The Smallest Minority: How Bad Is It When You Can't GIVE Money Away?

The Smallest Minority: How Bad Is It When You Can't GIVE Money Away?: Mike Rowe (of Dirty Jobs fame) has an organization he runs, MikeRoweWorks.com, that gives scholarships to students studying the trades. He...

Question: If I were to form "The American Idol Scholarship Fund" and announce $15,000 of professional training for anyone who wished to become a pop star, how long do you think it would take to give away a million dollars?
A day? An hour? A minute?
What if I offered the same money to anyone who wanted to learn how to maintain and repair diesel engines? How fast would the million dollars go then?
Currently, this question has no official answer. But I can tell you this - for the last month, mikeroweWORKS has been offering FULL-RIDE scholarships to one of the best trade schools in the country. And as of now - a big chunk of that million dollars is still up for grabs. Why? Because mikeroweWORKS scholarships do not reward fame or celebrity. They reward work ethic, and the willingness to learn a necessary skill. In other words, they are designed to train people for jobs that actually exist.

I did the work that he's offering scholarships for. Back when I was in the learning process, I would have loved to have went to a regular school and have it paid for. I got some of my training in the Marines, all the rest was practical, OJT training.  OJT meaning doing all the scut work and watching and helping the "real" technicians. Which isn't a bad way to learn and I did learn a lot. I also learned some shortcuts that schools probably don't teach.



College is great for some people, but it's really not for every one. All of my college came after years in the work force and was paid for by Ford when I was a tech at a dealership. I went from a off the street walk in to Master Technician in 2 years. Of course I had already spent over 20 years working in the transportation industry.