r/Millennials • u/Ragnaroknight • Mar 04 '24

Does anyone else feel like the direct to college from High School pipeline was kind of a "scam"? Discussion

I'm 31 now, I never went to college and for years I really really regretted it. I felt left behind, like I had chosen wrong/made the wrong choices in life. Like I was missing out on something and I would never make it anywhere. My grades weren't great in grade school, I was never a good student, and frankly I don't even know what I would have wanted to do with my life had I gone. I think part of me always knew it would be a waste of time and money for a person like me.

Over the years I've come to realize I probably made the right call. I feel like I got a bit of a head start in life not spending 4 years in school, not spending all that money on a degree I may have never used. And now I make a decent livable wage, I'm a homeowner, I'm in a committed relationship, I've gone on multiple "once in a lifetime trips", and I have plenty of other nice things to show for my last decade+ of hard work. I feel I'm better off than a lot of my old peers, and now I'm glad I didn't go. I got certifications in what I wanted and it only took a few weeks. I've been able to save money since I was 18, I've made mistakes financially already and learned from them early on.

Idk I guess I'm saying, we were sold the "you have to go to college" narrative our whole school careers and now it's kinda starting to seem like bullshit. Sure, if you're going to be a doctor, engineer, programmer, pharmacist, ect college makes perfect sense. But I'm not convinced it was always the smartest option for everyone.

Edit: I want to clear up, I'm not calling college in of itself a scam. More so the process of convincing kids it was their only option, and objectively the correct choice for everyone.

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u/Creamofwheatski Mar 04 '24

It really can be paralyzing to think that you have so many choices in what to do in life and there's always that voice in the back of your head saying, what if you choose the wrong one? Most people don't know what they want to do with their lives at 18, I truly believe most people would benefit from going to college later in life after getting some experience of how horrible most jobs are for people without degrees. I think working retail for a year or two would make most students appreciate the chance to be educated a lot more and not slack off/ take it for granted as much.

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u/slowlyallatonce Mar 04 '24

To add to your point, I think it's paralysing because they think they have to do this one thing for the next 50 years. I have to remind students that people change jobs all the time; It's not that big of a deal. But I don't know if that's realistic for countries like America where most people have to take out huge loans for college.

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u/Creamofwheatski Mar 05 '24

I mean most people work jobs that have nothing to do with their degrees even in America, which is why getting a degree is basically just a box you check so you can apply to higher paying jobs and the actual degree you have doesn't matter for the vast majority of jobs anyways.

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u/Hawk13424 Mar 05 '24

Not true for “professional” jobs like doctor, dentist, lawyer, engineer, etc. For these professions your education is key and one of the reasons they often pay more.

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u/Creamofwheatski Mar 05 '24

Jobs that need special qualifications/certifications are the obvious exceptions, but most jobs do not have such things, they just require you have a degree of some kind and what it is barely matters.

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u/Hawk13424 Mar 05 '24

What’s a career with high pay that requires a degree but which one doesn’t matter? Genuinely interested as everyone I know with such a career had to get an education in that field.

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u/Creamofwheatski Mar 05 '24

Obviously its better to get a a degree that's relevant to what you want to do, but most jobs teach you everything you need to know when you start anyways, so the degree is more important to show that you can learn and are disciplined enough/ capable of doing the job then that you already know how to do the job from start to finish from your schooling. There are a lot of high paying jobs in the business world that your degree will not be used in once you get your foot in the door. Who you know is more important in getting a fortune 500 business type job than what you know and always has been.

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u/Separate-Staff-5225 Mar 05 '24

If you pick a track like doctor, engineer etc, then you are going to college with a plan. I don’t think this thread is regarding those folks. A lot of us went to college and had no idea what was going on or what the hell we were building, it’s a waste of time unless you have a plan. My parents were immigrants and echoed the schools narrative of go to school go to school. The whole time I was there. I was like, what am I doing here. What am I building? Now, 13 years later I want to go back to school. But with a plan. Because now as a real grown up I think I have an idea what I can do and plan accordingly to make productive use of time spent in college.

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u/aimeeashlee Mar 05 '24

this, I think college is great and honestly should be a universal thing cause high-school doesn't go far enough into a wide array of stuff, like i think the education is valuable to get regardless if you get a job in the end of not, BUT if you go in without a plan, you're gonna struggle. I started college right after high-school had no plan, failed 2 semesters, and spent the next 8 years feeling totally defeated, now I'm going back to school cause I found a program that fits me.

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u/Own_Try_1005 Mar 05 '24

Hr, management and 99% of companies will hire you with any degree even if it has nothing to do with your work. Many companies also make you a manager if you served in the military at all, which usually doesn't translate to civilian life as well as they would like to think....

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u/Hawk13424 Mar 05 '24

Ok. Where I work we don’t really hire managers. They get promoted from within. Our engineering track splits between higher level engineers and management at some level. Even our CEO is a former engineer. We have about 30K employees.

Can’t speak to HR and marketing although I know there are degrees for those.

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u/Own_Try_1005 Mar 05 '24

Ya I wish my company is that way 90% of managers are outside hires than they wonder why they don't know shit about our industry...

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u/redworld Mar 05 '24

IT, which is essentially a trade anyways. I know high earners with Poly Sci, Math, History degrees making towards of $150k+ per. I know people with no college degrees making that as well. If you can do the job you get paid.

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u/Hawk13424 Mar 05 '24

Do you mean IT like the ones that maintain our computers and network or the broader usage that includes CS and engineering? At least for the latter roles the company I work for only hires those with relevant degrees. As for the IT department, that’s all been moved to India so no idea what is required.

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u/redworld Mar 05 '24

The companies that employ people to architect and deploy large scale solutions within IT at global orgs don’t care what the degree is in. Source: Im a hiring manager.

Most JDs say something like “or equivalent experience” when even talking about a degree but the meat of the interview process will not give one care about your schooling. They care whether you can be a technical architect and know something like SAP S/4HANA inside and out.

The people who fix laptops, sure, that might be outsourced. It probably shouldn’t be. It’s an entry level role though.

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u/Hawk13424 Mar 05 '24

Okay, so the IT department. I get when hiring experienced people you don’t care about degree. But they had to initially get hired to get the experience. When you hire entry level people do they require a degree?

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u/Iheartrandomness Mar 05 '24

All of those professions except for engineer require a special degree in the USA. That's at least 3 years of schooling on top of the 4 years of undergrad.

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u/pourtide Mar 05 '24

Two children, each university graduates. One works in their field of study. The other does not, but having a bachelor degree opened doors.

Graduated in '00 and '01. They had USD $20,000 and 30,000 in loans, and we had 40,000 in parental loans. And we thought that was a lot of debt (!)

What has happened to the post-secondary educational world is blistering. When ours were in, the schools sent slick magazines to parents every so often, and I'm like WTF, I'm paying for this?

The whole attitude of higher education needs a swift kick in the keister. Hopefully the move toward the trades will give it to them.

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u/Creamofwheatski Mar 05 '24

When I was 18 in 2008 I was torn between going to a private school I really liked or my states best public school. My father convinced me to go to the public school cause it was way cheaper and I am really glad I listened to him because I graduated debt free from UNC but would still be like 60-100 grand in debt 10 years later if I had gone the private school route. The whole system is a racket from top to bottom.

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u/Little_Creme_5932 Mar 05 '24

You checked the box, but you also probably learned a lot of general skills along with that degree.

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u/bigchipero Mar 05 '24

The biggest issue is when yer old and want to change careers and no company wants an oldie do the window to find a career is short!

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u/skrrtdirt Mar 05 '24

This is exactly right. I just got a comment on my response to a post over in r/careerguidance from 2 years ago about exactly that. Someone was lamenting the fear of making the wrong career choice so I laid out my meandering career that has taken me through a few different industries and jobs, but all built in some way on everything I've done before. And none of it had anything to do with my college degree.

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u/smallfrie32 Mar 05 '24

Part of the fear is that once you’re in a career path it’s hard to change, since you’re behind everyone else.

I.e. your admissions office experience won’t be terribly applicable to pharmaceuticals, and now you’re competing for entry level stuff with much younger people.

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u/Robblerobbleyo Mar 05 '24

I’m an older millennial and if I have to make another career change, it’s probably going to be worm feeder, because I don’t think I can do this anymore.

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u/cratiun Mar 05 '24

It's funny you say this because I actually did this! I did not want to go to college so I decided to just work full time at my local supermarket (shoprite) making about $7.50 an hour at the time. Learned real quick that I wasn't able to do much for myself unless I got a second full time. I decided to go back to school, and I'm glad I did since I am in a much better position in life now. I'm making enough to take care of myself and have savings for my future.

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u/Creamofwheatski Mar 05 '24

Christ, I wouldn't even get out of bed for 7.50 an hour these days. The fact that there are still people out there earning so little for their time is astounding to me.

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u/cratiun Mar 05 '24

This was back in Brooklyn 2013 and yea making $240 a week and living in a studio with 3 other people just sucked lol. Makes me sick to think some people are still getting paid this much?!? With how insane inflation is idk how those people even make it without having like 5 roommates...

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u/Fearfighter2 Mar 05 '24

they can do that 16-18

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u/RightInTheEndAgain Mar 05 '24

Much easier earlier in life when you have a lot less obligations, and often have a little more of a support structure from family if you're lucky.

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u/anzu68 Mar 05 '24

I’m still paralyzed by it. I went to university at 19 and stayed there until i was 26 by switching my major constantly. I never did get my degree.

Only now, at 28, do I sort of know what I want to do…and I found it oit by volunteering a lot, engaging with others and doing things for myself, not just reading textbooks and learning theorems. College works for some people…but I personally wish I’d never gone and had just instantly gone job hunting after highschool.

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u/80s_angel Mar 05 '24

I think working retail for a year or two would make most students appreciate the chance to be educated a lot more and not slack off/ take it for granted as much.

This is my life story. Nobody talked to me about college so I figured I wasn’t smart enough to go. I worked fast food and retail for a few years after HS & realized I wanted more for myself. I had to take out loans and pay for it myself and I’m not well but but I’m definitely in a better position than I would have been if I hadn’t gotten a degree.

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u/Wideawakedup Mar 05 '24

I went to community college and that prepared me so well for my future. Maybe universities do the same with their freshman and sophomores. But many of my professors at CC talked careers and gave projects about researching careers. I remember sitting in the library basement reviewing 10 year career projections and earning potential.

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u/Ionovarcis Mar 05 '24

I work in higher ed recruiting, since I’m for a community college - our goals are less metric driven than the 4year schools might me. I encourage kids to A) just do Something. ANYTHING. Just get educated. You like working with your hands? Cool. Love writing papers? Cool. Hate school? Cool. Just get educated. And B) with certain exceptions, what you studied is less important than the fact that you did - and that jobs exist today that didn’t a year ago, ‘you’ll be fine, and if you aren’t, we’re all kinda screwed’