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A comment on Student Debt Payback Far Worse Than Believed. Parent comment

Re:Student Debt Payback Far Worse Than Believed by themgt on Thursday January 19, 2017 @07:27AM (#13435219)
Not to be a jerk, but I have trouble understanding how someone obviously intelligent can make such an oblivious statement. To be a successful self-taught software engineer and quant you likely have a IQ a couple standard deviations above average and work in one of the few fields where someone can succeed through intelligence and hard work with little need for credentials.

"Quit school and become software engineer" is good advice for probably about 1-3% of the population. Granted the alternative shouldn't be dropping $200k on a humanities degree, but what is your "no brainer" solution for everyone else? A degree has long been a pathway to the middle class / white collar work.

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Re:Student Debt Payback Far Worse Than Believed by BoorishBears on Thursday January 19, 2017 @09:30AM (#13436006)
Trades? I'm a self-taught programmer who started getting paid at "market rate" for mid-level dev a year before my colleagues graduated. For me coding is pretty much a "trade" and boot camps are like "mass apprenticeships".

I'd imagine other trades have similar avenues of employment as well. Maybe if we stop trying to convince people that a 4 year college is the only prestigious career path (even 2 years of community college + 2 years of a 4 year gets a stink eye sometimes!) they'll stop trying to force themselves into inescapable debt.

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