If you don't work IT, retail, or food service what do you do for work?
Sometimes on Lemmy these seem like the only jobs that actually exist, but I'm sure there's a lot of people here with different and unusual lines of work.
I don't really have a title, but I work in a factory.
Go to college kids. Fuck the expense, you still get many more opportunities that a factory scumbag like myself does not. If you don't know what you want or what you're capable of, who cares. Go anyway for anything and you'll meet people who you can network with and you'll be exposed to classes and topics you might not ever have considered. I'm the only scumbag failure in my friend group who didn't go to college and I'm the only loser working in a literal sweat shop while they all work from home with very nice salaries and wives/husbands they met at college. I'm still single.
Not to argue too heavily with your valid life experience, but I was one of the few in my friend group who did not go to college, yet I am doing somewhat what I want to do (tech related) while my friends do nothing related to their degree and make less :/
It's not a surefire way to get a better job unfortunately.
I'm of th opinion people like you should make more money and upper management should make less. No point in hiring management if no one works your factory. Manufacturing is some of the most important work there is