Reply to What do you do if your daughter wants to drop out of college and go to cosmetology school?

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]OP, FWIW, I have two degrees.  My hairdresser has two houses.  I have one.  She put her two kids through college and grad school.  I have *no clue* how I will be able to do that as I am still paying my student loans.  She and her husband travel quite frequently.  They have a pretty good life.  Don't sneeze at a "trade".

The only caveat re: any profession that requires you to use your body is that you need to prepare to retire earlier than someone who sits at a desk all day.  So your daughter will need to be prepared for that.[/quote]

NP.  I have a hairdresser who is in a similar financial position.  She is doing extremely well financially and she loves her job.  She has many high-flying clients and she is sought after in her industry.  She thrives on interacting with her clients and being creative.  She walks into a room and she commands attention because of her success and her abilities.

But she also has a ton of hidden costs and demands.  A big one is that she has to be "on" 10 hours a day.  If she is at the shop or at a location she has to be totally "there".  She doesn't get do-overs and she doesn't get to be snippy when some entitled brat has a spaz attack.  She pays out the wazoo for individual health insurance.  She gets no paid time off.  If she takes a vacation day it is lost revenue.  A parent is very ill and she doesn't feel she can take time to be with the parent because of the lost revenue (which is helping pay some of the mom's bills) and what if the illness gets worse and then she really needs to take time off...

Now, again, she loves her job and her career.  Where she is right now is [i]exactly[/i] where she wanted to be when she started out all those years ago.  And her profession gave her some flexibility when she needed it when her children were young because she could leave and enter the job market pretty easily.

However, if you asked her she would tell you that her one regret is that she doesn't have a fallback degree, which would open some doors for her if she wanted to shift out the profession.  She has sporadically "gone to college" by taking some classes but it is hard to do that in her career.  She pretty much has to be there at the shop 10 hours a day because she needs to be at the shop when her clients can be there.  That makes getting a degree really hard because class times don't usually start at 6 or 7 am OR at 9 or 10 pm.  And, yes, there is online, but that also is hard if you're not used to taking courses and navigating your way through the system.

So, OP, I don't have any good advice except maybe to encourage your daughter to get a job at a salon as a receptionist.  She can work there part-time as she finishes the Spring semester at her current school and maybe she can also work at a salon during the summer.  As she is there, she will be talking with the stylists and other personnel, and that may help her make choices with a better understanding of what will be the best path for her.  I'll be honest that my inclination and hope would be that she would come to the realization that maybe sticking it out for 2 more years would be her best option because it is good to have options down the road ...

Good luck, OP!  It sounds like you have a nice kid and I wish her well![/quote]

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