Comment by pc86
20 days ago
> trade school, while potentially viable for a single person to fix their own situation, is not the answer to the overall problem at a societal level
Isn't it? Isn't being realistic about your skills in relation to the rest of the world in the current time and place (as opposed to some idealistic past that may or may not have ever existed) a way to "fix this" at a societal level?
Whether or not it's easy or even possible to live a middle-class without starting a business or getting a college degree is irrelevant to whether or not we should be giving college degrees to people who submit this as an answer to a final exam:
> > With the UGM its all about our journey in life, not the destination. He beleives [sic] we need to take time to enjoy the little things becuase [sic] life is short and you never gonna [sic] know what happens. Sometimes he contradicts himself cause [sic] sometimes you say one thing but then you think something else later. It’s all relative.
I'm pretty confident I didn't say any of the things you're rebutting.
>Isn't being realistic about your skills in relation to the rest of the world in the current time and place (as opposed to some idealistic past that may or may not have ever existed) a way to "fix this" at a societal level?
"Being realistic about your skills in relation to the rest of the world" is very different from and much broader than "take up a trade". The fact is if everyone who isn't being served by the current higher education system today became a plumber or a carpenter tomorrow the increased supply without a concomitant increase in demand would force the pay for those jobs into the shitter as well and we'd still have an army of the underemployed.
>Whether or not[sic] it's easy or even possible to live a middle-class without starting a business or getting a college degree is irrelevant to whether or not[sic] we should be giving college degrees to people who submit this as an answer to a final exam:
I didn't say we should give degrees to people who can't demonstrate the skills or knowledge either, only that if we make survival contingent on getting degrees people who can't get them legitimately will try to get them illegitimately. People have a distressing tendency to try to continue to live even when the rules tell them that they shouldn't.