higher education?

When it was time for me to pick a college, I looked at state schools within a couple of hours of my home. I then used the highly sophisticated "dartboard" method of choosing my future alma mater. Hey, it worked for me. Things have obviously changed since those medieval days but I will never understand why so many parents ship off their "little darlings" to farway (translation: expensive) destinations of higher learning just so they can get their degree in hospitality management while they have the pleasure of working on their tan. Yesterday, I spent three hours with my son touring a culinary school. Here I learned that $80,000 would buy him an Associate's Degree which, if he's lucky, would get his foot in the door in an industry which promises long hours, backbreaking work and little in the way of real monetary compensation. Call me crazy but I'm starting to encourage him to get a plumber's license and get out there and make some real money.