I waste a lot of time on Quora answering various questions on post-secondary education and politics. However I must have hit a hot button because my answer to the following question got over 25K views.

Why are there Americans that wanted or expected to be able to work in a factory for life?

Fifty years ago a high school graduate could get a job at the local GM plant, get married, buy a house and a boat, have some kids, and take the family out to dinner Friday night after the high school football game. Generations rotated through these well-paying jobs while ignoring that they were low in human capital. Globalization resulted in most of those GM plants being moved elsewhere. (Only seven percent of high school graduates went to college in the good-old-days.)

Today over forty percent of high school graduates go to college egged on by their guidance counselors and teachers. Their secondary schools have gutted vocational training and look down their noses at anyone not enrolling in college. Nobody told them there are not anywhere near enough suitable jobs for Philosophy majors.

What’s going on today with college has similarities to what happened to those factory jobs. It worked for your grandfather. It worked for your father. Why shouldn’t work it for you? Because the world has changed. (According to the Department of Labor only one in four graduate college and get a good job.)

However there is a renaissance taking place in plain sight. Instead of spending $100,000 on college and ending up working for Starbucks while making payments on your student loan, you can go to community college, invest $10,000 and become a robot technician making $50,000 per year. The potential employers can’t find trained candidates. I sat in on two classes last week. One had three students. The other had four.

Manufacturing today is not dead, dirty, or dangerous, but you do need specialized skills. There is a big disconnect in the educational system between the skills obtained and the skills needed for today’s jobs.