Subj : Re: New to this To : Gamgee From : Nightfox Date : Sat Apr 19 2025 06:26 pm Re: Re: New to this By: Gamgee to Nightfox on Sat Apr 19 2025 08:05 pm Ni>> There's a problem there too, in that tuition costs have generally risen Ni>> quite high, and education debt is a problem for a lot of people. Ga> No argument with any of that. Very true. Ga> However... there are ways to avoid much of that, sometimes. Won't work Ga> for everyone, but for some. Real-world example: We paid for my Ga> daughter's bachelor degree (Chemistry), with some help from the state (FL) Ga> on discounts on tuition for taking advanced classes in high school, and Ga> doing well. She did so well in those 4 years that she got a full-ride Ga> scholarship (including living expenses) to a major college in Texas to get Ga> both Masters and PhD degrees in Chemistry. Zero cost to us or her. Then Ga> she got hired by a major chemical company, who after a couple of years Ga> paid for her to attend another major college and get a Masters in Business Ga> Administration. So now she's an accomplished/published scientist with Ga> business knowledge as well, and zero student debt. The kind of things Ga> that CEO's are made out of (maybe one day). Ga> Now, it would be easy to say that she was "fortunate" to get all that, but Ga> in reality it was all earned by HARD work and exceptional dedication to Ga> reaching goals. She got no special treatment, she just put in the effort Ga> needed to succeed. Granted not everyone can/will do that. That's great that she was able to do that. It would be good of more people were willing to do that. And I wonder though, if more people worked that hard, I wonder how many people that scholarship money would be available for. My parents got divorced when I was 2 (and I'm thankful I saw both my parents when I was growing up), and I lived with my mom. Her income wasn't the best, so we were considered a low-income household, so when I applied for financial aid in college (via the FAFSA), I qualified for some grants in addition to loans. I was working (part-time) most of the time when I was in college, so I was able to forego the loans and just take the grants, and paid the rest out of my pocket (though my parents did help with my first couple terms of college). The grants typically was enough for classes (most of the time), but most of the time, the cost of books pushed things up where I had to pay a bit out of my own pocket. I'm thankful I didn't end up with any college debt, but I know there are a lot of people who have a lot of debt, and some people are choosing not to go to college due to how much it costs. Ga> skills and training. The "trades" as some people call them. Carpenters, Ga> plumbers, welders, mechanics, etc. Very valuable people to a society and Ga> a way for those who can't go to college to still be successful people. Ga> Many of those jobs pay better than college-degree jobs in reality. Ga> So, the system has a way of kind of self-regulating in order to provide a Ga> balanced set of workers. Seems to be pretty much OK in the overall scheme Ga> of things, to me. Yeah, I've heard trades workers can earn good money. At the same time, from what I've heard, many of those jobs can be physically demanding - I'm thinking of things like plumbers, carpenters, people who install flooring, and so on; a lot of those jobs are physical work which can take a toll on you. And I've known a couple people who work in plumbing who have said they often work long hours (sometimes 60+ hours a week) and have odd hours, etc.. There are people who are okay with that and may even enjoy that type of work, but I think there are a good number of people who go into a profession that they might not really want to, but only feel they need to do to earn a good living. Nightfox --- SBBSecho 3.24-Linux * Origin: Digital Distortion: digdist.synchro.net (21:1/137) .