Sowhatnow, I think this is an interesting and worthwhile topic to explore. Culturally (here is the US anyway) higher education, independence and self-sufficiency seem to come first these days. Yet a college degree gets many people absolutely nowhere but into a lot of debt. It seems difficult for young adults to merge their college educations and careers, make a commitment, get married and form a family-- whose career or job takes precedence when it comes to choosing where to live?
I do think it goes both ways, however. My son is a highly skilled young man in a management position who works hard and is paid well, but he lives in an area where the cost of living is very high. This is where he needs to be to get the kind of work he does, so he shares a condo with another guy. He is not college educated by choice, because he is profoundly dyslexic and struggles with academic work. He is a capable, kind-hearted guy with a keen sense of humor, but he is definitely an introvert. His JW childhood sweetheart (now deceased wife) was the love of his life. He has been ready to move on for years and just can't find the right woman. He feels like he is judged as "not good enough" to be husband material by college-educated women, and he finds many of the women his age to be very immature socially and all caught up in the drama of social media and the bar scene. He wants to date a grownup.
I totally get where you are coming from as well. As an ex-JW with no college education myself, I keep running in to roadblocks. Everything I would like to do seems to require a degree. I gave up the change to go to college to "pioneer where the need is great" in the late '70s. At this late stage in my life, with my husband retiring next year or sooner, it is just not economically feasible for me to go to college. If I found myself in the dating pool, I think I would be in much the same position as you are, except maybe a little more financially secure. A little.
I do think what others have said about self esteem is a huge factor. We were told our whole lives that we were simply good-for-nothing slaves, and nothing we ever did measured up as JWs. As I tell my son, it seems the only thing to do is to learn to be happy and healthy in our own lives, pursue our own interests and develop our own talents and maybe, just maybe the right opportunity will present itself. If we continue to challenge ourselves and are in a good place emotionally, mentally and physically, I think that finding a marriage partner or a new path in life is much more likely to happen.
