Want to make bank without the bank breaking you? Anglo-Saxon poetry enthusiast Nick Pell weighs trades against degrees on this week's Skeptical Sunday! On This Week's Skeptical Sunday, We Discuss: While college graduates earn more on average ($77,000/year) compared to trade school graduates ($67,000/year) and high school graduates ($47,000/year), this comes with significant student loan debt — averaging $37,000 for a bachelor's degree. There's a severe shortage of skilled trade workers in America, with examples like a deficit of 500,000 plumbers and an anticipated shortage of 1.9 million manufacturing jobs, suggesting strong job security and demand in these fields. Advanced degrees show diminishing returns — a master's degree costs an average of $65,000 and only provides about a 16% salary increase, while a doctorate costs $127,000 for grad school alone with relatively modest income gains. The college versus trade school decision isn't purely financial — it should factor in personal aptitudes, desired lifestyle, and how someone wants to spend roughly one-third of their adult life working. There are multiple paths to success, and you can make informed choices by: taking a "gap year" to work and explore interests, completing general education requirements at more affordable community colleges, researching program costs versus expected salaries, and considering apprenticeships which have doubled since 2013 and offer paid training opportunities. Connect with Jordan on Twitter, Instagram, and YouTube. If you have something you'd like us to tackle here on Skeptical Sunday, drop Jordan a line at [email protected] and let him know! Full show notes and resources can be found here: jordanharbinger.com/1102 And if you're still game to support us, please leave a review here — even one sentence helps! Consider including your Twitter handle so we can thank you personally! This Episode Is Brought To You By Our Fine Sponsors: jordanharbinger.com/deals Sign up for Six-Minute Networking — our free networking and relationship development mini course — at jordanharbinger.com/course! Subscribe to our once-a-week Wee Bit Wiser newsletter today and start filling your Wednesdays with wisdom! Do you even Reddit, bro? See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
What is the difference in earnings between college graduates and trade school graduates?
Oh, that is really a massive amount. That's a crazy amount of jobs. Statistics about growth percentage can be misleading, right? The sheer numbers are just bananas.
Yeah, it's super misleading. I think a lot of us, you know, where do I go? The trades of college. How do you want to spend a third of your waking life? What are your natural skills, aptitudes, tastes? How much do you value money over free time? My old man did not become an ironworker because he loved the trade of ironworking. He did it because he had two kids and alimony.
Alimony, does that still exist? I guess it probably does. I know all about it. It's another skeptical Sunday. Yeah. So I live a pretty inexpensive and thrifty life because money just doesn't really motivate me that much. I like having free time. I like having time to spend with my kid. I like having time to paint, play music, go to the gym. And it's not that one's better than the other.
I totally don't think that it is. But you just have to ask yourself, like, what do you value?
One thing you and I talked about when we first discussed doing this episode was the phenomenon of people getting advanced degrees, right? A lot of people are going, okay, great, college, undergrad, but what if I get a master's or if I get a PhD? All we've talked about so far is a basic bachelor's versus high school versus trade schools.
Do we know much about people who are getting more advanced degrees like yours truly, professional degrees or otherwise?
Okay, so this is where it starts getting tricky. Okay, go on. So people with PhDs on the whole earn more than people with master's degrees, but they earn less than people with professional degrees, which I'm guessing means doctors and lawyers. I mentioned those practitioners. My mother was a speech and language pathologist, and you need a pretty specialized master's of science to get into that.
So maybe that too.
Yeah, PhDs and professional degrees. I always thought that was kind of like trade school for nerds, basically, but I guess, as per our previous conversation here, not really the same thing. Also, I didn't know our moms had the same job. What a coincidence that is.
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