Dr. Peter Boghossian is a Founding Faculty Fellow at the University of Austin and was previously a full-time faculty member in the department of philosophy at Portland State University. In a recent interview he declared that he would rather send his daughter to trade school than college. I agree. If an ambitious teen wants a bright and productive future, that future lies in the trades. Go to trade school, young man!
Boghossian said, “I don’t think you should really send your kids to any universities. Well, my daughter is at the age where she will go to college soon and I told her, ‘Don’t go to college. Become an electrician.’”
Wow! This is a PhD egghead, professional philosopher, steeped in academic liberal arts nonsense and he’s urging is progeny to seek out the trades? What gives?
“I don’t think anyone should go to college,” added Boghossian, “and I never would have imagined ten years ago I would have ever said that. My main argument would be, it is better to stare at a wall for four hours than to practice something that will lead you away from reality for four hours. College teaches you things as a system that the fundamental values that the overwhelming majority of colleges – they’re just out of alignment with reality and they’re in their own little reality bubbles. It’s better to do nothing than to learn things that are false.”
This is a stunning indictment of the academy. And, it’s on the mark. It seems to be routine for students to shout down guest speakers they dislike at major universities, with the most recent to make the news being Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals Judge Kyle Duncan who was invited to lecture at Stanford Law School.
Stanford alumnus, Victor Davis Hanson described what happened, writing, “The judge never even got the chance. The law school students drowned him out. They flashed obscene placards. They screamed that he was ‘scum.’ One yelled he hoped the judge’s own daughters would be raped.”
It went down from there. Unfortunately, it’s not unique. With the increasing woke culture, universities are being transformed from environments for learning and discourse to venues of indoctrination. Eventually, students get degrees and are forced enter the real world, leaving the academic bubble Boghossian described. In the real world, reality strikes. Graduates learn that their Aggrieved Studies degrees hardly quality them for a job as a barista. They face six figures of debt from their four plus years in a collegiate half-way house to adulthood and no marketable skills. Reality strikes hard. And reality doesn’t have a safe space they can run to.
Learning a trade does not eliminate the possibility of a sheepskin for those from families where a college degree is expected, if not demanded.
Contrast this with trade school. Graduate from a trade school with minimal debt and find an array of well-paying jobs with lots of advancement possibilities awaiting. By the time the trade school grad’s college bound peers enter the job market, the tradesman likely has little debt, a late model or new truck, and a place of his own. The Aggrieved Studies major moves into Mom’s basement.
Learning a trade does not eliminate the possibility of a sheepskin for those from families where a college degree is expected, if not demanded. I worked construction off and on during college, as did many of my classmates. Others went to work in the oil patch, where a semester of work would pay for the next year of college. Not only did these jobs help fund college, but they taught the value of work and wages, resulting in more serious students. Accordingly, most of them chased practical degrees in technology, engineering, or business.
Working in the trades provides the opportunity for those inclined to start their own businesses down the line if they are so inclined. The seven and eight figure buyouts contractors are receiving from private equity illustrates the opportunity.
Working in the trades provides the opportunity for those inclined to start their own businesses down the line if they are so inclined. The seven and eight figure buyouts contractors are receiving from private equity illustrates the opportunity. Plus, there is no reasonable measure of the value of controlling your own destiny as a business owner versus living under the “reductions in force” Sword of Damocles that hangs over every corporate employee. Besides, if worse comes to worst for the tradesman, he will always have the trade to fall back upon.
If a high school student wants a good, lucrative career where he (or she, of course) does not need to accumulate a mountain of debt while being indoctrinated in a woke philosophy of failure, the trades beckon. If a high school student wants to control his own destiny in life, the trades beckon.
In 1865, Horace Greeley wrote in the New York Daily Tribune, “Washington is not a place to live in.The rents are high, the food is bad, the dust is disgusting and the morals are deplorable. Go West, young man, go West and grow up with the country.”
Go to trade school, young man. Go to trade school and keep this country running.
You can watch the Boghossian interview yourself at https://youtu.be/87dUU2_fROc. Maybe you can send a copy to an ambitious high school student who is pondering their next step in life.
If you went to trades school and haven’t gone to business school, you can still get the help you need from the Service Roundtable and Service Nation Alliance. You know how to turn a wrench, the Service Roundtable will help you turn a profit. Learn more at www.ServiceRoundtable.com or call 877.262.3341.