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Comment by not_a_moth | Hacker News Reader

Anyone intimate with Germany's vocational training system, that's used as an alternative to college by approximately half of all graduating high school students?

2-3 years small salary vocational training straight out of HS at 1 of 400k participating companies in 1 of 400 role types.

I want to know why implementing this isn't a national debate in US, it seems like such an obviously good idea.

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Most of those who go for vocational training don't have a "high-school degree" in the sense of 12 or more years of schooling. They may leave one of several types of secondary school with a degree after 10 years or even less. I believe the American term for someone like that is "high-school dropout". So a better analogy might be "The majority of German high-school dropouts spend 2-3 years as small-salary interns before they can get a real job."

Surely manual workers in the US are already learning to do their jobs somehow. What makes you think the German system would be an improvement?

Because from my limited understanding, it allowed them to easily participate in further vocational training to become well paid specialists or leaders. In addition, the support system was such that there were numerous opportunities across the Mittelstand, whereas in the USA is easy for dropouts to be stuck flipping burgers long term without support or guidance to turn their job as fry lord into a career or job that is more...sustainable.

Not all of those apprenticeships are high level ones and I suspect there is much less possibility of starting as an apprentice and going all the way to a degree as say Mech Eng apprentice at BAE Systems might.

This is the route I took BTW.

I have had interviews just stop dead (with European companies) when it turned out I didn't have a Degree.

And I believe that jumping tracks is harder in Germany - even after the EU made them reform the system.

It is distinctively not the same as "high school drop out". These are people who do go to school, finish it and get a degree. These are people "within the education system" who were taught to do specific thing.

High school drop out did not finished the school he intended to and does not have degree. This is person who is "out of the education system" who are not assumed to know anything.

The social status is of course different due to the lack of recognition for the "high school drop out", but the years of education received are similar.

The type of education is however completely different. Years of education is meaningless metric in this context.

In one case you are learned woodworker (say) and in another ... nothing.

The ten years of schooling are in both cases general education, so they should be pretty comparable. Woodworking is something the German would learn during their apprenticeship and the American on the job (presumably).

How do companies who need skilled woodworkers in the US decide whom to hire? I'd guess they look for previous work experience. It's not clear to me whether an American who spent three years as an unskilled woodworker is any worse off in terms of job prospects than a German who spent three years as a woodworking apprentice.

The US is politically constipated. The people at the top do not want to help the people at the bottom at their expense, even though they have ALL of the power at this point.

They are not malicious, per se, but they don't explicitly care that a large portion of the population is becoming so abject that working in the amazon fulfillment gulags is their only option, and that public infrastructure is crumbling.

So when you ask: "Why doesn't the US do something GOOD for once?" The answer is: Oh, we want to. But our lords purse strings are too tight.

I hear you, but there's still market incentives for companies to participate: cheap labor for 2-3 years with good likelihood of a useful employee afterwards. I think in Germany they're paid ~ 1k Eur/mo. Clearly a progressive element helping those can't go to college so a branding value for SV types too.

Beyond that the administration of the program, certification at the end, etc. probably wouldn't be so expensive.

Think it shouldn't be viewed as threatening.

When I was in high school (late '80s) vocational school was an option, and even regular high school had a good selection of shop classes. From what I understand this was mostly dismantled because of cost, liability, and the implied stigma of 'only' being a vocational school student. After all, if 'No Child Left Behind' then why would you send some to one school and some to another.

This kind of forced homogenization of outcomes is why many in the US are so skeptical of progressivism- instead of accepting that Johnny might succeed as a plumber let's force him to be another mediocre college-track student because the educational establishment 'knows' that's the only way to be successful.

>I want to know why implementing this isn't a national debate in US, it seems like such an obviously good idea.

Because it would involve respecting blue-collar workers, and beating up on Labor(TM) (really: wage suppression for the working class) takes priority in America over doing what's economically and socially rational.

I'd bet a large part of the reason is cultural. For just about any American high school student who's been exposed to the mainstream culture their entire lives (including myself at the time), the idea of missing out on the "college experience" (i.e. mostly partying) that just about every conventionally successful person they've ever met will have gone through and instead going to "small salary vocational training" would just be completely unthinkable and depressing to imagine, especially if all your friends are following the usual path. I suppose it's possible this may change with Covid-19 but I still don't quite see it.

Edit: could any of the downvoters explain their reasoning? I guess this could have come off as facetious because I mentioned partying or something, but I'm completely serious -- why wouldn't cultural reasons be a major factor?

American culture also devalues community college in this way.

The way we break this is by changing our hiring decisions. If you have a Harvard grad (or other private university grad) in front of you, consider if they really are the right candidate. Consider recruiting from local community and public colleges, including public non-traditional colleges. Build a rapport with the job placement offices at these schools. If candidates are missing something, work with the schools to improve their curricula.

Is there any difference in hiring between someone who attended four years at a college vs transferred in after two years at community college? (At UC Berkeley, about a third of graduates are transfers and at least while I was a student there I didn't get any perception they were less capable)

I expect any differences to manifest in the student's life over the subsequent years. Many people build a significant chunk of their social network in those first two years of undergraduate college

>Build a rapport with the job placement offices at these schools.

This is 100% the right answer. Source: my career in higher education has been mostly at the community college level.

Universities and 4-year colleges are not as incentivized as community colleges to build career pathways and make direct changes to curriculum based on external input. Most community colleges (I'm betting all of them, but I can't say that for sure) have committees of business leaders to inform curriculum decisions. Community colleges are also more nimble when it comes to creating degree pathways - therefore, if the graduates do not have the skills they need for your business, they can spin up a new degree in less than a year, fully accredited, while universities may take 3-5 years.

Further, businesses can impact individual class curriculum at a community college via these advisory committees. This just simply does not happen at a university.

This is pure conjecture. The younger generation currently consumes way less alcohol and is overall much more studious and serious than previous generations. Years of austerity have eroded the "animal house" culture you are picturing from your youth.

They are pushing college WAY less and pushing vocational training WAY MORE. I've had my younger cousins reach out to me interested in vocational training and my opinions on that. ( My opinion? Pick a major with a career. Do two years of community college, finish up at a major university. Vocational jobs are well paying and are perfectly respectable, but tend to be pretty hard. )

Interesting. Thanks for making an actual counter-argument. I have to admit I have a little trouble believing the cultural connotations around college could have changed that much in the time since I graduated from HS (2007), but I'll take your word for it -- I don't have any current connections to kids that age myself.

I graduated around the same time. We got burned BADLY and I think people started paying attention around that time.

Try to put yourself in the shoes of the 40% of graduating high schoolers in the US who don't go to college. It would seem nice to have an option to graduate and start a career.

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