Lots of interesting thoughts and comments, such as;
'Do what you love'
'Do what you are good at'
'Life is more than money'
For me, it took a few years to figure out what I really loved doing. It took me getting a four year degree, time in the Navy, then going to work for my father. Based on what I have learned over the past 59 years, I would still go to school but for a business degree focusing on entrepreneurship. Not sure they even existed when I was in school.
A friend's nephew went to a trade school in the late '90s for diesel mechanic. When he graduated he had a job waiting making close to $100,000 per year. If he was willing to work on the North Slopes in Alaska, he could have made close to $150,000 a year working about 8 months. However, my son went to school and graduated as a software engineer. He worked for the school's physics department doing networking, computer set up, etc. He graduated with no debt, and a bunch of money in the bank. All because he spent his high school years working with computers at my work, then two more years after that before heading to college.
My daughter got her BS in animal sciences, worked on a dairy for two years, than was offered a position at Montana State to get her masters under a full ride program that also paid her as a TA. She is back doing what she loves on a dairy with a masters and is in the top 5 for schooling at the dairy. Yet she doesn't make near what she should based on her masters, but is working with cows, which she loves.
The decision for trade v college is more about the person than anything else. You can make both work well, if you make good choices once on your path and work hard.
My father graduated high school only because the local principal made him an offer he couldn't pass up. Dad went into the Navy at 17, dropping out of school, in 1944. When he returned home in '46, the principal told him that if he would come back to school for his final year he would make sure he received his diploma and all he had to do was keep my Dad's younger brother in line. Tough job but someone had to do it. Dad worked hard his whole life, started a company at 56 and when he died was well off and did what he loved doing.
Brains will only take you so far, just as hard work will only do so much. Marry brains, passion and hard work with a dusting of luck and you end up like Buffet, Gates and others.
I am in love with Montana. For other states I have admiration, respect, recognition, even some affection, but with Montana it is love.... It seems to me that Montana is a great splash of grandeur....the mountains are the kind I would create if mountains were ever put on my agenda. Montana seems to me to be what a small boy would think Texas is like from hearing Texans. Montana has a spell on me. It is grandeur and warmth. Of all the states it is my favorite and my love.
John Steinbeck