[dylan604]

> Maybe college never should have been for everyone?

This is my sentiment. School counselors pushed everyone to colleges, but actively dissed trade schools. Forcing students to take classes in subjects they absolutely do not care about is a terrible idea for a secondary education track. If someone really just wants to learn a trade and have a nice life, there is nothing wrong with that.

Did CS course really just become coding boot camps? That seems like an insult to CS grads that came before. That's not a diss to boot camp attendees, but CS grad learns way more than how to code a specific language. However, if someone wants to just code, there's nothing wrong with that. Not everyone is interested in knowing how a CPU works or how much L2 cache improves anything. There's plenty of code that can be written with GC languages so that the coder never even has to think about any of the underpinnings of the system. There's other code that'll never work like that and requires more lower level understanding. There's plenty of work to share

[nebula8804]

In 2024, 42.8% of the population ages 25 to 39, 41.5% ages 40 to 54, and 34.2% age 55 and older held a bachelor’s degree or higher.

[1]: https://www.census.gov/newsroom/press-releases/2025/educatio...

That does not seem like everyone is going to college.

[gottorf]

"Everyone" is hyperbole, of course. But it's already too high a number.

[nebula8804]

When I graduated in the early 2010s I recall the number was closer to ~35%. Honestly given the economy today and the expectations of employers of having a college degree for even basic stuff, these numbers seem pretty low.

In Europe only about 43% have a college degree. So even with heavily subsidized schools there is really only a certain percentage of people that take this path.

[1]:https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/web/products-eurostat-news/w/d...

[gottorf]

> the expectations of employers of having a college degree for even basic stuff

This is mostly an unintentional side-effect of civil rights law, stemming from Griggs v. Duke Power Co.

[Spooky23]

Well yeah, trades suck ass. There are alot of dudes in cushy well paid office gigs extolling the virtues of trade work.

It wasn’t some awful conspiracy, physical trade jobs are hard work and with no pensions or benefit protection, there’s a lot of guys struggling when their bodies are broken at 40. In the 80s, most urban trades were unionized with benefit funds etc. Not the case in 2026.

[dylan604]

And a bunch of tech peeps are overweight physically out of shape with other health effects as bad as what you're saying about trades. Humans get old.

I know plenty of trades people that do hard work and think cushy office gigs are hell on earth and that type of work sucks ass. Just because it's not your preferred career doesn't mean you should denigrate those that do. Besides, if there were no trades, you'd have no place to live, you'd have no food to eat, you'd have no car to drive, and you'd have no internet as who was going to build that infrastructure?

[Spooky23]

Im not denigrating anyone. I worked dairy farms from age 7 to 23.

It’s a brutal lifestyle and I’ve seen my share of hardworking, broken 50 year olds trying to make it mostly on the lesser paying job their wife is left with because raising kids with a dad who’s out the door at 5am and home at 7pm is brutal.

[gottorf]

I think the notion that's being challenged is that a college degree is an automatic way out of "dad who’s out the door at 5am and home at 7pm", no matter what the degree is for and who is getting the degree; or that being credentialed and unemployed is better than that.