It usually starts at a kitchen table, or in the car after a campus visit, or late at night when the financial aid letter finally arrives. A parent looks at the numbers—the tuition, the room and board, the projected loans—and wonders, for the first time or the hundredth, whether a four-year degree is really the only sensible path. Maybe their teenager has mentioned welding, or HVAC, or electrical work. Maybe a neighbor's kid skipped college, finished a trade program in eighteen months, and is already earning more than some of the adults on the block. The question hangs there, equal parts practical and emotional: Is college still worth it?

It's a question that deserves a more honest answer than most families get. The old script—that a bachelor's degree is the surest ticket to a middle-class life—still has real data behind it, but the landscape has shifted in ways that make the calculation more complicated than it was a generation ago. Trade school enrollment at vocational-focused public two-year colleges has surged nearly twenty percent since 2020, according to the National Student Clearinghouse Research Center, while enrollment in bachelor's programs has only recently returned to pre-pandemic levels. Families are voting with their feet, and the reasons are worth examining closely.

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Start with the sticker price, because that's where most families start. The College Board reported that in 2024–25, the average published cost of attendance at a public four-year university—tuition, fees, room, and board—was roughly $29,900 per year for in-state students, and about $63,000 at private nonprofit institutions. Over four years, assuming a student finishes on time (and only about 62 percent do, according to the Clearinghouse's most recent completion data), a public university degree carries an all-in cost north of $100,000.

Trade school occupies a different financial universe. Total tuition for a certificate or diploma program—not per year, but for the entire program—typically ranges from $5,000 to $15,000, according to data compiled by Edvisors and the National Center for Education Statistics. An automotive technology diploma might run $5,000 to $12,000; a welding certificate, $5,000 to $15,000; an HVAC program at a community college, roughly the same. Even on the high end, the total cost of a two-year technical program at a community college is generally less than a single year of tuition and fees at most four-year schools.

The debt picture reflects that gap. Data reported to U.S. News by nearly a thousand colleges showed that graduates from the class of 2024 who borrowed money for a bachelor's degree left school owing an average of about $29,900. The average public university student borrows roughly $32,000 by graduation, according to the Education Data Initiative. Trade school graduates who borrow at all—and many don't need to—typically carry somewhere between $5,000 and $10,000 in debt. At one Midwest trade school, the average graduate's loan balance was just over $8,000, according to the school's own data reported to College Navigator. The difference isn't marginal. It's the difference between a monthly payment you barely notice and one that reshapes your twenties.

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But tuition and debt tell only part of the story, and probably not even the most important part. The factor that rarely appears in college brochures is opportunity cost—the income a trade school graduate earns during the years a college student is still sitting in lecture halls.

Most trade programs take between six months and two years to complete. A student who finishes an electrical apprenticeship program or an HVAC certificate at nineteen or twenty can step into paid work while their college-bound friends are still finishing sophomore year. The Bureau of Labor Statistics reported that the median annual wage for electricians in May 2024 was $62,350; for plumbers, pipefitters, and steamfitters, $62,970; for HVAC mechanics and installers, roughly $57,300. Entry-level trade workers start lower—Payscale data for 2025 puts the median entry-level electrician salary around $60,600, entry-level plumbing at $53,900, and entry-level HVAC at $54,100—but even those starting figures represent real money arriving two to three years sooner than a college graduate's first paycheck.

Run the math on a napkin, and the implications are striking. A trade school graduate who earns an average of $50,000 a year for the two or three years that a college student is still in school has banked $100,000 to $150,000 in gross income before the college graduate earns a dime. Meanwhile, the college student has likely accumulated $25,000 to $32,000 in debt. That combined head start—earned income plus avoided debt—can exceed $130,000. It's a gap that takes years for the college graduate's higher average earnings to close, if it ever fully does.

This is not a knock on college. Over a full career, bachelor's degree holders do earn more on average. BLS data for 2024 shows that workers with a bachelor's degree had median weekly earnings of $1,543—about $80,200 annually—compared with $1,020 for workers with some postsecondary education but no degree, a category that includes most trade school graduates. That's a meaningful premium, and it compounds over decades. But averages can obscure as much as they reveal. A philosophy major earning $38,000 and a computer science graduate earning $120,000 both contribute to the bachelor's degree median. An electrician running her own shop and billing $150,000 a year doesn't show up in the "bachelor's degree" column at all.

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If the financial comparison is closer than many parents expect, the job market data may be even more surprising. The Bureau of Labor Statistics' 2024–34 employment projections show that several trade occupations are growing at rates that outpace the overall economy. Employment of electricians is projected to grow nine percent over the decade—three times the average for all occupations—with about 81,000 openings projected each year. HVAC mechanic and installer positions are expected to grow eight percent, generating roughly 40,000 annual openings. Wind turbine service technicians and solar photovoltaic installers top the BLS's entire fastest-growing list, with projected growth rates of around fifty percent and twenty-six percent, respectively.

The numbers on the ground are even more dramatic. BlueRecruit, a platform that tracks skilled trades hiring, reported that hiring in skilled trades rose 376 percent between the fourth quarter of 2024 and the first quarter of 2025 compared to the same period a year earlier. Demand for electricians and manufacturing technicians reached record levels. The American Welding Society estimates that more than 157,000 welding professionals are approaching retirement and that 320,500 new welding professionals will be needed by 2029. These aren't theoretical future shortages; they are already driving up wages. Pay for electricians increased about 76 cents per hour in a single quarter, amounting to roughly $1,580 more per year before overtime.

Compare this with the experience of recent four-year graduates in some popular fields. Data compiled by HeyTutor for 2024 found that mass media graduates—a common stepping stone to journalism careers—faced a 7.8 percent unemployment rate, a 55 percent underemployment rate, and a median early-career wage of $35,000. Liberal arts graduates as a group experienced unemployment around 6.7 percent and underemployment near 58 percent, with median early-career wages of just $33,400. These are sobering numbers for a family that just spent $120,000 on a degree.

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Something else has changed that matters for this conversation, and it extends well beyond the trades. A growing number of major employers have dropped bachelor's degree requirements for many of their positions. Google, Apple, IBM, Bank of America, Delta Air Lines, General Motors, Accenture, and Dell are among the companies that have publicly moved toward skills-based hiring models. ZipRecruiter reported that job postings listing a bachelor's degree as a requirement fell ten percent between 2022 and 2023 alone. According to a TestGorilla survey in 2025, 85 percent of employers now use some form of skills-based hiring, up from 73 percent in 2023.

The shift has a name in some circles: "new collar" hiring, a term coined by former IBM CEO Ginni Rometty in 2016. IBM reported that after eliminating degree requirements for nearly half of its U.S. roles, the company was able to expand its talent pool and improve hiring outcomes. As IBM's talent leader Kelli Jordan put it, "You don't need to go get a computer science degree to be a web developer. You can learn those languages in a variety of ways." At least sixteen states, including Maryland, Virginia, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania, have eliminated four-year degree requirements for most state government jobs. The message is filtering through the economy: a degree is one signal of competence, but it's no longer the only one employers are willing to accept.

For families considering the trades specifically, this trend matters because it confirms that the cultural shift is real and durable. A young person who earns an industry certification, completes an apprenticeship, or builds a portfolio of demonstrated skills is entering a labor market that is increasingly designed to recognize exactly those credentials.

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All of which might make trade school sound like an obvious choice—and that would be the wrong takeaway. This decision is genuinely complex, and the limitations of the trade school path are real and worth naming plainly.

First, credits from trade and vocational programs generally do not transfer to four-year institutions. A student who completes an eighteen-month welding program and later decides she wants a bachelor's degree in engineering will, in most cases, start nearly from scratch. College offers optionality that trade school does not: a liberal arts student can shift from pre-med to economics to education without leaving the institution. Trade programs, by design, are narrow and deep. That's their strength for students who know what they want, and their vulnerability for students who don't.

Second, there are careers that genuinely require a four-year degree, and in some cases graduate study beyond that. Medicine, law, most engineering disciplines, academic research, public policy analysis, clinical psychology—these fields have educational requirements that no trade certificate can satisfy, and for good reason. A parent whose child dreams of designing bridges or practicing medicine should not be steered away from college by aggregate salary data.

Third, while employer perceptions are shifting, they haven't shifted everywhere equally. Some industries and some hiring managers still treat a bachelor's degree as a baseline filter, especially for management-track positions. A 2014 study by Burning Glass Technologies found significant "degree inflation" in job postings—a credentials gap of 26 percent for management positions, 21 percent for computer and math jobs, and 13 percent for sales roles. The skills-based hiring movement is working to close that gap, but progress is uneven.

And there are physical realities to consider. Many trades involve demanding physical labor, exposure to weather, and long hours on job sites. Injury rates in construction and extraction occupations remain among the highest in the economy. A career that begins at twenty with a strong back and steady hands may look different at fifty. Some tradespeople navigate this by moving into supervisory roles, starting their own businesses, or transitioning to inspection and consulting work, but these transitions aren't guaranteed.

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So what should a family actually do with all of this? The most useful frame may be the simplest one: this isn't a question about which path is better. It's a question about which path is better for this particular kid, with this particular set of interests, aptitudes, and financial circumstances.

For a student who loves working with her hands, who lights up at the idea of solving physical problems and seeing tangible results, who is more motivated by earning and building than by studying and theorizing—trade school is not a consolation prize. It is a direct, financially efficient route to work that is in enormous demand, that pays well, and that cannot be easily outsourced or automated. For a student who is curious about ideas, who wants time to explore different fields, who is drawn to careers that require deep theoretical training—college remains a powerful investment, especially when chosen carefully and financed wisely.

The data suggest that the old hierarchy—college on top, trades beneath—no longer describes reality very well. The BLS's own earnings data notes that its education categories "do not take into account completion of training programs in the form of apprenticeships and other on-the-job training, which may also influence earnings and unemployment rates." In other words, the government's own wage tables aren't capturing the full picture of what skilled tradespeople earn.

What matters most, perhaps, is that families approach the conversation without the assumptions that an earlier generation could afford to make. College is not the only pathway to a stable, well-compensated career. Trade school is not a fallback. Both paths carry real costs and real rewards, and the right choice depends on an honest assessment of who your child is and what kind of life they want to build. The numbers can illuminate the decision. But the decision itself belongs to the family—made with clear eyes, an open mind, and the reassurance that either path, chosen thoughtfully, can lead to a good life.

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