Tuesday, January 25, 2005

College vs. trucking school

Grumpy Old Man recommends trucking school over college:

If college costs $50K a year, the college-bound will cost $200K in four years (and it often takes longer). Meanwhile, the truckers will be earning, say $50K a year. At the end of four years, your trucker kids will be $400K ahead. And at the end of four years, most college kids will either be (a) going into occupations with mediocre pay, like teaching; (b) going to graduate school; or (c) going into rehab.

Can you really earn $50K a year right out of trucking school?

UPDATE

The comments point out that Gumpy Old Man used a best case scenario for the salary of a trucking job and a worst case scenario for the cost of a college education.

But a teaching salary is typical of the type of starting pay a college graduate might get. His point, that you have to pay a lot of money to get a college degree which doesn't lead to a starting salary any greater than you would make driving a truck, is a valid one.

The UNLV guy makes a valid point that the trucker lifestyle may be so bad that it's not worth the extra money. On the other hand, some truckers may be glad they don't have to have a boss looking over their shoulder all day micromanaging their job, and glad they don't have to deal with other annoyances of yuppie jobs like commuting and wearing uncomfortable shoes.

7 comments:

Chad said...

More if your not particular who or what you haul.

Ron Chusid said...

Certainly there are cases of some people who didn't go to college doing better than some who did. (For example, see the current installment of The Apprentice). These are the exceptions, with those going to college generally doing signficantly better than those who don't.

If many decided against college in favor of trucking school, flooding the market with truckers would also reduce their potential income.

$50,000 may sound like a lot for someone young (and for many people I realize even this is an unobtainable goal). However, I would think that someone out of school would have higher aspirations--$50,000 is not really that much money. Besides, would you really want to spend your life driving a truck?

guy in the UNLV jacket said...

Who wouldn't want to be a truck driver? There are so many advantages:
1. You get to talk on the CB radio
2. You get to sleep with how truckstop waitresses and hookers
3. You get to smoke at work
4. You get to park your truck overnight at resstops
5. You don't have to sit around the house listening to the wife nag all the time...
SWcrew this corporate shit I'm going to sign up at the American truck driving school, While I am there I am going to take a couple classes in heating and air conditioning repair

guy in the UNLV jacket said...

Who wouldn't want to be a truck driver? There are so many advantages:
1. You get to talk on the CB radio
2. You get to sleep with how truckstop waitresses and hookers
3. You get to smoke at work
4. You get to park your truck overnight at resstops
5. You don't have to sit around the house listening to the wife nag all the time...
SWcrew this corporate shit I'm going to sign up at the American truck driving school, While I am there I am going to take a couple classes in heating and air conditioning repair

R said...

My school cost $6000/yr. I made nearly $50k/yr out of college, and now make over $50k/yr.

40 hour work weeks, with more money than I know what to do with, fuck trucking school.

Ron Chusid said...

If sex is the goal (per UNLV jacket's post), I'd still recommend spending the time on a college campus instead of as a truck driver. The company will probably be better if you actually want a conversation before or after, and the risk of disease is probably much lower.

While there may be some advantages to being a truck driver (not that I saw any posted here), truck drivers are on the road all day and therefore can't keep an eye on the blogs. A serious disadvantage?

Unknown said...

Manaaging time %%desc%% that forcus on goal and plan