Agriculture as a college major?

[Sigarms]

Another thing to consider these days is skilled trades.

My youngest daughter recently graduated with a degree in mechanical engineering. After about 6 months searching for a job locally, she came to work for me full time. This is great for me, but she is not really using her degree working for me.

By contrast, my nephew who is the same age as my daughter went to trade school for about 10 months after finishing high school for equipment operator and found a job immediatly making about $28 per hour.

Basic welders start out at about $30 an hour around here. Plumbers, electricians, air condition techs, etc. are all very high paying jobs compared to some degreed jobs.

Personally, I actually prefer they learn a skilled trade.

The plan is when they can drive, they will be working for an HVAC company doing menial tasks their first year and they can work their way up from there to start earning money for a car. The issue is I might only have one left over car that should have at least 400k on it that they can share driving to work LOL

 

[Sigarms]

Why do people knock liberal arts degrees? Liberal arts is the college. The courses you take under that college are what counts. My kid did a double major in anthropology and sociology and a triple minor in Spanish, forensics, and law and society. Then she went to grad school and got her masters in community organization and social administration. She has a very good job doing very worthwhile work.

Your daughter applied herself. Too many times I just see or hear of kids taking some off the wall classes just so they can get a degree (generally in the liberal arts IMO and I could be wrong), they end up with huge college bill and end up working a job that they could of taken without the degree and debt.

 

[MacLawn]

I'm like you, know nothing about agriculture, except that good food tastes good. Seems like your son will have a great opportunity.

 

[MossRoad]

Maybe its because the liberal arts college encompasses so many categories? I don't know. My dad was an architect. My mom a bio major, but ended up teaching art for 30 years. I have 4 siblings. All of them have liberal arts degrees in English, Art, Theater, education, etc... and ended up being college professors, art teachers, theatrical business owners, etc... three of them got masters. Two PHDs. All are quite successful... me. I went to college for a year and a half hoping to become an English teacher, however, I realized the politics of it weren't for me, and I switched to technical school and got a couple associate degrees in electronics, which served me well.

 

[DrRod]

There's more to college than getting a job. This is often lost in the debate.

 

[kenmac]

Personally, I actually prefer they learn a skilled trade.

The plan is when they can drive, they will be working for an HVAC company doing menial tasks their first year and they can work their way up from there to start earning money for a car. The issue is I might only have one left over car that should have at least 400k on it that they can share driving to work LOL

Both of my boys worked for me in the summers, crawling under housed doing plumbing/ HVAC work. I took money out of their checks to pay for their vehicles. I put money into a 529 plan to pay for college. they worked for me for their spending money.
Now, my youngest is after his masters.
He got married 2 yrs ago. He's off my dime, and his 529 plan is out of $$.

Good luck to your son no matter what path he chooses

 

[Groo]

I have a second cousin or something that is a hugely successful farmer. Its not about knowing how to make plants grow. Its about knowing the system.

 

[donaldj]

I didnt read the entirety of replies, so if I am repeating someone else's sentiment I apologize.

My take on it is this is an emerging field as far as demand goes. More and more people are homesteading, small scale farming, and perma-culture is a pretty big thing. I think as long as urban conditions continue to decay and more people go semi- to full-rural, there'll be a need for this kind of education.

I think in his 2nd year of college he can start to market small scale farming, homesteading, and sustainability classes and content online. Make it appealing to the 5-20 acre crowd.

 

[bdog]

I had a four year scholarship to go to college for anything in the ag department. I went two years and realized how poor the job outlook was. I changed majors and got a more technical degree outside of the ag department and had to give up my scholarship. It was worth it. Money isn’t everything and for some ag is a true passion but I figured if I am going to go to school for four years I want to get the highest earning potential out of it possible.

Now don’t misunderstand me there are tons of jobs in ag but I didn’t want to go to school four years to make 30-50k a year when I could go the same four years in another field and make six figures. Now work is work and it makes me plenty to enjoy ag things as a hobby.

 

[JFoy]

Couple thoughts I'll throw in myself. Back in '08, I decided to explore new career options and decided to go to college. Mind you, I was in my mid 40s. In my case, I didn't know beforehand what I wanted to do so I started at community college taking a wide variety of courses from trades to college prep. Biggest advantages there were the diversity of classes I could take, affordability of community college over university, and the community college was an easy commute. Ultimately, I did college prep and rolled over to university to finish a four year degree.

Lessons learned were first, if you are planning on a four year degree, the community college gets all the prerequisite first two year courses out of the way at a fraction of the cost. Second, it is much easier to work while taking classes at the community college. Third, community college instructors are more likely to be people with real world experience if it is a trades based class. And fourth, if you qualify for things like Pell grants and you're willing to work part-time while in school, you can get through four to five years without borrowing money (student loans).

On the other hand, if you know exactly what you want to do and it requires a degree from a university, e.g. accounting, engineering, etc., it may take less time if you go straight to university. That said, honestly, I met a lot of fifth year seniors at university and it sure seemed to me the university wanted it that way.

The other patterned I noticed were simply stupid kids at university. By stupid I mean, they took the first opportunity to get away from home, went to a university that wasn't local to them, racked up a ton of student loans, pursued degrees in topics such as art history, and had idea where they would get work if and when they graduated. When I asked them what they were going to do when they finished their fifth year, they all said they'd pursue a master's degree and rack up more student loans to do it. I wasn't sure who I wanted to smack more - them or their parents.