Let's say you are 18 years old and you just graduated high school. You have two options:
1. Go to college.. the sky's the limit
2. Family member offers to juice you into a city job. Office work, $24/hr to start, pension, healthcare, etc..
After you choose one or the other, the other option is no longer available. If you choose go work for the city, you can never go to college and vice versa.
Which would you choose?
This really depends on the individual -- their drive, ambition, creativity, (inter)personal skills, networking abilities, etc (among other qualities), not to mention what the diploma/degree is for.
I've known several people who have graduated with a fairly standard degree like a Bachelors in English/History/Art/Social Sciences and can't find work, because a degree like that isn't the same ticket into a job like say getting a college/technical diploma in the trades, or say mechanical engineering/design or tool and die making. If you can graduate a technical program like that obviously you have the technical abilities and knowledge to do the job, so as long as you aren't a bumbling idiot in the interview you've got a good chance of getting the job. If you graduate with a Bachelors in English or General Arts and realize you have no idea what you want to do, you could be looking for work for awhile, because there's probably somebody with more specialized training or more experience than you applying for the same job.
I've seen tons of intelligent people with a university degree, but they were followers (not leaders), and were stuck in entry level positions, waiting for people to tell them what to do next. That said, I'm the Quality Supervisor at a food production plant, and the plant manager has a Bachelor of General Arts. But he's in his early 30s and looks like he could go to the top of the company because of his knowledge of the business, and his drive and ambition are unmatched. Most people who go to university for a generalized degree don't see themselves managing factory, but this guy graduated, found something he was interested in and was good at, and went from a supervisor to plant manager within a few years. He's well on his way to a senior management level, overseeing several production facilities in the company.
Also, do companies in the US not offer pension programs or something? I put 3% of my annual salary into a retirement plan, and my company throws in an additional 6% for a total of 9% of my annual wage going into a retirement plan, which is basically invested in money market/low risk mutual funds. I don't have to participate, but to set aside 3% of my pay to get a free, additional 6% invested for my retirement is a no brainier. The program is even extended to the unionized, hourly workers working on the production lines.
