I barely feel like an adult now!

i want her to take her time and make a good decision. but i am going to encourage her to get into some kind of voc training or college after graduating.

DD1 is most likely heading to community college in the fall, she wants to do something in the arts. I figure she can explore some more from a bit bigger selection and see how it goes, how she likes it, etc.

DD2 is only in 9th grade but is on the college prep path right not, she is looking at dual enrollment starting next year. She could in theory have her diploma and Associates at graduation if she does this. She knows what she wants and she has the mind to do it.

my oldest is almost 20. He did dual enrollement in high school and came up a few credits short of his AA degree. He could have had a full ride scholarship to local in state universities but he wasn't sure what he wanted to do at all.

So he spent a semester finishing his AA.
And then spent a little longer taking the EMT certification class because we went thru every class and certification at the local community college cause I told him stay in school and he could live at home or get a job and move out. lol

He always wanted to be a doctor as a little one, but in junior high and high school all the aptitude placement things suggested aerospace engineering or chemical engineering. But that didn't really spark his interest much.

The Emt class re-sparked his interest in doctoring people, although probably physician's assistant cause he doesn't really want to go to college for as many years as an MD requires. So now he's signed up at the local univ for pre-med starting in January.

Basically I don't care what he does, just that he does something and doesn't stagnate, and that he knows it will be easier to continue to go to college to finish what you want to finish than to do it in starts and stops. My husband likes to prod him that he didn't go directly to university and I have to remind him that he also got a certificate, dinked around working for a while before he went to college, so it's not unheard of to try a few things before settling into college and a career.

Oh my youngest is the opposite--at 15 he has everything worked out. He's going to be a physicist. Or maybe an architect. Of course based on his thoughtful lawyering to get out of trouble most of his life, I think he should check out being an attorney like his grandfather -I mean he already has the law degree certificates (he has his grandfather's name and diplomas hanging on his bedroom walls lol)

I'm biased towards college as the default (my dad was a professor so I grew up surrounded by academics, and DH is a professor too); however, it will depend on what my kids want as they grow up. They're 13yo and almost 9yo now so I'm sure it'll change.

All of this. I used to be college is not optional but I don't know what path DS will take. He wants to be a meteorologist or an air traffic controller. I think he might start at a CC and see what happens from there.

DD is definitely tracking for college but we need to see what HS bring.

going to college was the expectation of my childhood, and will also be the expectation for my children.

For sure depends on what career path they decide to follow but some form of post secondary education is expected. An education is something that can never be taken away from you.

the only expectation or demand i have on my sophomore is to not go into debt. whether she goes to college or trade school or works for a while, that is her life decision to make. i don't want her saddled with 60K in debt at the age off 22 just because she feels like she is suppose to get a bachelor's degree in something.

i took my sweet time getting my degree and i am glad i did, but i have so much debt, it really hinders how i live my life. what a scam, college loans.

I too started college and didn't finish. Once my scholarship money ran out, I wouldn't have been able to keep going anyway. Not everyone has it easy. I think people here tend to forget that. The typical thing in your town may not have been the norm for everyone and I bet you had friends who didn't go to college purely because they had to fucking support themselves. Or maybe you didn't. Maybe all your friends had perfect parents with perfect college funds. I wouldn't trade my life experience for a degree, that is for sure.

As for encouraging college in our kids, our theory has always been we help financially if they want to go for the right reasons.

yes, and i would love to help financially, but i am paying my own loans off and can't do both. my high school bestie starting working at costco in 1991 when we were 17 and still does and makes way more than me with my college degree and debt.

I think this nation needs to change the way we look at it. Many of the fresh out of college degree in hand people have no fucking idea what they are doing and someone without a degree may be much more qualified or just get how the job should be done. Degree snobbery is ridiculous.

yes, it is. i was a total snob about getting my degree. my degree is a trade. sure there was a lot of theory, which i find pretty useless for bedside nursing. am i proud of have a college degree? sure. looking back, if i could have gone to a trade school instead of university and learned the same skillset for a fraction of the cost, i would have done that.

What is degree snobbery?

When people think you don't deserve the career you have because you never went to or finished college or they think you are less because you don't have a degree. If you think it doesn't exist, it is because you have a degree and haven't experienced it.

This - I did not love college or school for that matter - I had to pay for it myself because I knew that my parents couldn't. Within a year at the Post Office I was making more than my parents ever made and my dad worked two jobs. I quit college and made a career out of it, getting into management right after probation, I worked my way up and my plan is to become an executive before I retire. And I have had to put up with the "good ol boys club" for many years!

But you're not bitter.....

I'm not. I have a friend who was a total fuck up in HS, but she is a mechanical engineer now. She is brilliant! She just didn't want to do the work in HS

If they were interested in a trade school, I'd be okay with that. They are going to college otherwise.