Why germany is kicking our ass.

[piercehawkeye45]

I had a conversation about this with my roommate the other day. My friend agreed that the expectation to go to college has created a social stigma against manual labor jobs. Most people with a college degree will not "lower" themselves to that type of work even though those jobs can pay much better than most jobs that "require" college degrees. This has caused a shortage in those fields and part of the problem mentioned in articles above.

What my friend added, something I didn't think of, is that the expectation to go to college actually is hurting the economy. More and more people are spending the first five to ten years of their lives paying back college loans with a job that probably doesn't even use their degree instead of spending it on other things that could help the economy.

Funny thing is, both my roommate and I are engineers and there is a very good chance both our younger brothers, both going to a two year college, will get paid more than us. Yet, there is a stigma against their jobs...