1958 Teens. When Most Of Them Didn't Want College.
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- Опубліковано 10 вер 2024
- This video was recorded in April 1958. Senior high school students discussing their future careers and lifestyles. These students are from a public high school. Of course this was decades before the concept of online classes for high school and college students. They raised subjects that are relevant today. Should they go to college? Should they join the military? Should they "go West." Should they become farmer, or go into business administration or get married right out of high school? Should they find a way to help society. Before going further, I should mention that the word Macdonald watermarked on this video is because my friend (Macdonald) copied the video to me 40 years ago from his personal archive.
Back in 1958 the percentage of high school students who went to college was significantly lower than it is today. Only about 30% of high school graduates went on to attend college. This is in contrast to the current rate where more than 60% of high school graduates enroll in college within 12 months of graduating. The college enrollment rate has been steadily increasing as more and more jobs require postsecondary education and the demand for skilled workers in various industries continues to grow.
The lower college enrollment rate in 1958 was due to limited access to colleges and universities, a greater emphasis on vocational training and apprenticeships and the fact that many well-paying jobs did not require a college degree. Also the cost of college was more prohibitive relative to the income of most middle-class American families.
One of the students in the video says that he wants to be a farmer. In the 1950s and 1960s farming was still a significant part of the US economy and way of life. Many high school graduates at the time chose careers in agriculture especially if they grew up in rural areas or came from farming families. In 1950, there were approximately 5.5 million farms in the US, and farming accounted for about 7% of the US workforce. However, by 1960, the number of farms had decreased to approximately 4.4 million, and farming accounted for about 6% of the US workforce.
Also in the 1950s a significant percentage of people in the USA lived in the same town or community where they were born and raised. Approximately 65% of people in the US lived in the state where they were born. The 1950s were a time of economic prosperity in many parts of the country. Transportation options were more limited which may have made it more difficult for people to move to new areas for work or other reasons. In 2019 37% of people in the US lived in a different state than where they were born.
Another student in the video says that he is going into the military. In 1958 12% of high school graduates joined the military after graduation. This was during the post-World War II era when the military was a significant employer, offering stable jobs and opportunities for advancement. The Korean War began in 1950 and ended in 1953. Many graduates joined the military to serve their country, to gain job skills and training, or to take advantage of the educational benefits offered by the GI Bill.
So many of you were watching this are currently looking for a job or looking to change jobs. And today, when you search on Google, what pops up Amazon jobs, Google jobs, Accenture careers, Phoenix Academy etc- all opportunities which did not exist back in the late 1950s. So many of you comment that things seemed simpler but these students seem as uncertain or certain as high school seniors would feel today if they were videotaped asking the same questions.
If you search the word students on my UA-cam channel, you will find videos where high school and college students speak their minds and share their ideas.
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Thank you
David Hoffman filmmaker
"I want to be an ordinary farmer and get my living off the soil."
Ordinary dirt farmer you mean
@@natemarx4999 My dad wanted to have a farm. He was in the Army during Korea, later he went to college for agriculture.
You and me both, comrade. Hell, id settle for just knowing what farm my food came from.
This was back when both college and the rent on an apartment still could be paid for with a part-time summer job and not a loan the size of a home mortgage.
My dad worked all summer and it paid off his college housing and food all year and he played guitar at bars during the school year to support his short lived smoking habit.
Both he and my mom who got college paid for by her father graduated with no money owed.
My dad lived with a whole bunch of people in a farmhouse. He fixed up the chicken coop for living in. He was in the first regular college shop class to ever build an airplane.
And a high school diploma was all encompassing and prepared you for adult life back then
That was living!!!
Every roommate that I had in the 80s was working and paying for their own classes.
I was on my own right after high school in 1998, and where I lived in Western CT, an entry-level job paid A SIXTH of a living wage. It wasn't hard to earn a living, it was literally impossible. You would think society would simply collapse under such conditions...
In 1958 you didn't HAVE to go college and still end up ok. You could still do a LOT with only a high school diploma, even raise while family with only a single income. That's absolutely no longer the case. All those jobs went overseas, employers don't want to train anyone, and even entry-level jobs have the gaul to demand years of experience on top of a degree that costs tens or even hundreds of thousands of dollars.
I’m 16 and trying to get more work experience. I keep applying to entry level jobs but they keep declining me because “I don’t have enough experience.” How am I supposed to get experience when no one will hire me not even fast food restaurants? Other times I send in job applications and never hear back from anyone. It is SO frustrating and makes me very scared for my future. My 22 year old sister who just graduated from college and has a degree plus has 4 jobs before can’t even find employment and she’s been job hunting for 6 months.
College is the biggest scam in the US.
What have they done to America!!!??
@@Boardonthekeyboardbc college grads, other high schoolers, robots, retirees, and laid off tech workers, are all competing for the same low wages, now.
Why would any company hire you at 16 when they can get a college grad for the same price?
Thanks to sites like indeed and LinkedIn they now have an endless supply of cheap labor. This is why the only way to increase your wage once you get a job is to get a new job elsewhere bc no company is going to pay you more when they can replace you for less. Much less waste $ on training people who will leave to work for the competition in 6 months.
You are also competing with all the people who are under employed and need a second job just to eat.
You are going to need a lot of luck, friends in high places, or just become a lawyer since the number 1 revenue stream these days seems to be mass corporate fraud.
Young folks been saying that for decades
In some ways we have moved forward, in other ways it is clear we have regressed. I wish we could have the best of both these worlds..
These kids were brave for speaking so openly. This was a time where you were considered a loser for not wanting to go to college.
Only 9 percent of the U.S. population had been to college in those days.
That was still changing . Also in 1958 34% of those between 18-25 were in college. This was the birthing pains of the community college. This was also still the age of the "professional student" changing majors, and patching work to survive. Also in the corporate world they were looking for liberal arts grads or other fields not business to promote.
I was born in 56 and graduated in 74 from high school. Most women at this time were nurses, secretaries or teachers. Colleges were beginning to recruit women with scholarships for studies in areas like mathematics. You notice one of the students says something like if you go to a liberal arts college after the first two years, then you decide to be an engineer, well if you’re a man, you decide to be an engineer… twenty years after this time women were just starting to get other opportunities. Even if you went to college in the 50s, as a woman, you were expected to get married and have children, not work outside the home. People were struggling during much of the 70s and starting to need that second income. Bank tellers, cashiers in stores, nurses, none had unions cause they were predominantly done by women. We’ve come a long way baby and now they try to drag us backwards.
@@cherylalt101 Our time lines match. I recall in like 1983, walking to work across the campus of University of Washington and overhearing a sorority sister moaning about her dad giving her grief about her grades. The response kida shocked me "Didn't you tell him you are just here for your MRS? At that time my wife was chasing her BA from Seattle U. The women I had grown up with were a mix of working moms. military officers, field nurses for MSF, social workers, teachers etc etc. I jus could not fathom that kind of thinking a full decade after I had lost a class officer race to the woman who first expressed feminist ideals (my mom and her friends in the welfare rights movement kind of lived them by default but did not define it). True it was three way race and we both got stomped the 'I promise vending machines and two free periods jock' but hey.
@@cherylalt101my mother was born in 1952 and in 1969 went to Brooklyn College to become an engineer. She ended up becoming an accountant and then an attorney after Kent State closed campuses all over the country due to protests.
There's many from that generation that didn't even finish high school. My grandparents only had an 8th grade education. They owned 3 different homes at different times and each were able to afford a new vehicle.
These people "kids" sound so much smarter. Oh, he just said all have at least an IQ of 120. Therefore the sixties hit and they expanded their minds. Beatle mania was getting close, cuban missile crisis, civil rights movement, Vietnam, Muhammad Ali, a few high profile assassinations etc, Kennedy, his brother? Martin Luther king, moon landing, space race, Elvis Presley...The sixties were far out man. I was born Dec of 71.
The civil rights movement was up and running in the late '50s when this film was made. And the space program was starting, with Sputnik and Explorer I. Rock and Roll was roaring, The CIA's MK Ultra programs were spreading awareness of LSD. Heroin and marijuana use wee surging in the '50s. That decade was not so different from the '60s.
December of 1972 here. My mom never worked outside the home a day in her life. My dad dropped out of school as soon as he turned sixteen and got a decent union job. It closed down in the late eighties and moved to Mexico.
Man, I'm sad for the young men joining the military at this time in history for a education. The Vietnam War was already rolling. I took a job placement test back in 75' I was told to be a Airline steward. 6'3" tall and thin. Told I am handsome. Funny now, I am late age diagnosed with high functioning autism. Work was great, the co-workers were my problem. Owners of every business I worked for loved me and my work. Wish I knew the autism diagnosis back then. It all makes sense now.
Really interesting stuff 👍
Wow, do you and I have a lot in common, JohnFitzgerald. I was diagnosed as HFA at age 61 in 2019. I had always loved working, but frequently had problems with co-workers, and was stunted socially in general. I also wonder how my life would have been different had I been diagnosed at age 18 or 19.
If you were joined the military in 1958 you avoided actual fighting if you put in a few years.
@@Twentythousandlps i thought we were fighting in the jungles of Vietnam then. To help the French colonize.
@@johnfitzgerald4456 Not until the early 60's, especially starting in '64.
I want to see this same conversation in 2024.
"And all you're interested in is skippity toilet and nothing else?"
“SIGMA YES SIGMA”
It'd be fire as dope, bruh!
It would be the same conversation as this if you only pick the students with IQ over 120.
The ordinary and extraordinary are not opposed, rather one is the other magnified. The kids who chose to stay home continue to raise generations of doers, and the scholars raise thinkers. Doing is the act of thinking magnified. This is a fascinating group discussion thank you Mr. Hoffman. ✨
Great input
Your language!😄☺️👍❣🌄
I'd like to know their answers and life jobs now
@@MicahScottPnD thank you for saying ☺️✨
@@judithvillarreal7064 I agree, I wouldn't be surprised to find many of the doers become thinkers and vice versa. I can think of many innovations due only to common men making the doing of the work easier.
If those people were ~17 in 1958, they would be ~83 today if they're even still alive
I wonder what choices they made and how it worked out for them
Wow, these kids are such great speakers. I feel like we still have a similar push and pull today.
I think for 58 it was pretty progressive to have a black guy there.
Hell😭😭
You could easily get away having an all-white group. That would arouse little opposition. Having a single black person would stir up the bigots. So it did indeed take backbone to include him.
Your history is a lie, I can see you have been brainwashed
It wasn’t as bad as they might have you believe. In many regards, race relations are worse now:
Thank you!
Great interview, my daughters are 27 & 30, educated and have good jobs but they are afraid of having children. I sent this video to my daughters to show them how people thought in the 50"s unafraid to have a family.
I don't think that in the '50s there was a lack of fear. It's that today there is a lack of affordability. A house, child care, clothing, medicine, food -- those costs all makes having children impossible.
Child care can cost a minimal of $700 a month. Not including formula, diapers, and clothes. Back in the 70’s it was $100 a month.
@@mzmaryd6452 And rent for even a one-bedroom apartment has gone from about $350 p/m in my city in 1985 when I moved here to about $800 now.
I’m sure they are wonderful daughters and they are afraid for good reason. The 50s had the average best quality of life and having a family was a lot easier. I have three jobs, for example. My jobs used to historically pay enough to support a family. Corporations have stagnated the wages on purpose.
@@mzmaryd6452 That's stay at home childcare. You try to go back to work and put your kid in daycare and it's an extra $300 to $700 a WEEK!
This is the year I was born.
The ending cracks me up…big ups for the young person defending Shakespeare ❤
This is very fascination even for a group of high school students in 1958. This same discussion would be just as fascinating in todays of age. I agree with the students who feel that learning any and all that they can learn is not a waste of time. It's nice to have other options to fall back on if college is not right for you. 😊
Today, teens talk so much online and by texting, including in groups, that a gathering like the one shown on this video would be of less significance.
How come they sound so normal unlike the one asking the questions
The young girl stating she didn't want to marry soon , bless her for speaking out, wisely
@David Hoffman you offer an excellent channel. Thank you.
This was nice to see these kids talking with each other about their differing ideas on college or no college. I think kids even today would have some of these same opinions. If that was their teacher, he seemed like a nice one. 😊❤
There were good paying jobs that would allow you to have a traditional family. Stay at home wife and have 3 or 4 children . While being able to vacation and save some money while helping your children with collage or a trade'
Parents children and teachers need to get together when the child is 12 and 13 and talk about the child's abilities
At that College would have been out of the picture, I went through changes in High school to be able to go to college. How a person is at 12 or 13 is little too far removed to be using to determine their entire future
@@hs5312 no they're not we all have talents and skills at that age. Going to college you're not going to college doesn't really matter. You learn all throughout life
@@susanbuchser-lochocki20 you clearly didn’t read my comment, you reply had no relation to what I said. My point was that you should not determine a child’s future at the age of 12 or 13. My comment had nothing with the value of college itself, that just a persons future should Not be decided so young based on what they show at the time
@@hs5312 and all I said was it parents teachers and students should get together at around the age of 12 and 13 and talk about the child's abilities is what I wrote what does that mean to you does that mean locking a child into a life of toil and books or I don't know what talking about the child's abilities. So in my opinion actually this should be going on regularly and if it's not happening in the US already regularly then there's something wrong already in our school system I mean there's tons of things wrong with our school system today so I don't know what you mean but I know what I mean and I left it extremely vague so if you're reading more into it than something vague, then you're over reading
Enlightened
I wanted to hear from the black girl, who was about to speak but couldn’t get in the conversation. She put her hand up that she wanted to go to college but couldn’t afford it. I sure hope that girl fulfilled some of her dreams. And the tag line is misleading. Bravo to the young lady who spoke so eloquently about the study of the liberal arts.
1:16 omg she is SOO progressive for that time! I love her for that!! & ofc the men's responses 🙄🙄🙄
Exactly! I was gonna say something very similar 💯
More than half of recent four-year college graduates, 52 percent, are underemployed a year after they graduate, according to a new report from Strada Institute for the Future of Work and the Burning Glass Institute. A decade after graduation, 45 percent of them still don’t hold a job that requires a four-year degree.
Dave grew up to be a founder of the far right as we know it. Education must pay back a huge dividend or it is a waste..
It's easy to mock modern teens/youngsters, but we tend to forget that they are just the end result of decades of failed parenting strategies, hyper-consumerism and broken families.
People should do what they want, and we need farmers.
Also, that guy will be hanging out around other farmers who won't be educated and he probably wants to fit in with them and not be an outcast.
Given the changes in ag policy that Earl Butz pushed through starting about 10 years after this, his 40-acre dirt farm could not possibly have survived. He would have to have to "get big or get out," as Butz himself described his new subsidy system.
@David Hoffman, you have already posted this before. I watched this video from you a while ago.
Sometimes I see a video again after a period of time and I get really different things out of it. Sometimes because of other topics I'm engrossed in, sometimes because I've grown as a human being in some kind of way. Kind of neat to take a measurement of oneself like that sometimes.
Now we have the opposite
Nah most kids are just forced by their parents nowadays. Most people ik just want a real honest job. I personally want to be a farmer
Collage = waste of time. Went. Quit. Became IT professional anyway. Educational system was meant to breed mindless drones.
Oh, I don't know. I've seen some very good collages. There are some apps that will let you produce a fine photo collage, for instance.
I'd love to know what happened to the bright, young girl sitting next to David!
That guy had a great point you're spending money to learn things. if they only knew now you could click a button and learn anything you want at anytime.
At least 20 or 25 percent of the info you can learn by clicking that button is actually true.
Everyone at the table had an IQ of 120 or above. You'd be hard-pressed to find nine people in any High School above 120 today😂
@DavidHoffmanFilmmaker may I use your footage for a video essay, I cannot find any source material for the topic and was curious before I started ripping MP4's.
for any rights issue, please contact my office at allinaday@aol.com.
DAVID HOFFMAN filmmaker
Short haired woman reminds me of Winona Ryder girl interrupted era lol
Great to watch, I'd think they would get a headache for overanalising what they want to do.
Bonnie is full of hate and seems to have a double standard 🤣
6 wanted college...3 did not.
read my description based on statistics at that time. About 30% of students in 1958 wanted college.
David Hoffman filmmaker
These college people are so arrogant. It’s like they have no idea that food (and hence growing food) is important. Now people can barely afford to eat.
Nice when you didn’t need a doctorate to get a job at Best Buy like now
Most people shouldn’t go to college. NOT because they aren’t smart enough or don’t have the aptitude. But because the market doesn’t need that many degrees and those degrees come with a price tag the market cannot afford. So you “prove your worth” in college only to get out of college and not be “worth” enough to the market to make enough money to pay for that “worthwhile” degree. It’s insane.
I think the intentions were good but college just isn’t worth what it costs for a significant portion of the population. We could switch to a voucher program and from kindergarten on, every child gets the amount collected per student loaded into a 529 account with their name (or maybe a federal student ID with personal information removed) on it. At the end of 12th grade, whatever is left in that account is for college. There’s an average of $15k per child per year collected in education taxes, and NO child is receiving that value in the public school system. So we could fund a 2 year degree + 12 years of school with the same money we already college nominally for this purpose. Over the 13 year period that a child is eligible for public education, $195k is collected on their behalf. If that was given to the student, and the student got an excellent, project based education in a co-op style set up, for $5000 a year, that would leave $130k for college. Say you wanna make the co-op extra fancy and pay a few extra teachers, you could still have, spending $9k per year per child, you still would leave the parents with $78k at the end of 13 years
That’s the way we find college if we really think it’s so important. And we can do it while improving outcomes for children and streamlining our education system to reduce the significant waste we currently have - where superintendents get most of the benefit and teachers and students see almost nothing.
14 15 years olds apprenticeships
Back then, most decent jobs didn't require a degree. Most jobs today that require a degree, only do so because of bad management--a friend of mine used to do a particular job, which required math skills...which he had. After some years, the power company decided that the job required a degree, which he did _not_ have. So they demoted him to a job they felt didn't need a degree. Me, I've been frozen out of so damned many jobs, just because I don't have a degree. I'm not talking about jobs that have specific knowledge needed to do them, but jobs that anyone with any intelligence could do.
These are the "Baby Boomers" kids like to complain about today...though they aren't actually Boomers, because they would have been born before the end of WWII. These are the people who came out ahead...
No way David’s IQ is 120.
"What if you break your leg?" Hahha she broke him. She is smart. This Dave is dumb. He doesn't understand high culture like the other kid.
What if you go to school forever tp be a surgeon and you break your hands?
Let's Make America Great Again!!
Keep this year's partisan politics out of this discussion. That's unelated to this.
The start of feminism right there
Laugh out loud. College courses relating to fields of work. So many courses that are fluff under the guise of making you a well-rounded person. I used to be pro-education. But now I just think it's another gig for someone else
So sad what America is becoming now!!!
Nope you’re all going to Vietnam
What a trip to hear teenagers speaking so sanely... I honestly can't even understand the bastardized pidgin English that most people under 25 speak today. And I'm still in my 30's! 😂
Wait a minute @VoorTrekker -- these are carefully selected young people, not by any means reflective of the general population. In the late '50s people complained about teens using, "bastardized pidgin English" the same way you complained about youth today. Please don't make the mistake of comparing today's reality with yesterday's highlight reel.
@@brianarbenz1329 You make a good point. It seems like it's getting worse but I'm 42 so maybe this is just what it feels like to get older and more and more disconnected with the slang of the youth. It does not slap fam, it is not bussin, no cap.
@@GabeHandle Thanks. In the mid-70s, we teens said, "I 'magin, dude!"
Same here.
@@brianarbenz1329I think Plato said the same thing 😂 I think this is perennial. Folks always dis the younger generations. We were once there…