[QUOTE="GhettoBlastin92"]This is going to sound weird but stay with me, a chicken plant. Don't need a college or really even a HS education and in 6 months you will be making 11+ an hour, and great benefits. The downside is that it is a chicken plant lol.[/QUOTE] This is roughly true of any manufacturing career. Factory work has an undeserved stigma attached to it, but the manufacturing sector actually pays nearly 30% above the median wage in the U.S service sector. Most factories offer skilled apprenticeships that allow employees to move up and earn a good living. There are catches, however. Moving up can take several years, and the apprenticeships are typically several additional years. These jobs can also be physically taxing, resulting in earlier retirement at a lower income, often because your body simply cannot hold up beyond your mid 50s. You also are likely to have a career ceiling that cannot be broken through, often even with a college degree (this can roughly be defined as management level being unavailable unless you start there.) Lastly, control of one's work hours are also largely out of the question. The biggest advantage to having a college degree is often not based on income. This is a misnomer that colleges and universities don't like to acknowledge. The primary benefit to having a college education is more often than not related to the quality of the job, not the wages.