It's a Dirty Job, But...

...Somebody has to tell the truth:

Mike Rowe on How Many Are Following the ‘Worst Advice in the History of the World’

Mike Rowe, widely-known from the hit TV show “Dirty Jobs” and a series of Ford commercials, appeared on The Glenn Beck Program Wednesday to discuss his efforts with the mikeroweWORKS Foundation in challenging “the absurd belief that a four-year degree is the only path to success.”

“We’re lending money we don’t have, to kids who will never be able to pay it back, for jobs that no longer exist,” he explained, echoing what he told TheBlaze TV’s Andrew Wilkow earlier this month. “That’s crazy, right? That’s what we’ve been doing for the last forty years.”

Rowe’s motivation for the work largely began with what he described as “the worst advice in the history of the world” – a poster he saw in high school challenging students to “work smart, not hard.” The picture of the person working “smart” was holding a diploma, and the person working “hard” looked miserable performing some form of manual labor.

“Today, skilled trades are in demand. In fact, there are 3 million jobs out there that companies are having a hard time filling. So we thought that skilled trades could do with a PR campaign,” he said with a smile. “So we took the same idea, went ahead and vandalized it. Work smart AND hard.’”

And with that, he unveiled a similar photo — but with the person working hard now more successful than the person simply holding a degree.

“I’m not against a college education. I’m against debt,” he said. “That was the only four letter word in my family…”
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Of the roughly three million jobs that companies are struggling to fill, Rowe said only 8 to 12 percent require a college degree.

Excellent advice.  Not everyone needs to go to college, and a good number of those actually in college shouldn't need it for the jobs they'll eventually fill, assuming they take one.

My parents paid my relatively (by today's standards) cheap State University tuition in California, and we helped our sons the same way.