This past year I attended a high school graduation during which the school celebrated sending off the members of yet another class of students to their respective futures. For many of the students, this involved a summer vacation followed by four years at a college or university; for others, military careers, trade school or simply ... life. At this graduation, the speakers made note of some of the impressive universities that the students had been accepted to and led the crowd in a standing ovation for those who chose a military future.

But despite wishing "good luck" to every student regardless of his or her future endeavors, the speakers never made mention of those who decided to go straight into the workforce.

The omission of such a large population of students is representative of the stigma that our society has with a student's decision to pursue higher education-a stigma that is especially strong at Brandeis University, where overachievement is commonplace.

I have heard friends talking about people from their hometowns who did not attend a university after high school. For such a seemingly liberal and enlightened bunch of students, few members of the national university community seem to consider not attending school as a legitimate option.

Here at Brandeis, every student tends to participate in as many clubs as he or she can possibly handle, take the highest-level classes, engage in unspoken competition with one another and have hopes so high that many at Brandeis could never imagine not attending a university and attempting a different career path. However, I would be startled to learn that no Brandeis graduate ever had to take a job he or she was overqualified for after entering the workforce post-college.

That is not to say that students should not pursue higher education, but many students seem to see the blue-collar career route as simply not good enough. Yet I can imagine that many graduates have found themselves at the very least close to jobs that their blue-collar counterparts might hold.

As Richard K. Vedder, director of the Center for College Affordability and Productivity and professor of economics at Ohio University says, "A large subset of our population should not go to college. ... The number of new jobs requiring a college degree is now less than the number of young adults graduating from universities, so more and more graduates are filling jobs for which they are academically overqualified."

In truth, the main difference between high school graduates who choose to go to college and those who enter the workforce directly lies in the amount of debt that each person is beginning "real life" with. College graduates from all over the country graduate with thousands of dollars in debt and take jobs they are clearly overqualified for solely to pay their bills.

Bryan Caplan, associate professor of economics at George Mason University, argues that few graduates will truly benefit from college because "most college courses teach few useful job skills; their main function is to signal to employers that students are smart, hard-working and conformist."

However, college does not actually prepare most students for many high-level jobs; graduates must acquire substantial experience in their respective fields before beginning to think about realistically achieving higher-level employment. Therefore, college graduates should not be so surprised when they enter the workforce and find that high-paying jobs are not so readily available to them.

Meanwhile, many trades require knowledge in only a certain field to be successful. I guarantee that some of my friends who never went to college will be more financially successful as plumbers, mechanics and blue-collar workers than their college counterparts.

Marty Nemko, a trade counselor based in Oakland, Calif. says of trade jobs, "Employers are accelerating their offshoring, part-timing and temping of as many white-collar jobs as possible, resulting in ever more unemployed and underemployed bachelors. Meanwhile, there's a shortage of people to take the Obama infrastructure-rebuilding jobs. And you and I have a hard time getting a reliable plumber even if we're willing to pay $80 an hour-more than many professors make."

I understand that the majority of blue-collar workers are not more successful than those who went to college. But the point is that our society should not place such a stigma on not going to university.

This is a country that claims to be founded on the ideals of a person working his way to the "American dream," yet the idea of working one's way up has changed drastically over time. The old image was of blue-collar workers one of people getting sweaty and dirty, doing tough jobs for a chance at fulfilling that dream.

Nowadays, the image is one of a person going to university, burying himself in books, graduating to a desk job or somewhere in middle management, and moving into a suburb. This image varies from person to person, but there seems to be a shift toward thinking that everyone successful never has to do an ounce of truly strenuous work for pay.

In many cases, learning a trade leads to success and a fruitful existence, but unfortunately, many still buy into the misleading impression that an expensive college education at a prestigious university is the only legitimate way to success.

Of course, people should not be discouraged from going to university or to continue learning. Parents and guardians should continue to encourage their children to pursue knowledge, and this sort of intellectual pursuit does not always have to include going to university. More parents should not only push their children toward college career paths but also be just as accepting and encouraging to those who choose the realistic, blue-collar future.

And students, especially many of those chronic overachievers, should also understand the realities of the future after college and seriously consider all of the real options available to all.