High-Paying Trade Jobs Sit Empty, While High School Grads Line Up For University

Even National Public Radio is waking up to the reality that college is an expense more and more high schoolers are re-evaluating and deciding instead to take a career path towards a trade job that doesn’t include debt and career delay.

In a new report, one of the co-authors, Chris Cortines, found that good jobs in the skilled trades are going begging because students are being almost universally steered to bachelor’s degrees. That’s something manufacturers have been saying for years, and few listened. Now the need for manufacturers is dire.

Some speculate that maybe that course become prominent was because there was a taxpayer-funded publicity campaign to promote universities and high education careers. The plan doesn’t fit every high schooler.

“Being more aware of other types of options may be exactly what they need,” Cortines said. In spite of a perception “that college is the sole path for everybody,” he said, “when you look at the types of wages that apprenticeships and other career areas pay and the fact that you do not pay four years of tuition and you’re paid while you learn, these other paths really need some additional consideration.”

Read more about the study from Washington State that was featured on NPR earlier this year HERE.