Great article. Thanks for sharing. I recently completed scholarship selection of applicants who were bound for community college, vo-tech, or trade school and all of them cited cost in their personal statements as a reason for pursuing a career in the trades. Certainly, their passion for the work was also evident in their statements and related activities.
With the lower barrier to entry to well-paying jobsāin actual dollars and opportunity costāitās not surprising that students choose the trade school path. We just donāt tend to see those kids and parents on CC.
This is a sad, but true statement from the article:
"But, he says the job also comes with a downside, mainly because of the stigma attached to the industry.
āI think thereās a big problem with moms and dads coming home from quote-unquote ādirtyā jobs. Coming home with dirty clothes and sweating. You had a hard dayās work and sometimes thatās looked down upon,ā he says."
There are people that look down on my older sonās job, for multiple reasons. He doesnāt care, nor do I. Iām positive most people he interacts with daily have no idea how smart he is, or that he has his bachelors(and will likely attain at least one masters degree). Had he chosen a trade Iām certain heād be doing quite well also.
This is true, for sure, but Iām not on plumberās forums either. I wouldnāt say CCers look down on people in the trades, but itās safe to assume they would prefer their children not enter the trades rather than go to college.
I wonder if the āToolbelt Generationā has an even gender distribution. LOL.
The gender likely depends on the trade. Beautician trade school likely skews female.
I agree we need to encourage race school options. In fact, we recently were discussing this topic with friends.
I followed both threads on here related to gender and since then Iāve been taking notice of worker make up. Last week while walking to work I saw 3 women painters and 2 women construction workers. This was quite surprising and a month ago I might not have even noticed them.
The sister of a good friend from high school is a plumber ā¦ or I should say was, because she was able to comfortably retire before 60. I always thought it was a cool thing for her to become a plumber ā¦ I went into a job that was very unusual for a woman, but she took that to the next level.
Iāll look a little closer I guess 
Artificial intelligence is going to make many white collar jobs disappear, but the trades will survive.
My contractor (age 33) has a bachelorās degree from Texas A&M and an MBA from Rice University. Heās doing exactly what he wants/likes to do work-wise.
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