrician will be paying $10 for a gallon of milk and $130,000 for a Ford Taurus.
Same for the perceived need for a central bank.
Interesting that you would comment on that - my friends who spend time in Africa comment on the Africans operating schools with the bureaucratic structure of European schools without the substance. The Africans don't seem to understand that to the extent European schools succeed, they succeed in spite of administration - not because of administration.
I would venture that many of those touting the relationship between things like breakfast and test scores are the same ones dismissing the Bradford Hill verified relationship between the new jabs and increased deaths and other health problems. It is more about buttressing their belief system than actually proving anything. BTW, I am not claiming to be completely free from such things (likely innately human).
Perhaps the most successful people were children who ate "nails" for breakfast?...I mean that figuratively. A child can live in a healthy home and eat nails.
One way to do that is expose them to individual sports and/or activities (drama,etc.). There's nothing that will tell you where you stand better than only having yourself to measure against the field.
We've produced a nation of buttercups by leveling the steps on the podium. This does a disservice to those who earned their place on the podium and the ones that just had their names penciled in the bracket.
The sad part is I've seen club level sports organizations push out and ostracize successful high achieving athletes. The other kids (and their parents) that don't want to put the work in don't feel comfortable around these high performing athletes that have a strong work ethic. So, it is easier for them to push the strong out of the organization then it is to put the work in and have the lower performing rise higher. The remaining ones left in the organization can then feel comfortable and safe in their mediocrity now that they got rid of the troublesome high achiever.
Tyranny of the majority
Which is an argument against 'democracy'.
Not only in sports.
Regarding the breakfast for all, 'free breakfast' for so many, I wonder how many of those pressing the program have any experience at all of what those 'students' actually do with that food, what food choices they make. Did a.m. caf duty for a couple of years. I have seen it.
Incidentally, I myself had one of 'those' educations--for me, at the oldest of the Seven Sisters. Back, as my Little Three husband likes to remark, when it meant something. For this my college-educated parents scrimped and saved throughout our childhood--and every $ gift to us for Christmas or birthday went into our individual savings-for-college bank account.
There was a great example of this... I wanna say about 20 years ago in Chicago, which was already beginning to simmer as a notorious shithold of life outcomes.
Some children's research group got the idea that "having books in the home" correlated with all these other outcomes. And so... you guessed it, began giving crates of children's books to "inner city families." Not cheaply, either.
LOL. The next, bigger trick: Get folks in the house to read them! I bet they were shipping crates of Das Kapital! Heh.
Jokes aside, I hope the point of the cargo cultism was clear: it was "revealed" in fairly short order that this was an attribution error: homes that already have books in them are likely stable family environments where a full array of things better for child development are happening. It wasn't the reading of the books that made this occur, it's that they were already stable and middle class.
Yes, and they READ books. Getting kids to read is, arguably, the most important thing you can give them. The parents must read, too--read to the kids, model reading themselves, etc. I'm a retired community college English instructor, and I was on the front lines of marginal literacy and an endemic lack of reading. I still have PTSD. Hah.
Actually, I argue that the most important gift to give your child is your stable marriage.
Well, add in that the "breakfast" they get typically means they're on a sugar buzz for a couple of hours, followed by a crash after that. So that doesn't help things, either. :(
Hey I'm genX, we lived off of cereal!...or starved...:)
Mom's when they're a mom-- "You'll eat what I fix or you'll go hungry." Mom's when they're grandmas-- "Now honey, do your want your grilled cheese cut into hearts or stars?" 😁
So true...but then they can give the kid back.
That's exactly why, at some point, during our evolution it was "economical" for parents to live long enough after fertility to cut little hearts into sandwiches.
That arrangement seems to be a win/win/win.
Had to read a second time to grasp what you'd actually said.
I guess as a Grandma I am still a Mother. I cannot stomach that nonsense in my grandchildren (one SIL is famous for doing this to his children).
golden grahams and raising bran or I went hungry! If I'd only known that John Kellogg invented that crap to lower sex drive, I would have been drinking raw eggs instead!
My mom actually made me a milkshake with a raw egg in it for breakfast every single day. My breakfast for at least 20 years, and nary an issue from a raw egg:)
Lmao!
You hit the nail on the head. Interpreting an effect as a cause is common among those people who want to control everything.
All well said. But 'higher education' in the humanities and social sciences has become a cargo cult in ANOTHER way too. Never mind about the chimera of increased earning power; parents dream of their kids going to university so's they will come out more EDUCATED and ENLIGHTENED. But now they typically emerge from their 3+ years at university more IGNORANT and BIGOTED. https://grahamcunningham.substack.com/p/how-diversity-narrows-the-mind
In the 80s, my babysitters could put *themselves* through college on summer jobs and weekend work. By the time I went to boarding school, my middle class parents were like yours, cat-they could do it, but my mother joked that it was like driving a car off a cliff every year. I went to state and they paid for that, too. I’m eternally grateful (although it was the only way to get me to go-I didn’t want to attend college. Boarding school felt like enough).
My husband and I both have college degrees, but he left his field when he fell in love with wooden boats and timber frame carpentry. We lived small and rented after I left finance because I hated it, and then stayed home with babies. Once I knew what I wanted to do, we cashflowed the education for it, with help from family.
Now I’m in my late 40s, and my only debt is a manageable mortgage on a 1000 square foot house. I live a rich life. I spent the day in the car with my kids yesterday. My FIL is on my 17yo homeschooled son to go to college. We had a deep talk about what he wants life to look like at 27. I said, “nothing you’ve described requires, or even benefits from, going to college. If you want to be a professional comic, learn to wait tables where the comics work, and sit at their feet. Hustle for gigs, bomb, succeed, bomb, repeat. If you need to know the history of 17th century textiles at some point, go to night school.”
I wish I’d had someone to tell me. I wasted a lot of time.
On the bright side, the experience you gained from that wasted time will likely afford your children not to make the same mistakes and that is so worth it. God bless you!
It’s a good point. As trying as these times are and look to remain for a while, I would much rather endure this period of transition and collapse than leave it for them.
So true! I feel the same!
Whether that time can be wasted is debatable, but the more important and positive point I see in the story is that you and your husband made it to middle adulthood with a home and not drowning in six-figure college debt.
My professional path was extremely windy after college, and I'm probably overeducated, but it was an affordable mistake at the time, and the sheepskin has been my permit to keep getting jobs.
It is nice to read an economically sound and emotion free description of the problem. Far too often such articles are written from the perspective either of college should be free for everyone in one camp or that’s what happens when you get a worthless degree in dance theory in the other camp. It’s very hard to get people in the second camp to understand the economic reality that even a degree in a useful field with “good” pay is so overpriced that it’s no longer a viable opportunity. It’s hard to get people in the first camp to understand that giving everyone a free university education doesn’t guarantee the kind of upward mobility they think it does. Bravo and well done.
People ask me if my kids are going to be a vet like me and they look at me crazy when I say “nope they are going to trade school”, but my cousins who went to trade school are all financially secure and I will be a debt slave for the rest of my life. Who would knowingly do that to their kids? My parents didn’t know any better, but no way will my kids fall into this trap.
You almost never hear anyone say, "50% of people can't have 10% of jobs," but it's so obviously true. This is one of the best things about the Bad Cat.
The thing is I don’t think most people thought about it that way in the first place. I don’t think most people have any idea of how inflated the price of an education is. So in their mind a degree in a good field= a good job = financial stability. They don’t think that it’s the 10% of jobs that 50% are fighting for. I mean teachers generally don’t make the top 10% of earners, but they need degrees. A four year degree at our local public university is set to cost about $100,000. I think we pay teachers about $35,000 to start out in my town (although that may be too high an estimate). That math doesn’t work and the problem isn’t that we flooded the market with too many teachers and drove down the salary or that there was a sudden drop in demand. The price of the education just rose so high so fast that there was no way to keep up. So while Gato is absolutely right most people weren’t looking at it that way to begin with.
They have no idea because "they" aren't paying for it. When the gov./bank/parents write the check, you don't care a lick what it costs.
I didn’t just mean the students, I mean parents or the general public. Almost every conservative I have talked to about student debt feels that, and the prevailing conservative narrative is that, student debt was only a problem if you went to a fancy private school and got a useless degree. They simply couldn’t fathom it when I told them that nearly every job or profession that requires a university degree is in crisis. Yes that means doctors and lawyers and veterinarians and teachers and a pile of other professions. They also struggled to understand when I pointed out that if you want these students to “pay the damn money back on their own” it meant that they were going to have to pay more for those services so they had no room to complain about their doctor bill or vet bill or divorce lawyer costs being too high because they were just trying to pay their loans off. Even those in the effected industries who graduated fifteen or more years ago just cannot fathom the price increase.
Yes it is very nice, but Gato is still only telling parts of the story and omits quite a bit. Why did it suddenly become required that people go to college in the 80's? What was different then from say, the 50's thru the 70's?
I would argue increased job competition, at both the top and the bottom, had quite a lot to do with the artificial inflating of standards. And that sort of thing definitely occurred in the time period you're talking about, with the massive increase in immigration, offshoring of professional jobs, and demographic bump of millennials.
I agree with most of what you wrote, and why in the past would we have protected our own industries, but not in the recent past? Why was China granted access to the WTO in 2000? Why as a child in the 80's was i watching Big Bird goes to China? What Gato leaves out is that it isn't government that is the problem, but empire. And hell, do you and i really have an outcome on what policies government enacts? Or is it the corporations that really run everything? Why does Gato never discuss QE and Zirp?
I agree, we're largely completely powerless in the face of this and most things gato writes about, and that's largely not addressed in his essays- I honestly don't know whether by omission or choice of focus.
I would add that it isn't simply empire (but this is still a REALLY good point for you to have made). We've always been an empire. There have been a handful of pivotal corruptions of government where empire fully detached itself from polis, and has been drifting ever since.
Very nice work!
I am familiar with a cohort of “millennials” who took on huge debt to attend a very good professional college and subsequently enter a profession at which few get rich. Most of them did it out of passion for the field.
Apparently they’re relying on a provision of their federal loans that the principal remaining after some career-long period of good payment history is forgiven. Their minimum monthly payments are indexed to their income.
In my view, the whole college tuition thing is a money laundering scheme for the Democrats: Taxpayer money channeled through naïfs to reliable Democrat donors. Thus the explosion of “administrators” and “diversity officers”.
It will come crumbling down before too long -- young men are beginning to crack the code. They’re staying away from college in droves.
The problem though is most of those young men are not going into the trades or starting up their own businesses, instead they are taking low level dead end jobs or bouncing between gig work. Working part time at Walmart and part time as an Uber driver isn’t going to allow for financial security either.
A low-level dead-end job without debt is better than a low-level dead-end job with debt. Which is where most who go to college now end up anyway.
You’re probably right. But then, if that’s all they can muster, what are their chances even with a degree? I think that’s part of Señor Gato’s point: the degree isn’t all that is required.
That’s absolutely true. I’m just pointing out that it’s not that these young men have consciously made a healthy decision and are blazing their own trail, or are even following the well worn trails before them. Most of them are opting out of society and essentially of adult responsibilities. So while it’s good they aren’t pointlessly accruing debt they represent a different yet equally urgent problem in our society. Avoid student debt is good advice. But if the most common alternative is dead end gig work, living with your parents, and playing video games every waking moment then we have simply traded one tragedy for another.
I know a ton of trades. Young men. I see more women floundering than men. But a lot of both.
Agree with that but at least they don’t start adulthood a slave to an unsustainable debt obligation.
its clearly a massive patronage scheme for the Dems
Their relying on future debt forgiveness.
This was a very interesting read and I couldn't agree more with your assessment of the disaster in thinking that a college degree is a ticket to success. I have many people in my family that never went for a higher education but where able to build their own business and employ many people to work together to make a good living and provide many benefits.
One irritating thing is that because pretty much everybody goes to college, jobs that never required a college degree in the 1980s require one now. I have an aunt and uncle who had multi-decade careers in the insurance industry, without college degrees. There's no way either of their former employers would hire a high school grad now, even though there is nothing about college that prepares anyone for doing those jobs. Learning a skilled trade and building your own business is outside that self-defeating circle, and it's awesome that your relatives have been sharp enough to make that choice.
My brother experienced this same thing. It was the early 2000's. He wanted to work in IT and was self-taught. But because he hadn't finished college, he couldn't even get an interview in the field. He lucked into his first IT job, and ultimately went back to one of those "degree factory" online places to get the "BS" certificate by his name. Now every time he gets laid off b/c the IT dept has been offshored, he easily gets an interview because he checks the "degree" box, and when they find out his experience he gets hired. Oh, credentialism.
I know that some of the big tech firms are less impressed with degrees these days. Resumes and demonstrable skills are starting to win the day.
Higher education equates to more indoctrination. The higher you go, the less you really know.
piled higher and deeper pHD.
Its not what you know, its who you know ;)
My eldest brother got his MBA from the University of Chicago. I thought it was a waste of money and at his graduation asked him what he really learned. "Networking".
It's not who you know, it's whom you know. And yes, that's pretty much all I got out of a master's degree in journalism.
As the fraud grows larger, merit has less and less impact on life within the corporate world. You still might be able to apply your merit within your own buisness (unless that market has been completely become corporate) Someone with merit and integrity might point out the fraud!
Artificial Intelligence.
excellent read - thought provoking. I am familiar with the concept of the token being perceived as the real thing - everyone does it. I read a book years ago about risk and the author explained how he was in South Africa - had his wallet stolen and inside his wallet was a photo of his wife and kids. In his mind the photo represented the real people which drove him to take enormous risks going to a local township to try to get his wallet back. It was only when someone told him to leave imediately before it was too late that he managed to wake himself up and leave swiftly.
That can’t be true. Getting rid of apartheid turned South Africa into a paradise where the streets are paved with gold and as safe as those in Zurich.
I assume he left the township AND SA, if he truly woke up.
He went back to his hotel in the city and considered how stupid he had been to endanger his own safety over a photo. I wish I could remember the name of the book. I read it 10 + years ago and it was about the 'perception gap' or how human brains are not good at assessing risk in our modern world.
"human brains are not good at assessing risk in our modern world".. all the more difficult with the fear mongering, institutional gaslighting, and general bullshit we have been bombarded with in the New Recent Unpleasantness.
Very true
My mother wanted a career so got one. Along the way, as she paid for private schools for four children together with my dad it was implicit I would do my part to allow her her valued and modern career by doing her work in the home and raising/caring for the others while she did her career and had an unbelievably sparkly social life after work.
So through hard work and study at a posh private school, I too could become a career woman and adopt *her* most important life goal to buy my own house, and be the woman that... had it all.
By the time I left school with the stress of grades, housework, personal-debt for tertiary education and then ran screaming from the intensity of home I figured fuck it.
It's a great fat fucking scam.
So I went out in to the wilds of reality to find the right way to live and the right sort of man to marry so I never had to work and compromise the role of motherhood as she did, which taught me everything that has held me in great stead every since, while my mother shuffles around on Thorazine in a dementia home. Thanks Mother, honestly - a world class teacher... We all sacrifice for each other.
The world is rigged.
Rough story, but I'm glad you found your way out. Motherhood is a blessed thing that, sadly, many girls are taught to abhor.
Yes, we *were* taught to abhor it: the contemptible loser option in secondary school. I'm still amazed at how brazen and manipulated lessons were against motherhood- they used economics, vanity, biology, the old ball and chain preventing travel etc.
I have been a stay at home mom for 21 years now (5 kids, 21-6) and I try to be ALWAYS positive about it, especially with my girls! We talk about homemaking and how much we live babies. I try to point out the big, happy families we see and compliment them.
I am 72. Reasonably accomplished. Probably would be considered rich by most people. And NOTHING has any meaning other than family. In my case three sons, four grandkids. I am so sorry for my many friends without children. What in the world fills their lives at 70 with no kids!!
You lack the ability to imagine being a person who is different from yourself. In fact you aren't the only sort of person, oddly enough.
You do have a real passion for thinking everyone should be like you, however.
Ha! That is funny. I am 72. How old are you? If you are childless and in your 70s then I am happy for you if you don’t miss anything. If you’re 40 and you are then you don’t know what I am referring to.
All true, and all stuff that needs to be said repeatedly. Another thing about those top jobs is that they're in expensive cities. Yes, WFH is more of a reality now, but I don't know if it's at the point where the top entry-level jobs will go to people living in Peoria and "telecommuting" to Manhattan. Knowing some of the details of these jobs, I tend to doubt it... which means that your cost of living is insane. Yes, you're making more in nominal terms than your friends who live in a small town, but you're also spending 1/3 of your income on rent, and *everything* costs more, including extremely basic groceries. Also (not related to whether college is a good deal financially if you're just doing it for the promise of a higher-paying job): It makes me sad that pretty much no college anywhere is about pursuing in-depth knowledge in a particular field for four years. A field that isn't, you know, "management" or "communications." I hear people complain that college didn't prepare them for X job, and I wonder, why did they think it would? And then I meet someone who graduated with a degree in something like "sports management," and I wish we could bring back apprenticeships, because that's what those folks really want. It's a train you can't stop, though, Gato, because banks and lots of others are making money from it.
1/3?
likely more like half. and that's to have roomates. we used to joke about it back in SF in the 90's. 4 roommates sharing a (big, nice) place in pacific heights all of us making 6 figures, but none able to afford our own place.
"welcome to the 6 figure club! here's your roomate!"
Clearly, I am old, that I am citing 1/3... and yes, I had roommates, even in the very unfashionable neighborhood in Brooklyn where I started out. (This was in an era when to live in any part of Brooklyn was infra dig; I was once at a party where people literally pretended they had never heard of Bay Ridge.) SF might have been worse than NYC, though, even in my era. Standard of living is another reason not to send kids to college for the wrong reasons: They will become accustomed to things they won't be able to afford for many years, if ever (24-hour gym in their own building, prepared hot buffet 3x/day or some variety of food court, 24-hour super, etc.). I recognize that not every college provides those amenities, but just about every private, non-competitive college does.
I laughed whan I read your comment about Peoria. I have a cousin that lives there and works for a company in Europe or Japan (sorry, I don't remember which), makes really good money, works from home, and loves it.
Ha ha! Well, maybe we're reaching the point where it works out for people. I wonder, though, how long the salaries for WFH will be the same as the people who actually live in the expensive cities...
I don't know if they do make what people in the expensive cities make. I just know my cousin makes good money. They have worked for them for quite awhile as a contract employee. I'm sure there's some big place here in the US for this company, but haven't a clue where it is located. Probably, sucky, CA.
“Barristalaureate"
How Apt
Love it!
I could not agree more with the ending salvo. I spent some of the early post-college years working with what they would now call under served communities (I quickly shifted my focus to the trades for the freedom and the money), I preached other avenues to the future like small business ownership and the trades to the kids while the NGO's constantly preached college for all. This was in the mid- to late 90's.
Ever since, I have raged against this machine to nods and "yeah, yeah's" from parents as they recount their own college years and how formative and special they were. It does no good to point out that there is an extra zero attached to the price now.
Simple alternative: we need high line workers on electrical utilities. They will pay for training and a year or 2 in, your kid will make over $100k. They can still live it up like young folks, but with more money. Unfortunately, most want to be influencers or some other vague fantasy while this sort of work ain't very glamorous.
"there is an extra zero attached to the price now."
From the 90s? I think you need another zero or maybe even two.
You're right.
My little college is more like 20x. Govt backed loans sure are useful for obscene price inflation.
Yup. I went to a well respected college. It is not an exaggeration to say it's 15X more expensive than when I graduated in 92'.
I eventually went on to grad school. Which was the right decision for me...however I wouldn't have been able to pull that off with the cost for higher education now.
Much of what drives the college racket is class considerations, not strictly financial ones. A adjunct college professor making poverty wages likely enjoys a higher class status, at least in view of her parents and social circle, than an electrician making decent money. Of course, that's not to justify any of this behavior, and I entirely concur that student loans are approaching usury (though I'm not entirely sympathetic to those taking them out ... they should be able to run the same basic numbers you did in this post, and if they can't/won't, then college probably isn't for them anyway) with the colleges pricing tuition at wholly unjustified levels (well, other than the fact that when they raise prices, people still pay). None of this gets fixed without destroying the federal student loan program, but that will require revisiting some of our culture's egalitarian fantasies, and that will prove very painful.
TL/DR: No one puts "Proud parent of a plumber" stickers on their Volvo.
Bravo! As we wrote in 2017...
‘How does it end?
We’re turning out more watered-down college grads, with increasingly useless majors (thanks to all the extra capacity). That piece of paper that once acted as a screening mechanism for employers doesn’t mean what it used to. Supply and demand. More supply (college grads), means lower prices (wages). Poor bastards, cap-and-gown in hand, forced to take jobs at Starbucks, living in mom’s basement, like modern-day indentured servants.
“Congrats, Timmy, you spent four (to six) years and $200,000 at a marginal institution to get a bachelor’s degree in gender studies”.
Who would hire these kids? Sure, you might hire and train them, in spite (not because) of their degree. How long can we delude our children into this terrible deal?
The good news is, the s--- is hitting the fan. One in four borrowers is delinquent or in default. Kids, ill-educated and wide-eyed, victims of a rotten system, are now calling for government to pay for free college educations. “Great idea, Chip. Maybe unicorns can provide it?” Sorry, but (a) nothing is free, and (b) it was your well-intentioned and all-knowing government that made it so expensive and watered down.
The answer, instead, is as old as the act of lending itself. The loans must go bad, the lenders stiffed. Because of government-backing, the ones stiffed will be taxpayers. Banks will be bailed out, and kids may be forgiven of (some) debt. Maybe.
Universities will take it on the chin, but they gorged already. Capacity will be reduced, worthless majors and departments eliminated, bloated administrations downsized. The cranes will come down in college towns, but the most beautiful campuses will remain (others sold and repurposed), an ode to another bizarre experiment with central planning, money printing, and groupthink.
Where will tuitions land? Historically, a university education at a private school costs about 22% of median household income, or $12,000 annually in today’s dollars. A public school is about 5%, or $3,000 per year.’
I predicted it would burst before my daughter graduates high school. She was 7 then -- now she’s 14. We’ll see 😬
I saw that happening as far back as the 1970's. My parents, especially my father, pushed me to go to college and openly looked down on those who did not. Here's the kicker. They did not set aside any money for any of us kids to go to school. There was very little financial aid back then, definitely no student loans, and my family made just enough to make me ineligible for what little aid did exist. I saw the writing on the wall and wanted to take secretarial classes in high school, not because I wanted to be a secretary but working my way through college would be a lot easier on a secretary's pay than flipping burgers. No, that was not allowed. I had to take college prep courses. So when I graduated I had a head full of nearly useless knowledge and absolutely no job skills. Well I tried working my way through college washing dishes; it didn't work out, and I ended up dropping out. But even back then there were people I knew who had gone to college and got degrees and were STILL flipping burgers because they couldn't find anything in their field. Also, what they don't tell you about this expensive degree is that it comes with a sell-by date and when you hit your 40's-50's you'd better be putting on your parachute 'cause you ain't retiring with a comfy package. Nuh huh. You're going to be out looking for a job competing with the 20 somethings who will work for less. My parents told me go to school so you won't have to work in a factory--I did and STILL ended up working in a factory!
In the 70s and early 80s it really didn't matter what you studied, what your grades were, if you didn't already have prior experience in the job you were applying for, you didn't get the job. UNLESS, some influential relative pulled some strings to get you that job.