I agree.

This article is very light on content and I'm kinda surprised something this banal and content-less even made it to an actual publication.

Also, the guy's son graduated high school two years ago, he's 20-21 years old, practically everyone is happy at that age, let's hear about his life satisfaction at 40. That's ignoring the fact that two years is hardly enough time to evaluate the long term outcome of a major life decision.

To be clear, I don't think the author's son will grow up to be miserable, like the parent pointed out, most people don't have a college degree and most people aren't miserable. But this should be obvious.

But then

"It is better to be a human being dissatisfied than a pig satisfied; better to be Socrates dissatisfied than a fool satisfied. And if the fool, or the pig, is of a different opinion, it is only because they only know their own side of the question."

   -- J S Mill

I think as time goes on, I am learning that humans are dissatisfied because they no longer know how to live the life of a human, where (wild) pigs are fully capable of living the life of a pig. The big eye-opener for me was "The Story of B", by Daniel Quinn. Say what you want about the completeness or quality of its anthropology, it has touched on an ineffable fact that we are constantly trying to use more of what is bad for us to try to make it good.

>he's 20-21 years old, practically everyone is happy at that age

lol

This is par for the course for this particular publication

"But he did have plans: He found a job across the country on a wheat farm in central Idaho. This wasn’t a hobby or a whim. He became part of a community of honest, hardworking people. He worked from dawn until well past dark through his first harvest, driving a combine, fixing fences, and picking rocks out of the soil. In the winter he found a job apprenticing to an expert cabinetmaker, and started his own small business hauling firewood.

"After his second harvest, with money in the bank, our son joined the Marine Corps, a dream he had had for several years. He finished boot camp and is now at infantry school in North Carolina. He wakes up at 4 a.m., is tired all the time—and is happy. He is, as a translation of the second-century Saint Irenaeus puts it, “a man fully alive.”"

Happiness is possible without college, but geeze, I think I'll pass on that road.

(On the other hand, I know people who have taken roughly that road; he discovered he didn't like ranching (and it didn't pay squat) and joined the Navy, spent 8 years and two deployments in. Seems to have worked out pretty well. On the other hand, he recently completed a bachelors at a for-profit school (that mostly exists to absorb GI-bill benefits, AFAICT) and wants to go back for a masters for some reason.)

That's interesting because that lifestyle doesn't sound all that bad to me. It's not for everyone, but a lot of people really enjoy working outside with their hands and find sitting in an office going to meetings to be incredibly stifling.

I had this debate with myself when I was younger because I really like physical work but am probably better at knowledge work. The biggest reasons I work an office job is that they tend to pay much better than other work and it's easy to end up in a physical job that can take a bad toll on your body over time.

"And one would hope the latter is true, since 2/3 of the US population does not attend college."

Not to mention the vast majority of humanity! One can get a lot out of a "college education," but there is a lot more to life than that.

Hard to blame a third-generation academic for being surprised that happiness is possible without college.