Posted on 10/06/2022 7:29:22 PM PDT by george76
A growing number of students are saying "no" to a traditional four-year college, instead choosing trade schools or apprenticeships after high school.
Part of this has to do with the increasing cost of higher education.
...
U.S. News reports that the average student debt is $30,000 for a recent college graduate.
At 23 years old, Brady Woodel makes more than most recent college grads. Without a four-year degree, Brady takes home $25 an hour, while the average entry-level college grad makes $20.
“When I came out and got my license, I would have earned as much money as I would have accumulated in debt if I had gone to a four-year school,” said Woodel, who is now an HVAC service apprentice.
Four-year universities have long been considered the ticket to the good life but they’re also leaving more and more students drowning in debt.
"I had to start getting a second job to start paying them off,” one graduate told The National Desk.
The undergraduate student body has dropped by nearly 1.4 million students or 9.4% during the pandemic. Many are just trying to avoid leaving college with thousands of dollars of debt.
...
Today, too many talented Americans are choosing against higher enrollment fear of debt,” said Miguel Cardona, the Secretary of the U.S. Department of Education.
Instead, many students are embracing trades. The Association for Career and Technical Education says spring enrollment in construction trade programs is up 19.3%, which is back to pre-pandemic levels and enrollment in mechanic and repair technologies is up 11.5%
Woodel works in heating and air, getting paid while training.
“Work in the trades, go to school and have your school paid for by your sponsor and receive an education you don’t have to pay for,” he said.
He’s following in his father's footsteps, who also works in the industry now focusing on the future — debt-free.
"Right now, I’m saving up for a house," Woodel said.
Best Colleges puts the cost of tuition for a trade school education at around $33,000, which is the same cost as one year of college.
I wish this meant less indoctrination, but it doesn’t.
Trade schools are just as loaded up as any other. Most people don’t realize that the majority of leftist indoctrination isn’t in classes with the names you’d expect, such as intersectionality or gender studies, etc.
Most indoctrination is in English classes, world history, and even math.
This is something Kari Lake, in her campaign for governor of Arizona, is constantly championing. Not everyone needs to go to college and there are plenty of good, high-paying jobs out there waiting for skilled workers to fill them.
Got a philosophy degree in 1981, managed to get into a technical field and did well, now retired. Today I’d go for a trade no question. I shudder to think what a philosophy degree entails these days. Two of my professors were WWII vets, they had no illusions about the world.
I agree. One of my sons is a trucker. He loves his job. Most of his friends went to trades.
One started college and went into trucking.
What...and no English 101...
I worked on many projects with people from the two national labs in NM. My assessment was all these PhD’s will need mechanics and plumbers, and mechanics and plumbers will never need them.
We hired a oil field roustabout to keep relations smooth between our physicists and the union pipefitters and welders in the tunnels at the Nevada Test Site.
You means that a "for-profit" trade school, like the ones that the DOE under Obama tried to close down, cost the same (or less) than a "non-profit" liberal arts college with billions in endowments?
Learn a trade, get a job and get on with life.
Glad to hear it.......we need qualified tradesmen. They’re part of the backbone of America
My 24 year old son went to tech school out of high school. He interned at an aerospace company as a machinist being paid while training. He makes just shy of 6 figures, owns a car and truck outright, recently bought a home on 7 acres with a detached shop that rivals mine. For some the trades are where it’s at.
Congrats, to your son!! You sound very proud of him, as you very well should be.
This is a good thing. One of the few really good things Rubio said during his presidential campaign was “America needs more welders and less philosophers.” Fewer, Marco, fewer — not less — but he’s right.
He’s a good kid, both sons are. Conservative, Eagle scouts (when that meant something), educated and productive. All that is true, but my comment was more as an example that young people can still make something of themselves if they apply themselves. I know there are millions like my kids, You just never hear about them. Mike Rowe gets it.
get cdl and work in oil field- some pretty good money if you can land a job there- shouldn’t be too hard- they are always looking for drivers-
This has been happening for some time. A friend’s son (20) said there is a huge waiting line for electrician apprenticeship spots. Americans with sense got the memo several years ago.
Men are only 40% of US college students now, and falling. And men are only 30% of UK college students, and falling. This is not good news—this means only women soon will be physicians and scientists and attorneys, etc. Is this what we want? I don’t (and I’m a woman). It’s immensely destabilizing to society in ways we haven’t imagined yet. But perhaps we will all adjust.
Over time the degree is well worth the investment. By the time I retired I earned more than 12 times what I started with coming out of college.
Big mistake.
There will be out of work people and oversaturated fields if this isn’t controlled the way Dr’s and nursing numbers are controlled. There are so many fields to get into so that that the standards will not end up dropping pay to minimum wage.
Incomes will drop as the market oversaturates.
Trump has a special place in his heart for those who work with their hands. There’s an obvious reason for that. In the trades you build/fix things, you do substantive work rather than being just a BS artist with nothing more than a flapping tongue. Go listen to the brilliant Kanye lay it all on the line in the Tucker’s interview with him as to why he was immediately attracted to DJT. My view is that leaders are doers and they can immediately recognize that quality in others.
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