[cs137]

Going to college is still the optimal play for almost everyone, save the highly privileged who can actually drop out and get right back in at any time.

The trades are often romanticized, but overrated in their ability to reliably provide a middle-class standard of living. There will always be some trade that is in high demand and can therefore offer a middle-class salary... but within ten years, it will be flooded by new people, and that will end. (This is the case unless there is a strong union in place and it stays strong.) That's just how the labor market works. The selling point of an advanced education is that it provides insurance against labor market fluctuations, since you're hired for something other than your commodity labor (in theory). That's no longer the case these days, but that's a problem with our society, not our schools.

As engines of social mobility in the US, colleges aren't great--they're expensive, often very elitist, bloated due to runaway administrative costs, and usually staffed by researchers who consider undergraduate teaching to be their fifth priority if at all--but they're still better than literally anything else our society has in place. Our laws are written by millionaire Boomer scumbags, our businesses exist to ratify an existing hereditary elite as meritocrats while being hostile to actual meritocracy, and our culture is thinly-veiled capitalist propaganda. Our colleges might get a C-minus, but that's still ahead of the F that everything else in this country gets.

[y-c-o-m-b]

I think college is beneficial for everyone and I honestly have some regrets for not going that route myself, but I think the costs associated with it heavily outweigh any benefits at the moment, especially in the long term.

I'm curious where I would fit into your opinion of all this. I'm a high-school drop out with 1.7 GPA (ended up getting a GED eventually), but I've been in tech/software dev for nearly 17 years now. Whether it be job offers or ability to perform well in my role, the lack of college hasn't been a barrier at all. I currently work in a FAANG and usually outperform my peers and haven't had any problems getting offers for management positions. I got into software dev because of my love for video games. I have an average IQ and I'm not gifted. You say "almost everyone", but there's nothing special that sets me apart from "almost everyone". What are your thoughts on that?