SKR8PN.... two small butts........

[Farmfresh]

I keep being told, but without an RN your payment cap is.... Okay. Seriously. I make 10/hour and I get by fine. There's lots I WANT but nothing I need that I cannot afford. So why would I go into debt to double my income just to fulfill empty wishes??

You have to make that extra money just to pay off your college loans of course!

Colleges are SO ridiculous. The book prices are ridiculous. A friend of mine has been a para educator for the last 15 years. She has also been working on her teaching degree. She is GOOD at what she does. She has literally trained me, several other paras AND one of the teachers who came to the job from a Speech degree.

They recently turned her down for a job opening in our district where she has been working all of these years, because they discovered she needs a PE class before she qualifies to be certified. Are you kidding me? The person they hired for the position looks good on paper. That is all I am saying.

Another friend of mine recently was taking her praxis testing to be certified as a Science teacher. She was struggling. There is an on line practice test, so I took it. SHE barely passed, but got her certification. I missed one. Same test, but I can not get the certification because I lack the "credit hours". So she now makes roughly twice what I do and is FAR less capable. BS ... either you know your stuff or you don't. But in this mighty land of ours the paper is everything.

 

[SKR8PN]

I was blessed to have parents that were "hands on" type of folks. My dad taught me everything I know about building things(the greenhouse for instance) wiring and plumbing. My mom taught me how to cook, clean, sew and take care of things around the house. But my real love was working on automobiles, so that part was pretty much self taught until I got into the dealerships where they send you to factory training.
I didn't need no stinkin' college degree to be smart enough to pay my house off early, or to be able to survive WITHOUT a car payment all these years.

 

[sekinkead]

My dad was and my husband is a jack of all trades. Along with being a mechanic my husband can weld, plumb, do electrical work, and carpentry, and even though he is not an auto mechanic he does all the work on our vehicles. My dad taught me woodworking, I did 9 years of 4-H woodworking projects and I have a 2 year degree in electrical engineering, so between the two of us we only have to call someone for HVAC.

We are teaching both of our kids all of these skills. We fix everything around our house and save a ton of money by doing it ourselves. We have a friend of the family that does HVAC and we called him when our air conditioning went out in the house. Other than that we do it all. I want to have smart capable children who can take care of themselves.

I will support my kids if they want to go to college or if they want to farm or be a mechanic. I don't care as long as they are happy and good at what they choose to do.

 

[i_am2bz]

Makes me wonder about one of my college roommates. She got a degree in Archeology & Anthropology. Last I knew she was a waitress.

 

[SKR8PN]

Makes me wonder about one of my college roommates. She got a degree in Archeology & Anthropology. Last I knew she was a waitress.

A buddy of mine got a degree in Biology, and couldn't find a job anywhere. He went BACK to school, to be a nurse, before the FIRST student loans kicked in. He now is working, but is over 60,000 in debt.

 

[lorihadams]

Here's my situation....I was always book smart but never cultivated on common sense. Never taught how to manage money. Always told that when I graduated high school I was going to college. I did what I was told and got my 4 yr degree....graduated cum laude, honors, the whole nine yards.

I couldn't get a job. I had no experience and since I didn't want to go back home and work in the god awful county I just left, I couldn't get an "in" anywhere else.

So, frustrated, I moved in with friends and racked up $30,000 in credit card debt before I came to my senses and got a waitressing job at Hooters and met my husband (my first week on the job). I moved in with him and got engaged and since he really had no debt, he dropped out of college and never finished, I was able to put all my earnings toward paying off my debt and live off his income at Verizon. He now makes $30/hr with terrific benefits and it is cause he has manual labor skills. He is now managing a warehouse and reorganizes warehouses all over the state. He started off making $9/hr servicing and collecting money from payphones.

I worked at Hooters until my debt was paid off, student loans and credit card debt, and then started trying to have a baby. When I had my son I stopped working.

I wish I had done something else. My husband keeps saying that he just wants to go back and "finish" his degree. He hates school. Why would we go back into debt just so he can have a piece of paper that means nothing to him.

My brother hated school. He was made to go to college after graduating (barely) and dropped out after one semester. He has a great job now working with a company tracking packages and deliveries. He also works on the side selling his art pieces.

My father never went to college and owned his own construction business for 40 years. He refused to let me work for him in the summers....I don't know why. I wish he had....maybe then I could lay brick.

Point is....young people need to be exposed to both. Only then can they make an educated decision as to what is right for them. Some kids do very well with technology and thrive in college and can get hired. Me, didn't turn out that way. All I know is that if my kids want to enter into a trade instead of going to college I will support them. As parents that's all we can do.

 

[abifae]

Well, right now, the kids at McDonalds are competing for jobs against those with Masters degrees.

And the kids can be paid less LOL. So who is gonna win?

I also think a lot of folk would rather not work than do "menial labor". There was a group in northern Colorado that decided to not hire any more illegal immigrants to work the farms. They offered to train anyone who wanted and teach them to work the fields. They helped find places to stay during training and everything. Pretty amazing program. Anyway, some ridiculous number like 10-15% lasted the season and barely 5% came back the next season (I got this from a friend who runs a temp agency so she was trying to get folk to work here).

I realize the work was REALLY hard, but why would you rather be homeless?

 

[Up-the-Creek]

I think everyone has been conditioned to look down upon "menial labor" jobs. Thats why all of the illegal immigrants love our country sooooo much,....they will tell you,.."Americans are lazy, but that is okay,..we will work for those wages and enjoy it. " :/ That says a lot about our country I think.

 

[Denim Deb]

People think that mind set is recent. It's not. I know when I was 18 and worked on the fruit farm, other kids who worked there didn't want any of their friends to know. After all, that was something the migrant workers did. And, I've read books even older than that where you had your servants to do your cooking, cleaning, farming, etc because it was considered menial. If you did those types of jobs, you were looked down on, and basically considered to dumb to be able to do anything else.

 

[abifae]

Absolutely. Menial has ALWAYS meant peasant class. And if you wanted to marry up in the world and improve your station you had to surpass the menial stuff

It's that way since the beginning of human society, I am sure.

I think which jobs are considered menial have changed to some degree. Or, at the least, more non-menial jobs have appeared.

Although I consider cubical jobs to be the MOST menial. I mean, can you say shoveling SH*T all day?!?!?