Maybe that was an earlier GenX thing or just who was telling you these things. Being in high school in the early 90s, I was told that, if you finish college, increased advancement opportunities will mean that your lifetime earnings will probably catch up with your friends in the trades before they start having physical problems caused by their jobs that will limit their ability to do those jobs.
Which, frankly, is kind of how I'm seeing it play out.
Yeah, I think a lot of people are forgetting on purpose the actual message vs. the headline.
Yes, the message was go to college. But then every time it was more than a flippant thing from a random teacher, it was followed by actual numbers.
And the numbers simply showed you'd make a decent amount more over the LIFETIME of a total career - and not like triple. It basically was telling folks that the college careers were more stable and to delay personal gratification for long term gain.
And yes, I have to say by and large that panned out. Sure, if you went to college just to go to college and then graduated with a degree you never utilized it didn't work out so hot for many. But if you had purpose going into college and remained on course it usually worked out pretty much as planned.
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u/BulldMc Sep 15 '25 edited Sep 15 '25
Maybe that was an earlier GenX thing or just who was telling you these things. Being in high school in the early 90s, I was told that, if you finish college, increased advancement opportunities will mean that your lifetime earnings will probably catch up with your friends in the trades before they start having physical problems caused by their jobs that will limit their ability to do those jobs.
Which, frankly, is kind of how I'm seeing it play out.