Do you have a job which

[disneydreamer1980]

I’m a Nurse Practitioner with 6 years of college but my DH doesn’t have any college experience at all and he makes much more than I do. He started out in construction/plumbing, eventually got his master plumbers license and now owns a successful commercial plumbing HVAC company. I always laugh when people make fun of or look down on plumbers because 9 times out of 10 they’re making A LOT more money than the person making fun of them.

 

[Minnesota!]

I work at a university and could not hold my position without an advanced degree. There are many pathways to find positions that provide good wages/benefits. Recently my state changed the rules so that a four year degree would not longer be required for thousands of state jobs. I also know of quite of few of ODS friends who are opting to go to trade school instead of a four year college when they graduate in May.

Minnesota?

 

[nw6675]

An electrical company near me pays minimum wage while you learn the trade. After you can go to salary or commission, but you have to give some guaranteed time back. The guys were making top dollar pretty quickly.

 

[monsterkitty]

I’m a Nurse Practitioner with 6 years of college but my DH doesn’t have any college experience at all and he makes much more than I do. He started out in construction/plumbing, eventually got his master plumbers license and now owns a successful commercial plumbing HVAC company. I always laugh when people make fun of or look down on plumbers because 9 times out of 10 they’re making A LOT more money than the person making fun of them.

I'm a retired middle school teacher. We were required by the district to start talking to our students about careers beginning in 6th grade. Our school began doing this in our advisory class.

The year I decided I was going to retire as soon as I could was the year our new principal heard me telling my 8th grade advisory class that college isn't for everyone and there are a lot of well-paying careers out there that don't require a college degree. I explained that some jobs do need at least going to a trade school so they could acquire the license required for jobs such as welders, plumbers, electrical, and even EMT and Paramedic. I also explained that the military is an option as well.

Of course, my principal was listening outside my door. He yelled at me in front of the students for daring to tell them they didn't have to go to college. He also wrote me up, but I refused to sign the paper without my union rep present. When the rep came in, the principal wasn't available. I never did sign that paper.

 

[Lord Manhammer]

My job requires a PhD. I cannot complain, I make a very good living.

 

[Lord Manhammer]

Police officer with no degree. Same with DH. We each made enough that we could have supported our family on just one of the incomes (in a much more modest lifestyle). Together, we were very comfortable. The second career, I now have a degree but it is not needed at all for my job - I got it just to say I did. I could not support a family of four on what I make at this job alone but we have other sources of income. DH is making six figures in his second career with no degree.

BIL went into a trade and supported a family of three with his wife, the one with the degree, barely contributing.

Other BIL supporting a family of four on a police officer's salary with a stay home wife.

That's interesting how it is in different states. From what I understand, municipal officers in Mass don't require a college degree, but the state police do. Ironically though, education doesn't equal ethics because the State Police here were part of a huge overtime-stealing scandal which really tarnished their image.

 

[china mom]

My former agency (municipal) did not require a degree until the rank of lieutenant. The academy I attended was at a large county agency and they did have an associates degree requirement. Several classmates had four year degrees. I was in the top half of my academy class academically.

I wonder if the difference in ethics between the two agencies in Mass had more to do with the size of the agency versus degree requirement. In my experience, in a smaller agency, there is more scrutiny. It is harder to miss corruption. In larger agencies, I think that bad behavior can go unnoticed a lot longer.

Look at the Baltimore Gun Trace Task Force scandal. That went on unnoticed for quite a while. I cannot imaging my department of only 60 officers not noticing something like that going on.

 

[ronandannette]

I’m a Nurse Practitioner with 6 years of college but my DH doesn’t have any college experience at all and he makes much more than I do. He started out in construction/plumbing, eventually got his master plumbers license and now owns a successful commercial plumbing HVAC company. I always laugh when people make fun of or look down on plumbers because 9 times out of 10 they’re making A LOT more money than the person making fun of them.

An electrical company near me pays minimum wage while you learn the trade. After you can go to salary or commission, but you have to give some guaranteed time back. The guys were making top dollar pretty quickly.

All I can say, as someone who has spent my entire career in residential construction and am now seeing the future of the industry threatened by labour shortages - PLEASE ENCOURAGE YOUR KIDS TO TAKE A TRADE!

 

[tony67]

So I am a self taught software developer. Did a little bit of college and it did not help as everything they teach was outdated. They were teaching Cobol and I was learning C in high school the previous year. When they did teach C years later is was Borland and not MVC.
I did go back to college a few years later just to get the piece of paper as you needed it to advance and my boss wanted it and paid for it. Still they were years behind what I was doing at work. They were still teaching Borland C and most business were using Visual Basic, Classic ASP and SQL server or Oracle at that point.

Anyway got my degree and adjusting for inflation I always made more before the piece of paper than after.

There are other factors but still - such as the time and the bubble that happened etc... but still a degree was secondary.
I have no doubt gone on to hire folks without degrees and its usually worked out well.

It can be harder to get your foot in the door, but if you are good it does not matter.

All that said I do feel like "they" are trying to phase out the good paying jobs you can get without a degree and support a family.
Replace Truck drivers with automated vehicles.
The general attack on tipping that is going on and automation of some of those folks jobs.
I talk to friends who make good money bartending and they see it since tipping has gotten out of hand after covid people don't want to just because you opened a bottle of beer for them.

The best bet as PP said is the trades.
Thing is not everyone has the aptitude for the trades just like not everyone should go to college.

Colleges also need to stop giving degrees for things that will never lead to a job other than a barista for the most part.
Nothing wrong with being a barista - but you don't need 4 years of college and debt you want the people in the trades to pay off for you to be a barista - even if it seems like it.

 

[ronandannette]

...All that said I do feel like "they" are trying to phase out the good paying jobs you can get without a degree and support a family.
Replace Truck drivers with automated vehicles.
The general attack on tipping that is going on and automation of some of those folks jobs.
I talk to friends who make good money bartending and they see it since tipping has gotten out of hand after covid people don't want to just because you opened a bottle of beer for them.

The best bet as PP said is the trades.
Thing is not everyone has the aptitude for the trades just like not everyone should go to college.

Colleges also need to stop giving degrees for things that will never lead to a job other than a barista for the most part.
Nothing wrong with being a barista - but you don't need 4 years of college and debt you want the people in the trades to pay off for you to be a barista - even if it seems like it.

I’m not sure that anybody is “trying” to phase anything out, so much as industries are just desperate to innovate in order to compensate for the lack of skilled workers. I heartily agree with the observation about useless undergraduate degrees; very prevalent in the US and increasingly more so here in Canada as well, where we’re now at the mercy of immigration to provide skilled labour. But after two decades of this trend, it’s not a panecea - those skilled and hard-working newcomers all strive to send their kids to university to become baristas.

 

[china mom]

I was just offered a $2,000 scholarship to help pay for a Masters degree (unsolicited - they are just trying to drum up students). I toyed with is for a minute until I discovered that it would still cost me $17,000 for a degree that I will never need or use. I'll pass

 

[SharonZ]

Yes. I'm an executive assistant for the managing partner of a large law firm.

 

[disneydreamer1980]

I'm a retired middle school teacher. We were required by the district to start talking to our students about careers beginning in 6th grade. Our school began doing this in our advisory class.

The year I decided I was going to retire as soon as I could was the year our new principal heard me telling my 8th grade advisory class that college isn't for everyone and there are a lot of well-paying careers out there that don't require a college degree. I explained that some jobs do need at least going to a trade school so they could acquire the license required for jobs such as welders, plumbers, electrical, and even EMT and Paramedic. I also explained that the military is an option as well.

Of course, my principal was listening outside my door. He yelled at me in front of the students for daring to tell them they didn't have to go to college. He also wrote me up, but I refused to sign the paper without my union rep present. When the rep came in, the principal wasn't available. I never did sign that paper.

That’s insane and ridiculous. That’s the mindset of a lot of people though. The reality is that college isn’t for everyone and many people do well in life without it. And going to a trade school won’t usually cost you an arm and a leg that you’ll be paying off forever.

 

[NotUrsula]

Since the pandemic, a lot of employers are re-thinking policies that automatically require college degrees for jobs that really don't require that kind of decision-making background right out of the gate. (The old adage is that the difference between training and education is that training equips you to do tasks, but education equips you to manage complex analysis of tasks.) The trend to require the degree was a product of the 1970s-80s when financial aid was plentiful and there were huge numbers of veterans attending college on the GI Bill. Now that costs are so much higher and financial aid much harder to come by, the "necessity" is being reconsidered, which, IMO, is a good thing.

For the reluctant student, there should be an understanding that learning is still pretty much a requirement for rising in a career; you cannot just sit back and never take a class again after high school. Training classes and studying for certifications are still something one has to do on a regular basis.

 

[Lumpy1106]

Speaking of working in the trades, one of the last remaining "Rosie the Riveter" women recently passed away at 104;
https://www.presstelegram.com/2023/...-the-original-rosie-the-riveters-dies-at-104/
She was pretty inspiring right up to the end,

I was just doing my job like thousands of other women,” she used to say.

In talks to various groups, she would say she was proud of what she and other “Rosies” accomplished and how far women have come since then.

“We made history,” she would tell women. “Now it’s your turn."

 

[disneydreamer1980]

Speaking of working in the trades, one of the last remaining "Rosie the Riveter" women recently passed away at 104;
https://www.presstelegram.com/2023/...-the-original-rosie-the-riveters-dies-at-104/
She was pretty inspiring right up to the end,

My great-grandmother was a “Rosie the Riveter”. She was awesome. She used to talk about how it was, and how as soon as the war was over and the men came back it was like “ok, you can go home now” lol.

 

[dvcgirl67]

I have two degrees, a BA (communications/sociology double major), and an Associates degree in Nursing, but the third "job" that I got was one that I created back in 2004....as an owner/operator of a Pet Sitting/Dog Walking company that I started. I haven't made less than six figures since 2010. I started my second company after we moved in 2007 and it takes time to build it, but it grew very quickly here in NJ where I live now. We have no kids and no debt, and so yes, I could easily support my household on my income, but we wouldn't have the life that we have with respect to travel and splurges here and there. My income peaked in 2019, but the pandemic hit us hard and I didn't grow the business back to the behemoth that it was prior to covid, simply because I wasn't as motivated...retirement is on the horizon. DH has always made at least twice what I make and now 3x+. He's a software architect, and the return on his computer science degree has been incredible. I think his career may be ending around the right time with AI really ramping up....time will tell.

 

[Magical2017]

Minnesota?

Maryland.

 

[jimmymc]

My job requires a bachelor's. It's a good salary and comes with a lot of other benefits, like 10% salary retirement contributions, insurance, discounts, and PTO. I could theoretically make more other places, but the PTO is huge for me.

 

[tony67]

From a different angle - I know a several folks in the service industry who have very good degrees.
Accounting, Economics, Finance etc.. Some even have masters. One has a PhD in mathematics.

They work as bartenders or wait tables - the money is just to good.
They don't need the degrees to do it, but it can help them in talking with customers who do those jobs.
Yeah some nights they take home $30 or $40, but on a weekend night they can take home quite a bit more.
A runner who gets minimum wage and only gets a small percentage of the tips that the bartender and waitstaff choose to give them and can still take home 2-3 hundred on a good night, so no idea what they are getting but its quite a bit.

Yeah in the long run that will probable end, so it may be a bit shortsighted, but right now they are enjoying life for the most part.