I am mainly saying that for me, it has been a great decision. I dont think everyone needs to go to college and that is one of the reasons we are having this problem. Ingles shipyard had to hire hundreds of welders from Europe and Russia because they could not find Americans trained to do the job. Those jobs were 70 000 plus benefits starting out. Auto repair, HVAC, electricians etc are skills/trades that require training/cc trade schools that pay very good but dont require a 4 year college degree. You can make a great living without getting a degree from State.
In Japan and many foreign countries at around our 8th to 10th grade level, students take testing that either puts them on a track to go to college or go obtain a skill/trade. I'm a firm believer in this. Our high school system is set up for college prep with the ability to take trade/skills as an elective. We do our kids no favors by trying to tell them this is preparing them for college when most dont go. We should be preparing them to get a job that provides for them to be a functional member of society whether that involves college or not.
We used to do the track thing here. It ran afoul of PC bullcrap. It isn't allowed here anymore because of that. Nearly every other country in the world does it.