Remember the wise counsel back in 1971 from the Watchtower Magazine,
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g71 6/8 p. 8 Second Thoughts About a College Education ***In days gone by, college did help many to find better positions. But times are changing. Many jobs today that do not require a college education pay well. They enable a person to acquire a trade that can be used in many places.
Until recently it was made to seem that a person working with, his hands was not doing dignified work. He was not considered really successful. But many so-called ‘dignified’ college graduates and professional people today wonder where their next meal is coming from, while carpenters, plumbers, clerks, electricians and others who have a trade and work with their hands have jobs. Some garbage collectors are currently making $10,000 a year.
It is no shame for a person to learn a trade and work with his hands. Indeed, these days it is getting to be the practical thing to do. That is another reason why some parents now have second thoughts about this matter of a college education. They choose to channel their boys and girls into more useful trades in high school where such things can be learned, at least in part. After graduating from high school, they may continue briefly in a trade school or get valuable on-the-job training. Then they qualify for a trade and avoid the anguish often suffered in executive-type positions.
Parents who are Jehovah’s witnesses have another very sound reason for channeling their children’s lives into useful trades. They know from fulfilled Bible prophecy that today’s industrial society is near its end. Soon it will be given its death stroke by Almighty God himself. (Prov. 2:20, 21; 1 John 2:17) After that, in God’s new order a reconstruction work will be done to transform this entire earth into a paradise. (Luke 23:43) Trades of many types will be very useful then, as will skills in agriculture and homemaking. So by guiding their children away from the so-called ‘higher’ education of today, these parents spare their children exposure to an increasingly demoralizing atmosphere, and at the same time prepare them for life in a new system as well.