And actually in large parts of the world, trade schools pay much better indeed.
Reality is that while our society got much more educated the ratio of blue vs white collars hasn't shifted significantly in many decades in most of the world.
Now we find the reality when we need our car adjusted or a plumber at home and we find that the hourly rate is insanely higher than that of an average college graduate.
But I guess on HN where most people have STEM degrees and have found great jobs indeed with their education this does not resonate.
But an average lawyer in France or Italy will never make the money of the average plumber (but stats show that a bit less because those trades often avoid paying taxes entirely) till late in his career (at which point the plumber has built more wealth).
My disbelief requires more suspension than the Golden Gate Bridge. Most reputable sources will disprove this. Also, it’s not a given that the bottom 30% of lawyers (who pull down the average) would be good plumbers - I have a hard time imagining a worse population to pull from to work with their hands on piping and lug around tools in their pickup truck.
I think these “facts” come from blue collar cosplaying. A survey asking “On a scale of 0-100, how much do you want to be a plumber?” would have a disproportionately massive mode at 0.
Other trades don't pay enough for the hassle.
I did a few years of college and got an associate's before dropping out, didn't finish my degree until quite a few years later. I've been fortunate and have privilege, but I most likely would have done better financially if I'd finished a STEM degree from a state school earlier.
University doesn't really connect anyone with "remarkable" people, but if you come from a rural or low populated area, it does help to let you interact with a more diverse (many professions and ideas) set of people.
You're correct that universities don't really have high IQ people (even the grad students, PIs, and professors likely do not have a high IQ these days), but the incentive structure isn't there anymore to allow for this. The publish-or-perish paradigm has basically annihilated the incentive structure for intelligence and now the focus is much more on 'doing' (without much thought). It's pretty simple to see that when looking at the choices in grad students and faculty at places like Harvard, MIT, Stanford, etc. They're not chosen for drive for novelty, or their cleverness, they're chosen for tirelessly working towards very incremental adjustments to ideas that are then marketed as highly impactful and novel - but the biggest determining factor here is being a "hard worker", not intelligence.
On the other hand, the trades fucking suck - there are posters here who I will generously interpret as being a bit... touched perhaps? when it comes to the realities of work and particularly pay that the average tradesman must face. I'm sure somewhere, some tradesperson in the world is making a couple hundred thousand a year, but statistically speaking, basically none of them are. There's a reason they want their kids to go into a different line of work.
There's just perhaps not that much overlap with those circles.
Otherwise there’s much better paths with less wasted time and less debt.
To be honest though I’m not sure college really changes the trajectory of people’s lives most of the time. If you get into a ton of debt, you’ll probably be alright in general. If you take the shortcut of not going to college, you’ll also probably be alright.
What you think you mean: more people should get a college education.
What you probably actually mean: high school educations, which we provide free of cost in order to educate the citizenry, are no longer effectual enough at producing an "educated" citizenry, and therefore we should reform high school education.
For the overwhelming majority of people and majors college is a scam, one that robs you of some of your most productive work years and puts you into massive debt.
Yeah, no. The 18-22 years may be years where you have a ton of energy, but that doesn't mean they're the most productive.
American 18-year old high school graduates are basically children in all but body size and have no experience in doing complex things that the modern economy requires.
They still would have to spend 3-5 years learning skills (whether they do it in college or outside of college is less relevant)
What people do on the job has overwhelmingly no relation to what they learned in school. Only like at most 5 percent applies in most cases.
That's not what I would classify as useful. You can get friend from many many places. Attending university for friends is not a valid reason to attend imo.
Likewise, if one's opinion is that the point of university is to get an education, you could just as equally counter with "well, you can get an education from many places". And frankly, it's much easier to recreate the educational aspects of a university than the social aspects. I was a hopeless teenager coasting apathetically through life, and attending university got me to break out of my mold and learn how to socialize, set life goals, and be a functioning human being. I wouldn't trade that time for anything.