<prompt> Human: I made some stupid decisions as well as had some terrible luck for years after high school, and have just managed to get on my feet and stable by myself, but Im not sure what the best route would be for me from here to get out of this soul-crushing job Im working now and into something decent that would allow me to live comfortably and possibly support a family on one day.College is expensive, I wouldnt get much if anything in the way of scholarships and I dont know if I want or could handle the massive debt that student loans would put on me, but Im not sure what else there is for me to do, seeing as I dont have a lot of marketable skills that dont require a degree to do anything with in the first place.EDIT: Just got back and saw this, its blown up way bigger than I expected. Thanks for all the responses everyone, Ill be sure to read through them all.Assistant: Find something that few other people willwant to do.You can get an electrical degree or become a plumber with an associates degree from the local community college and earn 40-70kyr.The education only costs maybe 5k and you can see if you qualify for the Pell Grant which pays out 5500 a year; anything above tuition costs gets paid to you for books, living expenses and other such stuff.Human: This was an idea I had, but after talking to an electrician I know he made it seem like it would be expensive to get through school for it and hard to find work. Ill definitely look into it.  <response>: College can be expensive but if you work really hard at it and try to get done as fast as possible you can get a lot out of it. Often you can get a job that massively offsets the cost in the long run. You need to invest in getting your stuff paid off first though dont run around with a ton of debt over your head and buying cars because you made 1000 more than you did the year before. Ive done it. I went from homeless after high school to a software engineer. 