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Fields that don't require a degree and where universities purport to teach you how to perform those jobs at a competent level through lengthy instruction.
(Catch-22 in that once college degrees became more common, more fields started 'requiring' them.)
Journalism, Political Science, Marketing, HR, Education, International Relations (LOL), certain art major/Graphic Design areas, arguably Accounting, Criminal Justice (as prep for law enforcement), even Information Technology.
A lot of stuff outside of the STEM/Law fields, basically. Jobs you are absolutely allowed to learn as you go, that aren't blue collar, but still have a long 'grind' period where you're paid poorly and worked doggedly, and most people would LOVE to just hop into the more lucrative, prestigious positions as soon as possible.
I'm saying it was both. The "burger flipping" was the stick, but the carrot, the actual reason you could justify taking on five or six figures in debt is to shortcut the miserable process and prove competence for roles you'd be unable to access otherwise.
I'm NOT claiming that this promise was ever made explicit by the colleges themselves, although their advertising certainly nodded suggestively in that direction.
My impression is that this process has slowed down because there are few fields remaining that could require a college degree but don't. (Which hasn't stopped especially crazy new requirements, like daycare workers needing a degree)
On the other hand, ‘some college’ requirements are reasonably common and working your way up is definitely allowed in those places. They tend to be shitty jobs to start with, but still.
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Yeah, I'm just pointing out that there were a LOT of jobs that Boomers could walk into with merely a high school diploma and learn as they go, that NOW are very clearly gated by the degree requirement, OR knowing a guy.
Here's a REALLY interesting bit from Mr. Carl Bernstein's wiki page:
Guy FAILED OUT of college, but had already acquired Journalism experience at the ripe age of 16, so just kept hopping into Journo jobs until he became one of the best known Journos ever.
This sort of story is profoundly radicalizing for a certain class of Millennial and, likely, Gen Zer, who considers failing out of college to be economic doom.
I once worked on a project with a former Smithsonian curator. He only got his undergrad in history after he started working for the Smithsonian, and as he put it, with his credentials (no Masters or specialized Museum Studies degree), he wouldn't even get past the screening if he applied to his old job.
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I'm a (early) millenial. I failed out of college. I got into a decent career in IT ops despite it, including working at some pretty prestigious places. I didn't know a guy, at least not initially. Networking (the socializing kind, not the technical kind) is what got me my bigger breaks.
At the risk of sounding like a boomer, I still think my path would work out. Find a niche that underserved (in my case, it was secretarial support), and then learn how to do the socializing. Young people nowadays seem to expect life to be like train tracks, that it's systems that are keeping them out, that if they do the right thing the wheels will pop on top of the rails and everything will get into place. But ultimately it's all people that you need to convince. Personally, when I interview people, I don't care about education or credentials; everything I need to know, I'll figure out by talking to you.
Yeah, I've actually got a decent amount of IT experience despite no formal college training in it, funny enough.
It was my 'fallback' career option if Law didn't work out (which was a close thing for a bit).
I think that's still one of the few places where if you're bright and you grew up working with computers and networks and troubleshooting people's electronic devices (a rarer thing among young kids) you can probably get picked up by a small outfit and put to work.
It looks like Geek Squad will still accept applicants sans a college degree, so that's something.
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Well, the danger of failing out of college in 1964 wasn't so much economic doom as literal death by Viet Cong. Bernstein somehow scored an Army Reserve spot, so I assume he actually DID know a guy.
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