A Los Angeles Times article comparing outcomes at community colleges and elite universities garnered a colorful response in the letters page.
The original piece, written June 21, compared the financial outcomes of college graduates at state vs private schools; and in STEM fields and vocational training vs humanities and social sciences. The data showed that graduates of the hard sciences and even the trades vastly outearn some graduates of California’s elite universities.
The original article began with a story of a young man who took a one-year-long training course at Los Angeles Trade-Technical College to become a power lineman. Upon completion, he is set to make about $105,000 a year, and $165,000, not including overtime, as a journeyman in 3-4 years. In the same amount of time, a graduate of Stanford University with a bachelor’s degree in political science will earn a median income of $75,500; a graduate of UC Berkeley with a sociology degree earns about $64,000; a UCLA graduate in history will make about $47,900.