[john_strinlai]

i love an apprenticeship model, i think most people would learn better and become competent at whatever position much quicker than straight book learning, for practically every job.

however, where you say: "My [...] opinion is just the opposite [...] where you're not paid a bunch ", are you saying the opposite of a living wage? how would you expect someone to, well, live during their apprenticeship? someone starving and worried about getting evicted or similar is not in a great head space to learn effectively.

[KyleTheDev]

+1, I'm a huge apprenticeship fan. It's worked for thousands of years, it's definitely something we should be investing more into.

You also kinda hit the nail on the head w/ your second point. I think we're expecting a lot of people now to either pay tons of money for higher education, or survive through years of unlivable wagers, to eventually get to a higher paying (I.E, livable) position. In some cases, like doctors in Residency, it's reasonable (average of 65-70k/year?) and enough for them to survive until they're fully fledged. In other cases, like any form of artisan, a lot of blue collar work, it's minimum or near minimum wage and a looming threat of financial ruin.

I think a big part of this is our move to monopolistic/gargantuan corporations, and employment no longer (for good reason) being a primary source of housing. Apprentices used to be able to survive with less payment, because they were given spare rooms, fed by the family of the business owner, and so on. Instead, they now need to be given larger financial rewards so they can procure those things themselves, which can be harder on a business owner.

[michaelrpeskin]

I think the trouble is living wage means different things to different people.

I look back to my time in grad school. My wife and I were lucky that we were able to get fellowships so we were able to focus directly on school and didn't have to do another job or teach. But it was _tight_! I remember keeping track of every cent in a spreadsheet and we generally were at around $100 extra to save every month (which would then be eaten up by a random car repair or something). We never went into debt, but we really paid attention to our spending. No fancy going out, no travel, no avocado toast.

I think right now people put too much "fun" in the definition of living wage. So yes, I wouldn't want someone to be worried about making rent and eating while being apprentice, but it's also not going to be a glamorous instagram lifestyle.

In 2000-2005 dollars we were making a combined $30,000 a year as grad students. I don't know what that means now, but that's probably the actual value we provided to our advisors (paper writing, conference posters, etc).

[nkrisc]

I don't think most people need or expect the glamorous instagram lifestyle, but want to have something fun they can do to make the work worth it. If there was a guaranteed payoff at the end, then it might be worth it, but for many people there is no guaranteed payoff, there's just work and sleep and then they die one day. I don't begrudge anyone for wanting more than that.