You will likely have encountered the common assertion that we need to send people into trade schools to address problems like college dropout rates and soft labor markets for certain categories of workers. As The Atlantic recently pointed out, the idea that we need to be sending more people to trade and tech schools has broad bipartisan, cross-ideological appeal. This argument has a lot of different flavors, but it tends to come down to the claim that we shouldn't be sending everyone to college (I agree!) and that instead we should be pushing more people into skilled trades. Oftentimes this is encouraged as an apprenticeship model over a schooling model.
Two issues with comparing the cases of students who chose trades training: they, on average, leave high-school with lower social capital and with a lower a ability/desire for college.
For students who are marginal for college, their likelyhood of getting a four year degree are quite low so that trying at college most commonly doesn't give a 4 year degree, instead, they lose several years of earnings and gain college debt.
For many, many reasons, college is not for everyone. For this group, trade schools are probably the best option.
Two additional issues: 1. We need hybrid education for some people. Two years learning the basics in math, science, social science, government, history, and fine arts, and one year learning a marketable skill (a trade, programming, accounting, farming, etc.) 2. Students at colleges are 41% men and 59% women, and the despair of men also shows up in rates of suicide, incarceration, drug overdoses. We need an educational alternative for men.
I would like to see some numbers on this topic from the Netherlands. I have two teenage grandchildren there, neither of whom fits into any kind of educational box. The trades are said to be well-organized and well-paid there. Certainly, both here and there, plumbers and carpenters and electricians, say, are very difficult to locate, and cost and arm and a leg assuming you can find one, and assuming he or she deigns to show up when they promise to show up. (Someone has to be making money on this, and it’s not the homeowner.)
I’ll keep you posted. I am more optimistic about the 21 year old what wants to work with data sets than I am about the 18 year old “artist”. Though as everyone knows, some Dutch artists have done very well in the past.
Two issues with comparing the cases of students who chose trades training: they, on average, leave high-school with lower social capital and with a lower a ability/desire for college.
For students who are marginal for college, their likelyhood of getting a four year degree are quite low so that trying at college most commonly doesn't give a 4 year degree, instead, they lose several years of earnings and gain college debt.
For many, many reasons, college is not for everyone. For this group, trade schools are probably the best option.
Two additional issues: 1. We need hybrid education for some people. Two years learning the basics in math, science, social science, government, history, and fine arts, and one year learning a marketable skill (a trade, programming, accounting, farming, etc.) 2. Students at colleges are 41% men and 59% women, and the despair of men also shows up in rates of suicide, incarceration, drug overdoses. We need an educational alternative for men.
I would like to see some numbers on this topic from the Netherlands. I have two teenage grandchildren there, neither of whom fits into any kind of educational box. The trades are said to be well-organized and well-paid there. Certainly, both here and there, plumbers and carpenters and electricians, say, are very difficult to locate, and cost and arm and a leg assuming you can find one, and assuming he or she deigns to show up when they promise to show up. (Someone has to be making money on this, and it’s not the homeowner.)
I’ll keep you posted. I am more optimistic about the 21 year old what wants to work with data sets than I am about the 18 year old “artist”. Though as everyone knows, some Dutch artists have done very well in the past.
I completely agree with guaranteed minimum income (pegged to inflation), but could one reason for this:
" those who attend vocational schools or programs enjoy initial higher employability but go on to suffer from higher unemployment later in life."
be that that lots of jobs require a college degree that shouldn't?