Fantastic interview here, I just had my 17yo son watch it. Wish I had watched it in my youth. Rowe: "If we are lending money that ostensibly we don't have to kids who have no hope of making it back in order to train them for jobs that clearly don't exist, I might suggest that we've gone around the bend a little bit."
OUTSTANDING!!!!! I've been in the welding field all my life, Kid's just "don't" want to learn the skill anymore, it's too dirty and there is no video game for it!
I love working with my hands and come from many generations of craftsmen, including a great great great great grandfather who made Pennsylvania long rifles in the 1800s, a grandfather that was a welder in the Altoona railroad shops and was an amazing craftsman, and a dad and brother who are plumbers and contractors. I don't mind what I do (Podiatry) and I can honestly say that I've helped a lot of people and done a lot of it for free that no other providers would have done, but I often wish I had gone into carpentry, metal working or welding instead. Here's a couple of my ancestor's rifles:
My Dad was blue-collar all the way. From an early age he had me working on my mechanical skills. Although he has long passed, I thank him always for the education he provided me that to this day does me well. The "University of the Street" has turned out as many skilled craftsmen as any of those big $$$$ schools. Over the years I have worked with alot of highly trained professionals who didn't have enough common sense to come in out of the rain. You can have all the high tech you want, but its still the tradesmen who keep the lights on and the water running.
I think we send too many kids to college and with the demand being so high colleges can charge high prices. If more kids went to trade schools or had on the job training the demand would lower and colleges would have to be more competitive. You can make a very good living being a blue collar worker. Education is actually a pyramid scheme.
The real world is quite different than the DC world. Obama call Joe, "Just a plumber" I've been saying for years, "those with trades will out earn those with the "BS" degrees. Folks will always want AC, heat & to chit indoors. Soon there won't be a choice but to begin the repairs to the nations infrastructure, not gonna see those with a degree in"the arts" operating the D-10. Davis Bacon wages for holding a traffic sign is over $60k a year Takes 6 years now to get a 4 year degree. The decades of "tenured liberal college professors" making $500k + per year teaching kids how to get something for nothing, is coming to an end. I'm glad to see the kids starting to figuring this out now too. There's hope "Joe the plumber" will prevail
You can say that again. I've done lots of jobs. I worked in a paper factory, did construction, installed awnings, delivered furniture and appliances, sold shoes, was a bouncer in a big night club, did lawn work (ever buy gas at a Sheetz convenience store? I did yard work for that Mrs. Sheetz when I was 16), a little bit of everything. And I don't find much common sense among highly trained professionals either. A couple years ago the steam autoclave in my office went down. I started tearing it down and called the parts company. The tech guy and I were able to pinpoint the problem over the phone with my ammeter and he overnighted the part. I had it installed and back up running the next day. The tech guy couldn't believe he was talking to a doc who was both willing and able to tear down and trouble shoot a piece of equipment, and also had the tools to do it.
I graduated high school in '94... Everyone said I should go to college so I did. Worked construction jobs to pay for it. Ended up with two degrees 4 years later. Entry level jobs paid half of what I was making. Kept working construction, bought a fixer upper sold it and paid cash for my next house (I was 25) and every house since then.
