The Other Side of the Trades Why “Skip College and Learn a Trade” Is Not Enough Advice

The Learning Consultants has partnered with James Folgia, a brilliant and caring construction executive who wants to help educate young adults in the last part of his career.

We did so, in part, due to the growing number of articles and interest in the trades.  Interestingly, as I became excited about Jim helping us, I also dove into researching how this trend has played out for our Connecticut clients.

For much of the last generation, American parents delivered a nearly automatic message to their children: go to college. College was treated not simply as one possible path to adulthood, but as the path. Guidance counselors reinforced the message. Schools measured their success by college acceptance rates. Suburban parents spoke about college from the time their children were in elementary school.

There were obvious problems with this approach. Too many students enrolled without a clear purpose. Too many families borrowed enormous sums for degrees of uncertain value. Too many young people were directed toward four-year colleges when another form of education or training might have suited them better.

The resulting correction was necessary. But corrections have a way of becoming overcorrections.

Today, a new piece of conventional wisdom has emerged: forget college and learn a trade. Advocates point to the cost of higher education, the shortage of skilled labor and the earning potential of electricians, plumbers, welders and carpenters. The familiar claim is that a young person can avoid student debt, begin earning immediately and eventually build a highly profitable business.

All of that is possible. For some young people, the trades offer a satisfying and prosperous life. We need excellent electricians, plumbers, HVAC technicians, mechanics, welders and carpenters. These occupations are socially essential and deserve far more respect than our status-conscious culture has traditionally given them.

But possibility is not probability, and a slogan is not a career plan.

The current drumbeat about the trades has become so loud—and, at times, so romanticized—that I fear many young people and their parents are being misled. We are in danger of replacing one simplistic command, “Everyone should go to college,” with another: “Smart young people should skip college and enter the trades.” Neither statement takes the actual young person seriously enough.

Most Suburban Teenagers Have No Idea What Trade Work Is Like

When a suburban high school student says that he might become an electrician or a plumber, what does he mean?

Usually, he means that he has heard college is expensive. He may be tired of school. He may dislike writing papers or sitting in classrooms. He has probably heard that plumbers can earn six figures. He may have watched a short video about a 24-year-old tradesman who owns a truck, employs several people and claims to be making more money than his friends who went to college.

What he usually does not mean is that he has spent meaningful time working beside a plumber, electrician or carpenter. He has not crawled into tight spaces, carried heavy material, worked outside in bitter cold or oppressive heat, or started a physically demanding day while his back was already aching. He has not experienced the early mornings, the dirty environments, the occupational hazards, the difficult customers or the pressure of completing a job when an unforeseen problem has destroyed the schedule.

Most suburban youngsters have had almost no exposure to manual labor. They may never have used serious tools. They may never have worked an eight-hour shift on their feet, much less done so for five consecutive days. Their schools often offer limited vocational exploration, and their communities tend to separate professional families from the people who build, repair and maintain their homes.

This does not mean these young people could not thrive in the trades. It means they do not yet have enough information to know.

Disliking conventional school does not automatically mean someone will enjoy trade school. Preferring “hands-on work” in the abstract does not establish that someone will enjoy kneeling beneath a sink, pulling wire through an attic in August or framing a building in February. Wanting to avoid a desk is not the same as wanting a working life built around physical exertion.

Before making a career decision, a teenager needs contact with the reality of the work—not merely its advertised income.

The People Who Know the Most Often Say the Least

One of the most revealing features of the current enthusiasm for the trades is who is doing the talking.

The loudest advocates are often commentators, entrepreneurs, educators and social-media personalities. Many sit behind desks while telling young people that desk work is overrated. They speak confidently about the dignity and financial promise of manual work, but they will never spend forty years doing it.

The quieter voices are often the tradesmen themselves.

Experienced tradesmen certainly take pride in their skill. Many enjoy solving concrete problems and seeing the tangible result of a day’s labor. Some have built excellent businesses and would choose the same life again. Yet they also know what outsiders tend to leave out.

They know what the work does to the body.

Talk candidly with plumbers in their forties and fifties and you will hear about damaged knees, chronic back pain, worn shoulders and hands that no longer function as they once did. Their bodies can resemble those of retired football players—not because they played before cheering crowds, but because they spent decades kneeling, lifting, twisting and working in confined positions. The crucial difference is that there was no NFL salary, no public glory and often no financial cushion sufficient to make stopping easy.

An office worker with a bad back may be uncomfortable. A plumber, carpenter or mechanic with a bad back may be unable to earn a living.

This is not a criticism of the work. It is precisely why the work deserves respect. But respect requires honesty. We should not praise the trades by concealing the sacrifices tradesmen make.

The Myth of Automatic Financial Security

The financial story also deserves closer examination.

Yes, some tradespeople earn excellent incomes. A licensed professional with scarce expertise, a strong reputation and steady demand can do very well. A tradesman who successfully builds a company can earn far more than many college graduates.

But the phrase “a plumber can make six figures” leaves out nearly everything a young person needs to know. In what location? After how many years? Working how many hours? As an employee or an owner? Before or after the cost of a truck, tools, insurance, licensing, payroll, unpaid estimates and periods without work? Does the figure include overtime? Does the person receive health insurance, paid vacation, disability coverage and retirement contributions?

The top-line number is not the whole life.

This is particularly true for carpenters and many other workers whose employment can be project-based. In practice, many operate like gig workers. They move from job to job, contractor to contractor and busy season to slow season. Construction slows. Projects are delayed. A builder loses financing. A customer does not pay. An injury interrupts the ability to work. Economic uncertainty that appears abstract to a salaried professional can become immediate and personal to someone whose income depends on the next project beginning on time.

Some workers prefer that independence. But independence and security are not the same thing.

Entrepreneurship is often presented as the natural second act: learn the trade, then start a company. Yet owning a trade business requires an entirely different set of abilities. The owner must sell, hire, schedule, estimate, collect payment, manage employees and comply with regulations. Being an outstanding electrician does not automatically make someone an outstanding business owner. The success stories are real, but survivorship bias is real as well. We hear from the person who built a fleet of fifteen trucks, not from every equally hardworking person who remained self-employed, physically exhausted and financially vulnerable.

College Is Not the Answer for Everyone

None of this is an argument that every young person should attend a four-year college.

Some should not—at least not immediately. College is too expensive to serve as a holding area for an unmotivated teenager. A student who has no interest in academic work, no clear reason for enrolling and no realistic plan for using the education should consider other options. Those options may include trade school, an apprenticeship, community college, military service, structured employment or a purposeful gap year.

Nor should we confuse academic talent with human potential. A student who struggled in high school may become an exceptional electrician. A young person who felt restless in classrooms may flourish while diagnosing mechanical problems. The trades can provide mastery, responsibility, visible accomplishment and genuine service to others. For the right person, that combination can be deeply meaningful.

The key phrase, however, is “for the right person.”

Career guidance should not be driven by cultural fashion. Fifteen years ago, fashion told nearly everyone to pursue a bachelor’s degree. Today, the emerging fashion tells young men in particular to reject college and work with their hands. A serious counselor or parent should resist both forms of groupthink.

Test the Life Before Choosing the Label

A teenager considering a trade should investigate it with the same seriousness we would expect from a student considering medicine or engineering.

That means speaking with several people in the field—not just one unusually successful business owner. It means asking apprentices, employees, independent contractors and older workers different questions. What does an ordinary day look like? What does the work feel like after ten, twenty or thirty years? How variable is the income? What benefits are provided? Which injuries are common? What percentage of apprentices finish? What separates people who flourish from those who leave?

Most important, it means trying the work in some meaningful form. A summer job with a contractor, a vocational program, a job shadow or even several long days assisting a tradesman will teach more than dozens of online videos. The purpose is not to discourage the student. It is to replace fantasy with evidence.

The young person should also examine his own temperament. Does he enjoy physical problem-solving? Is he dependable enough to arrive early every day? Can he tolerate discomfort, repetition and demanding customers? Does he take satisfaction in precision? Is he comfortable with risk? Does he want to run a business, or would he prefer stable employment? Can his body reasonably sustain the work he is considering?

These questions are more useful than asking whether college is “worth it.” A career is not a debate topic. It is a life lived hour by hour.

Honest Guidance Is a Form of Respect

America should expand vocational education, create more apprenticeships and give young people earlier exposure to skilled work. We should stop treating the trades as a consolation prize for students who are not “college material.” We should also stop treating college admission as the only marker of a successful adolescence.

But we should be equally wary of presenting the trades as an easy escape from tuition bills and office life.

There is nothing easy about becoming an excellent tradesman. The training can be rigorous. The early wages may be modest. The work can be physically punishing. Employment may be uncertain. Advancement may require entrepreneurship, with all the risk and complexity that entrepreneurship entails.

The best guidance is neither “Go to college” nor “Learn a trade.” It is: understand yourself, understand the work and test your assumptions before committing years of your life.

Tradesmen deserve admiration not because they discovered a clever shortcut around college, but because they developed difficult skills and perform demanding work that the rest of society depends upon. If we truly respect them, we should listen to the whole story—including the parts that do not fit comfortably into a viral video.

Young people need more than a new slogan. They need the truth.