Dignity v. Status
The American education system using cookie cutter logic pushes most of the young people under their influence into higher education institutions with what seems like a reckless disregard for the amount of personal debt which that path inevitably leads to. The impending debt causes many young people much anxiety about career choices and emphasizes wealth accumulation in the decision making process. Higher education dazzles with the promises of wealth and status. The illusion that wealth and status is the key to happiness pressures young people into higher education.
One cannot live by bread alone. In order to get satisfaction from your work you must enter into work that can feed whatever passion you possess. The creative type needs an outlet for their creativity and it could be found in as diverse livelihoods as a hairstylist or the culinary arts. The nurturing type may find more satisfaction as a mother and should embrace child rearing as the most noble of occupations but could also find themselves at home in a daycare setting.
Not everyone fits into a classification. If you love working with and helping animals but find yourself morally opposed to euthanizing them, you may be happier working in a pet store, as a pet groomer, or as a dog trainer for middle class wages than you would be as a Veterinarian. Likewise, if you get satisfaction by helping people, you may get more out of being neighborly than you do in your day job. Just think of the possibility of combining the two in a service oriented career.
The aptitude of each individual varies greatly making the choices and combinations seem endless. You need to know yourselves. You need to know what gives you satisfaction and what makes you uncomfortable. Everyone needs to know the values they live by; furthermore you need to give them the upmost consideration when making your decisions. If you sacrifice your values for the sake of a job, guilt and loathing will be the price you pay. A pacifist makes a poor soldier.
Whatever you choose, choose an occupation that suits you correctly and chances are you will find dignity in your work avoiding the misery that more often than not plagues those who take a job for the wrong reasons or one that does not bode well with their disposition.