Dude I come from a family of highly educated people, and most of them are broke. Most people who go to college end up with nothing but debt and a piece of paper that means squat. I have 3 family members who never went to college or finished it and are making great money.
Yes college can pay off if you go for something legitimate (doctor, lawyer, etc) but so many people get useless degrees and end up in the hole.
Add in anything in the engineering, medical and financial fields.
IOW, don't make a stupid investment. It's tough to make money in most liberal arts fields.
I'm of the camp that not everyone should go to college. That was the bad effect of the 90's - the thought that everyone gets a degree and everyone gets a high paying job. That's not happening. But college also isn't a waste.
The problem is the blowback has turned into "F college!", which you expressed, when what we need is "useful college". There's still lots of jobs for technical fields.
Go to a decent college, get a degree in a useful field,
get good grades and be willing to relocate to a good job. It ain't rocket science. If any one of those isn't going to happen, then college - and the associate career paths - may not be the right choice.
You know what's really frustrating? It's hard for me to get jobs for military. I interviewed one guy that would've been a great entry-level engineer. Only problem is he spent seven years in the service doing logistics, so his life had progressed and his income requirements didn't match his technical skills. When I do find someone that has been in the service and has technical chops, then they're high on the list.
So I deeply respect jumping from high school to the service. But everyone still needs to think about their career. If that isn't going to be the military, then they need to think about education after they exit. In my book, service+college is a good mix, but that doesn't get as big of a paycheck as going straight to college, straight into a technical field, and working for that span of time. It does get tons of respect, and folks from the service understand how to work in an organization and can rise pretty quickly. Especially NCOs and warrants. Those guys always kick ass.
So, uh, on topic, I've never wrecked a car (beyond minor dents....). So not my fault.
