I’m pretty sure you don’t need a bachelors degree in welding to get a job as a welder, and I’m also pretty sure a skilled welder will make a lot more than a good percentage of college graduates.
Except for those years from 55-65 when he can’t work at all because his knees gave out or he got MS or he shattered his ankle and it never quite healed or his body just fucking wore out after 35 years of repetitive physical work. Or he fell off a roof and died.
I used to be much more a fan of vocational education, but I work now almost entirely with the children of tradesmen, and the one thing they all seem to want for their children is to not be tradesmen. And I don’t think it’s kneejerk class snobbery. The trades can be a hard life full of aches and pains. At 25, not so much. But no one stays 25.
I know a lot of computer people who in their 50s can’t keep up with the changes in technology - their brains aren’t nimble enough any longer. My dentist is retiring at just over 50, his eyes can’t handle the work any longer. I know a lot of nurses who retire young - lifting patients is a young person’s job. My friend is an ER doc with MS, she’ll work while she can. I have a shoulder and wrist completely knotted up from 30 years of keyboard work - the shoulder creates a constant tension headache - there isn’t a moment without some degree of pain - although trigger point injections have kept me functional.
A knowledge worker job is not a guarantee to a long term healthy body.
I think a lot of tradesmen don’t want that life for their kids, but they don’t see that a desk job brings its own stress, health issues, financial insecurity, continual changes.
Certainly a knowledge worker is not guarenteed a healthy body, but I think your odds of being able to keep working–even if it’s painful–are much greater. The risk of the trades is one of being literally unemployable. Computer people who can’t keep up with technology maybe stagnate, but a painter who can’t paint has nothing.
This is not to say the trades aren’t sometimes the best choice–they absolutely can be. But anyone committing to being on their feet (and I include nurses in this) for decades needs to understand how much more difficult that gets over time and have a concrete plan–not a vague idea–to move inside at some point.
There was an auto shop at my HS, and the county had a vocational training program located at another HS in the center of the county. Students in that program had their academic classes in the mornings, then took a bus to the other school for their vocational classes.
The high school I attended had quite a few voc-ed classes. I personally took a couple of classes designed for idiot athletes: “Cooking For Jocks” and “Bachelor Living.” Both proved priceless.
The school I teach at now offers a number of classes through the Regional Occupational Program. But no home-ec classes, sad to say.
My brother is a Master Plumber, and will be 60 in January, so I know how physically hard the work is, as I sometimes help him do the wrenching. But he was pulling down more than $100,000 a year as a plumber and didn’t have any student debt coming out of that. I said welding because there is a lot of it that is very technical and indoor work for the experienced.
Last I checked my high school still had it’s shop class and home ec and other such. It was a necessity when they increased the number of hours needed to graduate, and got rid of the ability of seniors to take fewer than 6 classes a day.