I have a college degree. I hope for my kids to take the path of earning college degrees. I think that college is great in the abstract. I also think that until we sort out our health care system in this country (USA), a career in the trades is a very frightening prospect.

Even so, this comment is very interesting to me.

I frequently see on Hacker News the sentiment that modern higher education is a bubble. That if we don't actively encourage young people to consider a life in the skilled trades, we should at least be teaching respect for those who do.

But at the same time, it's hard to ignore the open derision toward non-college grads.

I mean, in this particular example, why SHOULD non-college grads support a politician's promises to subsidize colleges, at the expense of other more direct interests? There are obvious cultural/tribal resentments in play, as you're talking about transferring wealth from one class to another class which openly looks down upon the first. But even separating emotion from it, it's hard to criticize strawmen for opposing policy that might well reasonably be seen as voting against their own interests.