As for the trades - a majority of people aren't going to graduate college. If anything, I think, our K-12 education system should be set up primarily with them in mind, instead of the better-off minority who will end up with Bachelors or Advanced degrees. Sending a kid straight out of High School into a plumbers' apprenticeship is better than letting him rack up 2 years of student debt before he drops out of college and then winds up working at Waffle House.
This right here ^^^ is what our UNIONS should be helping out with.
Unions used to offer a very healthy apprenticeship program in almost every trade. Now a lot of them throw up barriers in the form of outrageously high initiation fees.
My own former union, IATSE Locals 600 and 700, wanted three thousand bucks CASH back in 1988 when I joined 700 (then called Local 776) and I ponied up the money. I had to, in order to get one of those $2,495 a week jobs.
