Saving Money, Part 5

The topic for today is education...

I Myth'ed, or Open Sourced "TiVo'd" a 60 Minutes one sunday not long ago...   A segment that I saw really got to me....it was a bit from Peter Thiel on education, and the need for it vs. the expense of it.

How does this fit in with saving money? Well, one could argue that you save money by NOT going to college. No parent wants their kid to have to go through paying dues like they did. The dues students pay now, their college loans, are choking the financial stability right from underneath their feet. These dues are far steeper than the previous generation, and are unsustainable.

The reason for the instability is our fascination with a modern faerie tale... fabled place of milk and honey called "College."

For decades now we have demanded our kids go to "college." Over and over we have told them by telling them to study for the SATs, get a good score, get into college.  As a society we have repeatedly stressed that skills are not important,  only the fabled land of college is important.

The skills vs. education pendulum as swung so hard to the "get an education" side that many parents see no value in education of skill sets. We have drained all of the high schools of any and all skills. Industrial arts, home economics, and art teachers have had their budgets or departments gutted and cleaned out. The side effect is that when things need to be "Made in America" (like the olympic outfits), the skill sets just are not there. Forget the funding, the job creators and the other BS. But the skilled labor that knows how to sew and set a sleeve, or do a welding job is sadly lacking.

Peter Thiel swings the pendulum to the polar opposite position. He advocates being trained in a craft or skill, and to skip out on the big pricey college path.

Some might find financial value in this advice. Choosing an educational career path requires thought. His thoughts of skipping traditional college altogether is tempting. In the short term it will save you money...or will it?
This concept needs more flushing out for it to be workable.

Fact: It is damn near impossible to get a white collar above the poverty line job with out SOME college.

Vocational schools have taken up the slack when it has come to filling this educational area. To make things really interesting, regional trade schools have experienced a overflow of applications that rivals the college application process.

These schools are where the biggest bang for your local tax dollars lie. These schools have a rich academic program mixed in with life and trade skill that is demanded today in the work force.
Sending a student here not only gives them the trade skills, but it also gives them a firm foundation for college. That's right. COLLEGE.

The cost savings here is to graduate with a skill set to earn a real paycheck, while attending college. Not only does this take the sting out of college loans, it gives the student a leg up when it comes to post-grad employment. It also provides a "skilled job" safety net for the student to leverage when the pink slips fly in the white collar job world in the years to come. 

Dynamic education is where the money is. Education is not limited to AP classes and the classics. Education is the foundation of knowledge tools that we grow and prosper from in the years after graduation.

Educating students just so that they can graduate from college is educating our students into financial ruin. Subsequently, this "college or bust" educational track is stripping our manufacturing sector of qualified job applicants, leaving many jobs unfilled in what is a high unemployment era for white collar work.

Imagine being able to get a job because of a dynamic skill set that was part of the educational curricula in your teens. Imagine being able to pay back your school loans if college didn't work out for you, with a real paycheck from a real job due to your vocational skills. This is not to say that some college tracks are highly profitable directly out of college. But "Plan A" doesn't always work out for people. I am now on "Plan C." Reinventing myself has proven to be a tough process and very risky when a mortgage has to be paid when looking at adult vocational education fees.

In order to not only save money but make money in the future,  the way we define education needs to be changed.