Very true,. Because the theory that college students are taught cannot be touched and felt and rarely get tested in reality where as the vocational student have to prove their work every day. For example, if you are an auto mechanic, you do not get paid until you can make that clunker run again.
I graduated public high school in 2007. I spoke to the counselor a handful of times. We definitely did not about jobs or future. There were too many students. They couldn’t handle the volume then. I’m only assuming they have even more students to handle now. Alameda Unified. Go hornets!
Parents working blue collar jobs don’t usually want their kids to follow in their footsteps. True or false?
Doubt my parents would want me to be a cook or a seamstress.
Chinese parents? No way.
Don’t know enough about other ethnicities to comment.
Also can’t kids graduate college and then go into a trade? How much training does one need to be a welder? Certainly not 4 years?
My point is, why look at college merely as training for a job? Sure, it can be one of the goals. But I hope it’s not the only goal. The biggest problem for our colleges is that they are so freaking expensive. I am all for kids having a fun four years at college, making lifelong friends, hopefully even have some time left over to sample different fields and learn to think a little bit. But I am not OK taking a 100K loan doing that.
I was very lucky to go to Lick Wilmerding HS. Aka the California School of Mechanical arts. Shop, art, drafting were all required subjects. All 43 graduates went to college. But all these spoiled rich kids were required to learn woodworking, welding, metal shop. machine shop, electrical work. A well balanced student should learn trade work and liberal arts. Today most college graduates can’t even change a light bulb. Many end up baristas while the high school drop out welder or plumber is making $150k a year. The snobbery of college graduates is pathetic while their neighborhood Electrican is eating their lunch, just like in high school 
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You can, but why? In the 4 years you would spend going to school you could save a lot of money and then start out investing instead of being burdened by student debt.
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30 years ago many working the trades wanted their kids to go to college. I don’t think that is true today. The value of a college education has diminished. Strip out the liberal brainwashing and what’s left could be self-taught. Or, when funds and bandwidth are available one could just take truly relevant and useful courses at a community college dim sum style (avoid the left-wing deep fry and stick with the healthier stuff). .
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I think coding boot camps could become a huge trend. We participate in a non-profit one that helps re-train women. We help fund the education which is 5 months and provide a 5 month internship. We aren’t required to offer them a full-time role, but if we do the minimum salary is $80k. That’s a way better deal than the vast majority of majors and colleges. They even get a stipend while in the boot camp to help them transition to a new career. We take 2 each cohort, and they’ve been great. I think this is a win-win for everyone.
Are most jobs bug fixing and software enhancement only? These kind of jobs don’t need a CS major. Boot camps would be more helpful.
My gf did App Academy last year and now she’s gainfully employed as apprentice software engineer. Happy for her
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I would love to see the economic outcome of these people. If you push it far enough, why even go to high school?
Education is more than just training for a job. We should provide plenty of job training as well. It doesn’t have to be either or.
Did your gf go to college?
The word of wisdom from a discussion on a stack exchange thread:
Software Engineering is what you pay to learn.
Programming is what you get paid to do.
I still believe Tanenbaum’s words still hold true
Algorithm + data structure = program
If students are taught algo and data structures during a two year or four year curriculum, 99% of SE needs will be taken care of. Why waste time and money on so many Computer Science departments? Most of them can be shut down without any affect on industry and economy.
She did and studied international relations. After college, she worked at nonprofit doing supply chain stuff. 
What your gf did is my ideal setup. Job training doesn’t have to be in college. On the other hand her life experiences at college is a net plus on her life.
Cut off GE courses, one year will do 
Coding + SDLC, 6 months.
Coding 1-3 months.
However colleges love to prepare undergraduates for post grads and R&D.
Supporter of GE courses? Take after office hrs! In any case, no amount of academic courses can replace the school of hard knocks in real life.
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Colleges are in the business of making money for themselves. They don’t give two hoots for preparing students about anything, IHMO. There are several ways of preparing students for a bright future that does not involve saddling the students with huge debt.
Added two min later: Stop demanding Bachelors for small jobs like doing c programming. I have a feeling almost 90% Phd thesis are junk, and so are those coming out of faculties at these highly paid universities. (these are my personal unscientific view)
Seems people mostly just look at how much people make from their education. So in aggregate, who makes more? People who graduated from college? Or people who skipped college and went straight to the school of hard knocks?
I used to be like most (all?) people who commented on this thread: just look at how much you make from your major and that’s all. But as I get older, I realize the soft skills and general knowledge are more important. What I regret most from my college education is not taking more writing and speaking classes.
By the way, a narrow field of study is very dangerous:
https://www.amazon.com/dp/069117850X/ref=cm_sw_em_r_mt_dp_U_K1IkEbRBET679
In Engineers of Jihad , Diego Gambetta and Steffen Hertog uncover two unexpected facts, which they imaginatively leverage to narrow that gap: they find that a disproportionate share of Islamist radicals come from an engineering background, and that Islamist and right-wing extremism have more in common than either does with left-wing extremism, in which engineers are absent while social scientists and humanities students are prominent.
Probably. Only a small percent are doing the super innovative stuff.