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Comment by est31 | Hacker News Reader

The percentages of university graduates for an age cohort are growing yearly in Germany as well. 25.5% in 2008, 31.5 in 2018. The US is just further ahead in this trend. It has similar effects in Germany. Brace yourself, Akademikerproletariat is coming :).

https://www.datenportal.bmbf.de/portal/de/Tabelle-1.9.5.html

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Tricky question - because the entire discussion about social “fairness” and “stepping up in social ladder” in Germany happens around “likelihood to have a university degree”. Now, pragmatically speaking: the apprenticeship and university system in Germany allows people to flexibly qualify themselves for (well) paying jobs at minimal cost. There is another truth to that people rather want “not to be spoke out”: not everybody has the “right” qualifications for completing an apprenticeship or university degree. Having taught at an applied science university it sometimes was beyond my comprehension how Germany tries to “bump up university graduates at all costs”. But to be fair: I don’t think many of those people would have succeeded at an apprenticeship either...

I personally know several(!) instances where “the smart and brilliant sibling” went for university, the “quiet one went for an apprenticeship” - and the pay off has been substantially more beneficial for the people taking the apprenticeship road even though the “college siblings” didn’t exactly fail or end up unemployed... I know it’s anecdotical.

But in Germany, they seem to push a rather weird political agenda in this direction which doesn’t help anybody.

> the “college siblings” didn’t exactly fail or end up unemployed... I know it’s anecdotical.

Since there are financially unwise college degrees (social work) and on the other end those with a mostly guaranteed, very decent minimal guaranteed income and incredible potential (medicine), this is an unfair comparison.

Your not going to get a job in social work without a degree

That would not surprise me. One might be able to recover the cost of the education at a state university. I suspect the return on investment would significantly lower at a private school with higher tuition. My daughter teaches at a high school with many students from lower income households. One of the exercizes the class did was to have each student pick a career that interested them. They had to find the cost of the degree and the median salary. Next they were to make a budget that for their living expenses based on that median salary, including repayment of the student loans. It was an eye-opening experience for these students.

Higher education can be a ticket to a great career. It can be a cost it takes a lifetime to repay, especially if penalties and interest accrues.

Sure. But one studied business (and got a decent paying job) and the other one went for a PhD in chemistry. Now: two siblings were female and the one going for “becoming a secretary at a large automotive company” like literally did not know what to spend all the bonuses and salary on - she was living at home until getting married and saved rent as well. She can always work part-time in her job, probably has a “large house-down-payment” on her bank account and is in a really relaxed situation. Studying 5 years (paying rent, not having income,...) and the fact that university graduates “have a harder time getting into that large company and even get less paid than factory workers” was not exactly obvious at the beginning. Due to the workplace protection in place and pretty strong union representation in “blue collar jobs” it often doesn’t make much sense for women to pursue a university degree from a financial perspective. I am very frustrated about that.

Second example - well, the PhD postdoc survives 2-year contract over 2-year contract while his younger brother just loads just more cash than he can carry.

This does not hold everywhere - both “younger siblings” work at a large industrial company that pays well. It’s just 100x easier to get a job that is paying well with mediocre grades and an uncle than with an engineering, business or science “summa cum laude” university degree.

Really crazy how that turned out. Many more similar stories from my siblings and their class-mates.

The academic route has always been a crapshoot. Most of my professors from the Chemistry Department at Florida State were still there and active when my daughter went there for a Meteorology masters decades later. The cartoonist, Jorge Cham, parodies this in the Ph.D. Comics books and movies.

One must plan a technical career carefully. I was able to get an internship at Kodak's Tennessee plant after my junior and senior years. I originally wanted to study inorganic chemistry. I worked for scientists who both were Ph.D. polymer chemists. They showed me the American Chemical Society's study on chemist occupations. 80% of chemists worked on polymers at some time during their career. I applied for both types of programs, and the UMASS Amherst Polymer Science program provided a research assistance-ship that paid my way. it was a great experience and I had a fantastic Ph.D. Advisor - who is now an emeritus professor at Rice University. I stopped interviewing after I had 5 job offers. Employment fluctuates with the economy. Some fields are more robust than others... Do your homework before rushing into a pricey program...

Yes, I understand. Education is free in Germany. I hold a PhD. I completed my degrees with “distinction” in high paying fields, worked in investment banking, top management consulting and tech.

But honestly: if it wasn’t for like 80+h weeks straight for the past 10 years and “an increadibly lucky chance” even for me university and working in the most prestigious companies would have been a crap choice. Even without the PhD (which I was able to get done in 3 years at the top university in Germany).

I literally do not recommend university to anybody “unless they are willing to take a pay cut and understand the need to be in the top 5 percent for the next 15 years to get a shot at being as well paid as that dude doing an apprenticeship in the quality department working 35h weeks”. And again: university is free here. Not worth it really from a financial perspective for most people. Yet, the “public and political agenda is to push more people into it”

Similar story here in Canada - all my high school friends who went into blue-collar careers are doing all right.

I wonder whether it's self-correcting in some way - management-class hopefuls end up poorer than their hands-on counterparts, and these wealthier families end up having more political clout over time which balances the snobbery that got everyone to push their children into management streams in the first place...

This should be tempered by the fact that a lot of hands-on worker have to do a lot of physical work. They also have a higher risk of disability and injuries.

They also get a lot more physical exercise throughout the day on average, reducing the risk of many heart conditions, etc. That might balance that out.

Not necessarily - apprenticeships in Germany run for all kinds of jobs... Can be “pure office” as well...

My personal observation is rather: blue collar jobs (including office) are protected by unions and the company “then takes it out on university graduates that are not covered”. I am mainly talking “larger industrial companies” - that is where I grew up.

It is just so freakin easy to get an apprenticeship in comparison to getting a job with a university degree. And I am talking business/IT apprenticeship versus university counterparts. It’s not as much “those business hobos will all get unemployed and they deserve it” - it’s rather: “if you just sign up early and promise not to strive for ambition you are better off financially in a lot of cases”.

The general expectation is that blue collar jobs pay more at the beginning, and white collar jobs pay more at the end. So at 20, the white-collar college student is eating ramen and wearing thrift store clothes and the blue collar worker is already making a decent salary, driving a new car, thinking about buying a home. At 40, the white collar worker is doing well, has a house and a car and a family, and the blue collar worker is about the same. At 55, the white collar worker is in the prime of their career living comfortably, making very good money, and achieving a level of prestige while the blue collar worker is living about the same life they had at 40, but with more physical ailments slowing their working ability.

This is what has traditionally been believed and does not necessarily represent reality, but it explains the tradeoffs each route offers.

Increasingly that expectation appears to be built on some very shaky assumptions regarding lifetime income.

This is anecdotal, but a blue-collar acquaintance who studied for a 3-year power plant safety program purchased a detached home a full 7-10 years before his peers who went to university for four-year degrees. There wasn't much parental assistance involved in the home purchase.

Being able to make enough to cover a mortgage and sock some money away in an investment account can give you a financial boost that compounds over time. If you live in an expensive housing area, that boost could end up exceeding what white-collar grads net out to, 15-20 years later.

I think it's fairly easy to see this type of outcome if the major was a humanity and the trade was something like plumber, electrician, or climate control, even in the US.

The problem is, no family ever considers both to be valid options.

There are families where it's just assumed you'll go to college and no one even questions it. (They don't even stop think, wait, this gal would be a great plumber and easily make six figures as her own boss!)

There are families where college is something "extra" that's not required.

I know of no families (though I'm sure they exist) where plumber is considered an equally honorable profession as accountant or teacher.

There's a kind of social stigma attached to the trades, for want of a better word.

There are different levels of nursing in the United States. Not all of them require uni education, but they also do tasks most people would not want to do

There's actually a fundamental difference between the anglosaxon system, US/UK(Canada?) and basically all the others though which I kind of like.

In the US and UK you're considered educated once you go through school. So you can go another two years to University and become a lawyer(same with medicine, provided you can afford it). In Germany you're kind of set for life.

Engineers are not considered business people, business people can't be considered engineers. But one of my favorite startups back in the days(Basho the makers of Riak) two absolutely fantastic engineering managers I met were an english literature grad and an business school grad. Both just had a lot of interest in Computer Science.

Of course the other extreme of the equation is people that found the Fyre Festival or Theranos.

That is true, but you cannot say that this will lead to the same situation as in the US. The apprenticeship system is well established and it it just not feasible for everyone to take the time and money to study. Apprenticeships are payed. I just cannot see a baker with a M.Sc. :)

To add to that: This trend only shows that people do not want to do low-pay hands-on jobs anymore. It does not mean that universities compete with apprenticeships. Although this certainly causes the rise of bullshit study programs.

It is happening the same in germany too, you have many in germany now too which had been an Ausbildung before: Touristik, Agrarwirtschaft, Osteopathie ...

College in Germany is significantly cheaper.

though, with a suitable focus on the applied science universities (where you have to work at least 1/7 of your education in a suitable position) and dual study programs, I think, we could avoid the worst (and are I actually think).

I think some of the commerce chambers/etc. have brought this onto themselves by pushing the advantage of their paying members who have effectively turned most trades and crafts into guilds, where your only chance at getting a good job (aka being self employed) is inheriting machines and the company rolodex. [And no, you generally can't pull it off on your own, because you have to actually pay for studying to be allowed to open a business, so you are 30 years old, have no money and have to get a 200k loan for your non-hyperscaling business, while you have to pay rent or want to buy a house]

Capitalism solves the resulting supply shortage of "qualified" plumbers, carpenters et. al. by providing cheap, eastern european, DIY-style "I can do everything"-craftsmen (actually, my grandfathers both had similar sidegigs (ok, one built his and his friend's homes with them) during the "Wirtschaftswunder" and retired).

Nearly everyone who is sufficiently intelligent to pass the necessary exams then moves to university to study in the hope to get a "nice, comfortable" job. Even if they really liked their vocation. But working your ass off in the lower 10%-income bracket, while your boss buys a Porsche a year from profits you earned in a 5-person company he inherited from his father kind of sucks.

>Capitalism solves the resulting supply shortage of "qualified" plumbers, carpenters et. al. by providing cheap, eastern european, DIY-style "I can do everything"-craftsmen

You can say the same thing about software engineering. The push for easy immigration has solved the fake shortage in Germany and kept the salaries low enough to keep companies very profitable.

Given the typical scope (e.g. burning VC money) of the companies going through the effort to hire/immigrate people, there is definitely no real supply shortage for software engineers. While for plumbers, there is, even with the influx of the aforementioned service people.

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