Better off as a plumber?

"Forget Harvard and a 4-Year Degree, You Can Make More as a Plumber in the Long Run, Says Prof. Kotlikoff"

http://finance.yahoo.com/tech-ticke...Plumber-in-the-Long-Run,-Says-Prof.-Kotlikoff

 

It costs 80$ just to get them to come and see what the problem is.

 

If you want to be upper class (100k-250K) then college is a must. If you want to make a killing (1M+) then college does you almost no good at all, aside from giving you a small amount of personal credibilty. Stock market, Real Estate and owning your own business are the only 3 ways to make big bucks and college doesnt help with those.

 

not everyone should go to college for a white collar job.

 

many college grads end up in a career they didnt even study....

 

I dunno where you live but in TX they work for dirt cheap

I feel pity for them

 

I live in Western europe.

Apparantly it depends on where you live but over here, if you are a plummer or an electrician you can make a very decent living and job security is high.

You do have to work hard I guess and it aint no 9 to 5.

 

1) 4-4-0-1.
2) Use Craigslist for a "hack" handyman instead.

 

Strangely enough Andrew Sheppard (O'Reilly press author these days) appears to share a similar view.

After earning a first-class honor's degree in astrophysics, Andrew made the mistake of going on to earn higher degrees: a master's in astronomical technology at Edinburgh University (UK) and a master's in business administration at the London Business School (UK). This period of time and that which followed was punctuated with work as a scientific researcher at Oxford University, as a software developer, and later, as a "Rocket Scientist" at Bankers Trust Company in the financial square mile of the city of London, as well as in New York and Tokyo.

A lot of heartache and financial anguish could have been avoided throughout had he become what is clearly the optimal career choice for anyone anywhere: a master plumber. Nowhere on the planet is there a poor or unemployed master plumber! Too late to correct past follies, Andrew now makes his living writing software, books, and magazine articles.

 

Costs for a college education are low in Western Europe. In the Netherlands you pay Euro 1600 per annum, in France and Germany it's free. Recent graduates usually start out at 120 - 160% of the minimum wage so you'll earn more than most plumbers right out of college.

If you'd have take on the amount of debt that's usual for students in the US this would completely change the equation. Paying 5% interest on 50k of debt would reduce spendable income of a recent graduate by 10%, and that's before any payments towards principle reduction. Factoring in those payments would put spendable incomes at par with minimum wage for the first 10 years after graduation.