ANSWERS: 3
  • SATs are a crappy gauge anyway. Aptitude is supposed to correlate with success. If success in higher education is ultimately measured by GPA, then high school GPA should be the most confident predictor of that. Socioeconomic status, if anything, has a very weak positive correlation, not a strong negative correlation, so it's a moronic idea from that perspective. If they want to encourage people of lower socioeconomic status to be more successful, they should teach more practical courses in high school, like how to fix a broken credit score, how to move where the job opportunities are without any savings, and how to not mess up your life in the first place. All this will likely accomplish is getting more poor people into crippling student debt so they can study whatever subjects aren't too difficult (about half of which don't have any job opportunities to offer, and the other half are in careers that are already glutted and underpaid).
    • Archie Bunker
      I agree. Giving someone "credit" because their parents are poor is no way to gauge whether or not someone will do better than anyone else. And I agree 100% about practical courses. We don't need advanced algebra, we need to go back to HomeEc classes where kids are taught the basics of writing a check or balancing their accounts. Or maybe cursive. The student debt, in my opinion, is created by the colleges and the government, who make these kids think that taking on an $80,000 loan for a bachelor's degree in Women's Studies will benefit them when they're looking for a job. Guiding some of them into the services industries would be much more beneficial. An electrician makes pretty good money nowadays.
    • Linda Joy
      Construction will always be in demand here. As well as mechanics and HVAC. Food services may be turning more toward kiosks and automated sandwich preparation. Which, IMO is a good idea! From a managerial standpoint you have better portion control and automated sanitation. You can never predict what a human will do, especially if they think they're worth $15.hr and getting paid half that!
    • bostjan the adequate 🥉
      I don't personally care about cursive. It seems to me like it's importance was largely oversold in third grade. Unless you have pen pals who write you letters, you'll probably never write anything in cursive than another human being will have to read, anyway. Skilled trades with wide necessity are a great career choice nowadays: electrician, mechanic (automotive, HVAC, etc.), plumber, and so forth. Carpentry and bricklaying probably aren't going to be going away in this generation, but those can suffer if the economy sputters out. Jobs reliant on manufacturing probably will become very rare in the next 30-40 years, though, with automation getting more and more reach, but those automated production robots will still need mechanics and electricians and plumbers to keep them working.
    • bostjan the adequate 🥉
      ...and that's not to downplay the importance careers like Doctor, Lawyer, Engineer, or Scientific Researcher have or will have on future society. But many career paths in those industries do have a bit of a glut of workforce right now, compared to 30 years ago.
    • Archie Bunker
      I agree with all that. Like Linda says, with kiosks going up everywhere to cut down on costs (and not having to pay $15/hr to flip burgers), those entry level jobs we got as kids are going away. And even when you look at doctors, those are also in short supply. The rising costs of schooling along with the increasing cost of malpractice put a damper on things. Then you throw in government pricing and doctors can no longer afford to run their own office anymore when Uncle Sam tells you that you have to treat a Medicare patient for $35, you have to see 100 a day to be able to afford keeping the lights on. When you start tacking on government mandates in the name of diversity (there have to be so many blacks in a plumbers class) you have to start changing the bars that have been set.
    • Linda Joy
      Sputter or not there will always be hurricanes and tornadoes up through here and insurance will pay to rebuild anything covered and that means anything not paid for because if you have a loan on it you're required to have insurance on it.
    • Linda Joy
      Paper distributors are becoming a thing of the past as well. And kids don't want to work anymore.
    • bostjan the adequate 🥉
      Until insurance companies stop paying.
  • Hey, I might could get in on adversity alone! Hahaha. I really should go back to school.
  • it rnight not be a bad idea

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