“I Won’t Make My Son Go to University” is a post by Adina J, TimelessFinance columnist and author of Blue collar / Red lipstick. |
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I come from a family of engineers. I’m a third-generation (on both sides) university graduate with two degrees of my own, and I’m married to a double degree-holder. There is barely enough wall space in our house for all that paper! And yet, when the time comes, I won’t make my son go to university.
My husband and I were both born overseas in countries where a university degree (at the time) was not only a mark of intellectual distinction, but also the only way to stay a step or two above the poverty line. (Not much farther above it, as my future post about life under communism will explain.) Our parents inculcated the need for higher education very early on; it was simply inconceivable that we would not follow in their footsteps and attend university. On my parents’ part, the goal was to get me to the point of personal and financial self-sufficiency. They assumed that, as had been the case for them, the best and only way to achieve the latter was through academia. In this, they operated under biases and assumptions that were far less applicable in our new homeland. But they meant well. And they insisted that I get a “real” degree – none of that liberal arts stuff.
Looking back, I wish they had gone further. I wish they’d sat me down for a frank discussion about things like my lifestyle expectations, the earning potentials of different professions, and some cold hard numbers – like how much money it took to run their household and plan for the future. I eventually lucked out; I stumbled into a profession in which my skills are valued and well-compensated, and managed to do it at an opportune time, as far as economic cycles go. I managed to do all this, despite having no clear idea of what the heck I wanted to do with my life. Getting my foot in the (right) door, professionally-speaking, was largely a gamble that paid off; it was only once I got my initial footing that hard work and planning really came into play in terms of career advancement. Although I’m happy in my current position, I frequently wonder about “what might have been” if I was more strategic in my initial steps down the road to adulthood. It’s a lesson I intend to discuss with my son.
He’s not even 2 years old, so we don’t yet know his natural talents and abilities. As his mother, I am required to assume that he will be extraordinarily bright and capable. Is that sufficient reason to also assume that he will benefit the most from going to university? Absolutely not.
Unless his natural inclination is towards one of the degree-dependent professions that are highly-remunerated, my advice to him will be to consider the trades. Status considerations aside, a career in the trades will likely get him to financial independence faster than any “soft degree” – and that includes any non-applied science degree. The notion I will stress, which rarely receives much consideration these days, is that your job does not have to define you.
Your job is not a means of fulfillment. A job is a job. Notwithstanding the possibility of a person having a ‘true vocation’ – merely wanting to “express your creativity” doesn’t count as a vocation – a job is nothing more than a mechanism by which you earn money. Ideally, as much money as your lifestyle requirements necessitate and some extra to help you build wealth. Life – including the pursuit of pleasure, creativity, personal development, whatever – is what happens when you’re not at work. If you can’t bear the thought of putting aside those endeavours for a whole eight hours a day (or more), then you’re going to have some tough choices – if not brutal sacrifices – to make.
Here’s the thing. Jobs that are easy, fun, and non-demanding are, as required by the laws of economics, difficult to come by and poorly remunerated. It’s simple: everyone wants those jobs. There is no reason for these jobs to pay well because the supply of eligible candidates is nearly endless. By and large, jobs that pay well are jobs that few people can do and few people want to do. If your primary concern is living a comfortable, well-appointed life, those are the jobs you should focus on. And if your primary concern is an easy, fun job, then please don’t whine about how unfair it is that you can’t also have a well-appointed lifestyle. Compromises – it’s what adults do.
(Editor Joe’s Note: The aforementioned laws of economics explain why Canada has a endemic oversupply of teachers. For one year of jumping through hoops (a.k.a. a B.Ed.) almost any graduate from a Liberal Arts program can qualify for teaching — a highly paid, relatively easy job. But the majority of Teachers’ College grads can no longer get jobs because of this significant oversupply. The harshness of life in Canada’s far north, on the other hand, means almost any teacher can get a job with the sacrifice of living in a desolate, challenging environment. It’s quite telling that most would-be teachers won’t make the sacrifice of leaving their comfort zones — even though this sacrifice would mean they could practice their supposed ‘true calling’.)
In summary, and much to the probable consternation of my parents, I won’t make my son go to university in 17 years’ time. What I will do is ask him to take a significant step into adulthood by making an informed decision about his own (financial) future. The “informed” component of the decision is my responsibility as his parent.
You’re saying that allowing your kids to have a high school education is a viable option?
There is no ‘frank discussion’ at 18. They don’t know what the next 45 years of their worklife will bring. Parents do.
You can’t ‘make’ them go to university, but you can set some pretty strong expectations. if the expectation is that ‘whatever they like/want to do’ is a viable alternative i.e. a high school education, then you’re limiting their options when they’re older. A doctor can be a doctor and earn a good living, or a doctor can quit and do something else. Someone without higher education is likely stuck doing whatever it is that they fell into.
Suggesting teens pick something they ‘like’ isn’t looking deep enough. I’ve seen teens encouraged to get an education based on ‘something they have a passion for’. A university degree later, they’re living at home working at the car factory. How is that living the dream?
An 18 year old with a high school education is unlikely to even get the old traditional job in the trades, because the trades need a college education and the colleges are pretty much doing university level stuff too. What are your kids going to do without a higher education – live their dreams while working the late shift at Tim Hortons for the rest of their life?
Teens need to be strongly encouraged to go on to higher education of some type, in a field that they’re interested in AND one that has a reasonable basis for giving them earning opportunity. If you’re just spending money on them doing something they enjoy, you might as well let them go party in Europe for a year. And then come back and get the job at Tim Hortons.
I’m sorry, I think you missed the point of my post. Of course, we will encourage him to get as much education as he is capable of benefitting from. I’m just going to expect more from him than to say ‘yeah, I’ll go to university for some random Arts degree with no plan for how to translate that into a viable career”. If that’s the only option he is willing to consider for a university education, then yes – I will certainly not subsidize it and I will push for an alternative, including taking a year (or two) off and figuring out that working at Tim Hortons is not a long-term career plan.
And I certainly plan to have a comprehensive discussion about all of the aspects of this issue with my son, and ALL of his options (including university, college, trade school, etc.). Mindlessly pushing your kid to go to university when they have no idea about how to make something from that 4 years (and tens of thousands of dollars of tuition) is just as short-sighted as being completely laissez-faire. Which I am certainly not.
I couldn’t agree more! I am a woman and have worked in skilled trades (I’m a Tool & Die Maker) for close to 30 years. There are still very few women working in skilled trades, at least in my geographic area (Ontario). I tried to encourage my own daughter to get into the field but after giving it a try for a couple of years she decided it wasn’t for her. I don’t understand why so few people encourage their children to persue these careers. The money is great, and the work can be interesting, enjoyable and rewarding. Somehow we need to get rid of the stigma of working with one’s hands as being menial.
Neat, my Dad was a T&D and went into teaching. The trades have excellent potential. Ontario’s manufacturing may be dying a slow death but the demand for trades still exists; worst case scenario: move to Alberta and get rich.
You’re exactly right about the stigmatization of working with one’s hands. It’s like each generation expects better for the next and, for some reason, the Baby Boomers seem to think “better” is staring at a computer in an office as a “knowledge worker”.
Yeah,but you’re not going to just drop out of high school and become a succesful tool and die maker. It’s going to take college edumication, and as I noted, the college educations these days are becoming indistinguishable from university educations.
I guess my bone is with the title of the article. It seems to imply post-secondary education isn’t a big push. It needs to be. Whether it’s college or university, I’m not so sure I see the big difference anymore. You can become a nurse with a college degree or a university degree for example and while there are some differences in the practical application I’m sure, in the end you’ve still got a career as a nurse. You don’t have that career as a nurse if education stops at high school.
I also question the premise of encouraging them to do something they ‘like’ or have passion for. After 20 years of working, everything is just a job anyway. But you’ll like it a lot more if it’s high paying. the ‘like’ we have when we’re 18 doesn’t translate well into strong career choices.
Make the money first. Then you can do what you ‘like’ outside the 40 hour workweek.
heck, I wanted to become a programmer at 18. Guess what, I suck as a programmer
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Again, my article does not suggest that an 18-year old should make career decisions based on what he “likes”. On the contrary:
“Your job is not a means of fulfillment. A job is a job. Notwithstanding the possibility of a person having a ‘true vocation’ – merely wanting to “express your creativity” doesn’t count as a vocation – a job is nothing more than a mechanism by which you earn money. Ideally, as much money as your lifestyle requirements necessitate and some extra to help you build wealth. Life – including the pursuit of pleasure, creativity, personal development, whatever – is what happens when you’re not at work. If you can’t bear the thought of putting aside those endeavours for a whole eight hours a day (or more), then you’re going to have some tough choices – if not brutal sacrifices – to make.”
I’m not sure how much more bluntly than that I could have put it
That is very cool! I completely understand about that stigma, as it was very much a part of my culture growing up. If I hadn’t seen so many university grads in the last decade struggle to find rewarding and even moderately lucrative careers, I might still be buying into that whole idea. But I think lots of people are finally starting to see the light that a university degree, in and of itself, isn’t magic. Not all university degrees are equal (I’m pretty sure lots of the baristas at Starbucks have some kind of degree), and to make something out of them you also need personal motivation, ambition and common sense.
Neither of my parents went to university. My older brother and only full sibling did not go to university. I was not encouraged or discouraged by my family to go on to university.
That said, I knew I wanted to go to university when I was about 6 years old. I wanted to be an accountant as an adult when I was 14 (I *loved* money and wanted to work with it for a living). Now I have a Masters degree and a Professional Designation (will be 2 designations as of November 1 2012 and a 3rd one next year as I’m taking night classes) and yet none of this was because of my parents “making” me do anything as your headline suggests.
Sadly, I truly believe that something very early on, either genetics or nurture, determines a lot of what we would call success in a person (see the Marshmallow Tests and dozens of similar studies). If a toddler is a little jerk who cannot delay gratification, is selfish, stubborn, stupid and constantly acting out against teachers/parents at 3 or 4, the odds are very high he’s going to end up an unsuccessful stupid selfish jerk in highschool and then as an adult be a failure too.
You wrote “He’s not even 2 years old, so we don’t yet know his natural talents and abilities.” I’d look up what you can tell about a person’s future when they are 2 or 3. You might be surprised.
Sorry if the tone of this isn’t all that pleasant, I’m just irked by anyone assuming they can “make” or “not make” their 18+ year old children do anything they do/don’t want to do. They’ll do what they want when they become teenagers. You can only love them and support their choices.
My Dad definitely encouraged me to get an education beyond highschool. Not necessarily university — but like Adina is talking about, he gave me the facts of life. I was free to get whatever education I wanted (nobody in my family was going to pay for it anyway). Toward the end of school, I’d say he intensely advocated for university, simply because he identified that I’m an extremely strong student. But that’s not to say he wasn’t astute, he encouraged my brother to become an industrial electrician because of its career prospects.
If you think that parents can’t “make” their kids take a certain course of study, you’re wrong. I’ve seen the results of parents forcing their kids to attend university, even when they don’t want to. The average teenager is pretty dependent. It’s absolutely possible to make MOST teenagers go to university — parental pressure, filling out apps for them, threats related to money or housing or both, refusal to sign an OSAP form if they’re not going into a certain program, etc. But if you’re saying that the results of such extreme pressure can be disastrous, then you’re absolutely right. I’ve seen parents do this. Anecdotally, I can say it creates resentment, leads to a higher rate of dropping out etc.
I think I may be a bit more tilted toward “nurture” on the “nature versus nurture” scale. Obviously each person is born with a different hand of cards — but saying this determines so much is surely selling your own accomplishments short. I think parents can strongly influence their children’s ambitions, skills, achievement and locus of control. I think the latter psychological trait is by far one of the most important in determining success. I do think, however, that such psychological traits are established very early in life. By the time you hit kindergarten, you have a personality that will likely be stable for the rest of your life.
For the record, when I left high school I either wanted to be an accountant or a lawyer. I got a 99% in introductory accounting but realized I didn’t really like it. Obviously I took more and performed well — both because it was a BBA requirement and because being able to work with/analyze numbers is essential to success. But I just didn’t really like it. I also found out that law school costs a ton of money, and there’s no guaranteed payback (and the payback comes only with an insane non-work/life balance). I wrote my LSAT cause it was a backup, but didn’t intend on going (kind of dumb to work so hard and pay a couple hundred bucks for something you don’t actually want to do but I was a less wise).
Saying that you can only love them and support their choices is fatalistic. Of course, love your kids unconditionally, but swim for shore by guiding them. I think Adina’s thesis clearly recognizes she can’t “make” her kids do anything, “What I will do is ask him to take a significant step into adulthood by making an informed decision about his own (financial) future. The “informed” component of the decision is my responsibility as his parent.” But it’s a lot more hopeful.
Yeah, I was a lot more willful as a teenager than most. I paid for my own school, took two part time jobs in highschool and never asked for a dime or moved home again once I finished highschool. I wasn’t going to do a darn thing I didn’t want to do, whether they tried to make me or not. Like you said, I mean more that if you attempt to “make” your adult children (18+) do something they don’t want to do, you’re not going to have a happy outcome. And you’ve produced spineless, dependent children to boot, which sucks. But yes, some children just will not be made to do anything once they are adults (myself and all my siblings included) unless they want to do it.
Here’s the thing: parenthood doesn’t end at some arbitrary age – not even when the kid becomes a (legal) adult. (It also doesn’t begin when the kid is 5, or 10 or 15 or any other arbitrary age.) I am going to be there along the whole way to make sure that he learns the skills to become a responsible, self-sufficient adult … and beyond, I will be there to offer any support I can. That doesn’t mean that I have to agree with everything he chooses, and that I cannot offer a counterpoint if I think there is a valid one he should consider. It also doesn’t mean that I make his choices for him.
I will not be “making” my son go to university or not go to university. I will try to make sure he is equipped to make that decision on an informed basis, and that I present any considerations that he might otherwise miss in his analysis.
I think it’s great that you had a strong sense of what you wanted to do with your life so early on. From personal experience, that is the exception not the norm. My husband was like you; I, along with most other people I know, was not. For someone who does not have a true vocation (as you do), more parental guidance might be needed because otherwise there might be a lack of long-term, real-world perspective in the decision-making process.
Great post. All my life I was expected to go to university. I didn’t see any alternative options. Nobody said that college or trades or whatever else was even an option. Well, I went. For 2 years and what do I have to show for it? Nothing because I wasn’t ready and wasn’t educated on the options.
Expectations are 100% necessary. When I have kids I won’t just let them do “whatever” or “follow their dreams” but I’m not going to force them to go to university. I want them to have a realistic view of what to expect and I want to help them make reasonable smart goals by educating them on what possibilities are available to them.
Why not encourage both university *and* vo-tech? A certified code welder with a business degree, for example, is a rare commodity.
While I value your opinion, I respectfully submit you are completely off the mark. I come from a family of tradespeople: my grandfather was a master carpenter from Belgium and both my father and uncle are electricians and both have more than six figure incomes. Both my father and uncle pushed everyone of their children to go to University. Both my brother and I are lawyers. My brother has is a NAIT Forestry Technician before he did his B.Sc. in Forestry at the UofA and we both are both practicing lawyers with UofA law degrees and we live within two hours of the Fort McMurray oilpatch. We are in business for ourselves and most of our client work the Patch (as they say) and make far more than us. However, with the trades comes a rough and tumble lifestyle, living away from home, eating camp food. Yes, in the 1970s my father and uncle made over $100,000 per year working for Bectel building Syncrude and then for GCOS and then for Syncrude and Suncor before contracting out on their own. Both will tell you camp life is no way to live. Now, many trades do not work camp jobs, some work in mills, some work for themselves, some work in the city. However, whether your are a plumber, a carpenter or a electrician, ladders are involved. Guess what, when you are 50-55 and your shoulders, knees, hips and back are shot, what do you do then. Sorry, I have seen the trades, I have worked them as an electrical apprentice for many years, I have done the long drives to a mill job and I have ranched. I dont miss the cold and the rain and the snow and the gumbo. My wife is a stay-at-home mome, she drive and platinum escalade with onstar, we have two houses, we will pay for our childrens university education, buy each of them a house and retire multimillionaires, why, because we have university degrees.