Here’s Why Smart Parents Are Skipping College and Choosing This Instead – The Burning Platform
I wonder how many parents, unconsciously or deliberately thru ignorance (Attention Blue Light Shoppers; The rules for a successful career have changed. Silently!) that the “rules for success” have changed. Your degree in “gender studies” is worthless; a college degree can cost a couple of hundred dollars and you can never pay off your student loans. Unless you go into law, medicine, or engineering, I’m not sure that you can ever “break even” or “get a head”. “Sales” never required a degree; just a “sales” personality (that I don’t have). With the prediction that AI will gut the middle class and the middle level management ranks, the current thinking — — that of the “gold watch” era (i.e., get a job with a big company, rise their the hierarchy, stay for a life time, and collect a “gold watch” and a good pensions) that ended in the 80’s — — has past being a useful heuristic (rule of thumb)!
Now, you only get a pension, in Gooferment work! And, forget about retiring with Social Security (aka a “Federal Benefit Payment”!) Argh!
In fact, the current thinking needs a serious revision.
When I counseled fat old white guys, who found themselves over 40, unemployed, and unemployable, I had a paradigm I call “success for your generation”: Success for your generation is: (1) ruthless financial discipline — no bad debt; (2) a life long interest in learning — education — a degree — they can’t take it away from you; (3) a NON-OFFSHORABLE white collar job in order to save big bux; (4) a blue collar skill for hard times — never saw a poor plumber; (5) one or more internet based businesses — your store is always open; (6) a free time hobby that generates income; and (7) a large will-maintained network of people who can “help” you.
”(2) a life long interest in learning — education — a degree — they can’t take it away from you;” has to be revised.
I’m trying to reformulate it. Perhaps … …
“(2) a life long interest in learning — education may mean a cost-effective degree if that makes sense (i.e., engineering versus “gender studies”) — “skills” and dikw (i.e., data, information, knowledge, wisdom) is real “education” that they can’t take away from you;”
Of course, in my advanced old age I’m not as sharp as I used to be, so any feedback would be appreciated.
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Reinke Faces Life 