Take the SATs and go to college. Any college. Keep yourself on the learning path. Even if it's just a small junior college. Even if it's the local community college. Be a student for 4 more years. Yeah, you might not know what you want to be when you grow up. You will figure it out. Your parents might sacrifice just a little bit more than they have your entire 18 years. But those 4 years of college they would have sacrificed would have had outcomes that paid them 6 times otherwise.
Do that. Don't join the military. Don't take a full time job. Go to college.
It would have made my life dramatically different. My life isn't bad. But it could have been so much better.
Encouraging people to keep learning and invest in their future is good advice. But telling everyone to go to college, regardless of their circumstances, is not.
First, you assume that a college education will inevitably pay off in the long run. While a degree can be a worthwhile investment, the financial benefits are not guaranteed, especially when you factor in tuition, student debt, and the wide variation in outcomes depending on the field of study.
You also completely overlook the risk of dropping out. Only around 6 in 10 students who start a four-year degree graduate within six years. For those who leave without a degree, they are left with debt, lost time, and almost none of the benefits that a degree might have provided.
And most importantly, you assume everyone is privileged enough to have parents who can afford to support them financially while they spend four years in college. That's simply not reality for many people.
College can provide value, but simply enrolling doesn't guarantee that someone will learn things or acquire useful skills. There are many ways to learn and build a successful career, and college is not the best path for everyone.
Community Cllg 2 yrs + 2 yrs uni is the way to go imo for the middle class. Lower class and Higher class should go to uni all four years as they are able to- this is the most financially optimal path.
Eh. I believe that everyone can benefit from college. Community College, Junior College or a University. What you are saying sounds like conservative talking points whose agenda is dismantle/diminish the education system.
In any economy in the last 60 years, having some college will 99% of the time over someone with no college. That is an unfortunate truth of capitalism.
That being said, yeah, don't go into debt. If you don't have the generational wealth to afford a university, go to community college. The advice still stands. And I believe everyone would benefit from going to college, in some form.
Nah. Unless you know your career path its a waste of money. You can educate yourself on the internet for free. If you don't have a plan you should start working while you figure it out. You dont need a degree to succeed
While one should always try to learn new things the problem comes from getting a degree and not being able to utilize it out of school.
Even if one finishes a job in the field that one went for is not guaranteed. Then it becomes a burden to pay off those loans on a job that barely pays rent.
And the only lesson learned is that one could have made a lot more money and saved time by not going to college.
And while I too went into the military, and I was only able to use the GI Bill to pay for a small almost insignificant portion of my education. That said, I would not recommend trading military service for education, not unless it was a full guarantee. The possibility of trauma from war is too great and come on, you being a fellow vet know that at no point in history has the government ever given a fuck about vets. What our military service disabled brothers and sisters get is a pitance. The only way I would recommend military service is as an officer... And that takes... Ding ding.... College.
Being a vet, you should know that the vast majority of people in the military never see combat. Most people sit in an office or bang shit with wrenches. I agree that military life isn't for everyone but scaring people off from a stable future is not the move
I went to the military first, and I’m glad I did. I was still a dickhead when I was 18 and 4 years in the army didn’t completely change that, but I was a much better man for it.
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u/PwrCpl4Fun123 10h ago
Take the SATs and go to college. Any college. Keep yourself on the learning path. Even if it's just a small junior college. Even if it's the local community college. Be a student for 4 more years. Yeah, you might not know what you want to be when you grow up. You will figure it out. Your parents might sacrifice just a little bit more than they have your entire 18 years. But those 4 years of college they would have sacrificed would have had outcomes that paid them 6 times otherwise.
Do that. Don't join the military. Don't take a full time job. Go to college.
It would have made my life dramatically different. My life isn't bad. But it could have been so much better.