re: "...a college degree can be a useful thing if ya go to college and learn how to do something that people will pay you to do."
In this global economy, there are few college degrees that are worth the price. Computer programming used to be lucrative - but most of the programming jobs are now being outsourced to India. As money gets tighter, you can bet that more and more of the jobs are going to be overseas. Kids had better give serious thought to obtaining skills that CAN'T be outsourced.
Even the job of taking customer orders at drive-thru restaurants is being outsourced now. Can you believe that? I guess they figured it was too easy for customers to understand the fast food workers who were right there in the restaurant.

Gold is $1,581/oz today. When it hits $2,000, it will be up 26.5%. Let's see how long that takes. - De 3/11/2013 - ANSWER: 7 Years, 5 Months