College or Trade School

>>16608018
Have you considered doing collage in places like EU, where the financial burden is much lighter?

>>16608110
Oh buddy, there's no way in hell I can afford traveling anywhere, especially not another country. After my bills I have enough to put away in an emergency savings and a little for like a movie or gas to travel around town for fun.

>>16608110
the EU does not just let us in if we ask.

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I'd heartily suggest both, but trade school is a safer investment.

If you know exactly what you want to do and know the probability and market for the skillset you want to develop in college, it might be a good investment. Regardless of that, you should absolutely have a back-up trade, and the fact is that older students almost universally do better in college just by virtue of having more social and life experience, often work experience, as well.

My degrees are in biology, but I changed careers and learned a trade- I became a merchant mariner, and I'm a ship's captain. If my health fails early, I can always go back and work in my original field, or, more likely, in administration related to my original field.
I have friends and neighbors who are in the trades and in white-collar jobs. The tradesmen seem to have more job stability and income- I don't know any self-employed builder, electrician or plumber who makes less than 100k a year, and most seem to do better than that.
If it helps, I think it's significant that guys tend to come to my field FROM professional careers, and the kids who take entry-level jobs to pay for college in the future rarely leave.
If I had to do it all over again, I wouldn't have gone to college. I make more money and have more stability than most folks, and like being in the 1%. I enjoyed school, especially grad school, but it wasn't a sound investment.

>>16608202
First off being a captain sounds awesome, just want to put that out there and I appreciate the advice. In truth What really makes me want to go to college is the fact that in addition to wanting a bachelor's degree which opens up the gates for a lot of good fallback entry level positions, college life seems like something worth experiencing but, and I may be overblowing it, I feel like at 22 I've wasted enough time on bad investments and "experiences" and that I need to start laying down the foundation for my career. At the same time I don't know how desirable a tradeschool cert. is compared to a degree as far as IT is concerned. Though it seems like from your experience, it may be best for me to pursue college after going through tradeschool?