Your options for a good living today are:

>Skilled trade
>College
>The military

>great ways to make money without a 4 year degree.

you will have to apprentice for 4 or 5 years before you're fully qualified

you could just as well get a white collar education and do paid internships

do a trade if you like it but dont think of it as quick money

>>1285863
Not necessarily true. That only goes for union jobs and even so, within 3 years you are making $30/hr.

I've gone the union route with paid for tradeschool while being in the field and also went the nonunion route, which is a free-for-all. If you go non-union and prove your ability to learn fast and do what you are told, you can reach journeyman level and pay within a couple years. It is also more lucrative than union jobs if you immerse yourself in your work and make it your life. Union is your best bet though if you are happy working for someone for 40 years and retiring with a 100k/year pension

>>1285816
If youre under 26 and a us citizen google "jobcorps" for a free trade cert

>>1285863
>>1285867
Union carpenter here. As a 17 year old apprentice with zero experience, I started working full-time for $24/hr which is industry standard in my region (sf bay area).
Within the 4-year apprenticeship, they bumped up the pay every 6 months until I was making $43/hr at the end of the 4 years.
Factor in the overtime hours on weekends and holidays where the pay is raised to $86/hr and I was pulling close to $60k at age 21.

Granted I quit because the work was back-breaking and waking up at 3am gets old really fast. But for someone who doesn't want to go to college, it is a good way to make money. Electricians and plumbers make even more, and I know elevator welder guys who in their early 20's were making 6 figures.

I have friends who are just now graduating college, with who knows how much debt, and I made roughly $180k in those 4 years after I graduated high school. My elevator welder buddy bought a house outright in cash before his 21st birthday...

>>1286395
Those elevator guys make stupid money. I remember the guy who operated the manlifts was in the same union and on the same pay scale. If there were workers on the job it was required he was there by union code. Some Saturdays we would only work the ground floor and he sit in his cage or smoke weed on the roof and make $100/hr