79% of parents push their kids toward college, and only 5% encourage trades, so the pipeline of new tradespeople is starved at the source

A Jobber study found that 79% of respondents said their parents wanted them to attend college after high school, while just 5% of parents encouraged their children to pursue the trades. 76% of Gen Z say university was actively promoted to them; only 31% remember trade school even being mentioned. High school guidance counselors carry heavy caseloads and typically lack knowledge about vocational career paths, defaulting to the college-for-all narrative. The result: 71% of Gen Z and 63% of parents still view trade school as less favorable than university. This cultural bias has a direct, measurable impact on the trades pipeline. When a high school junior with mechanical aptitude is steered toward a four-year engineering degree instead of an electrical apprenticeship, the trades lose a potential entrant for at least four years — and often permanently, because that student accumulates $30,000-$100,000 in college debt that locks them into white-collar career paths to service the loans. Meanwhile, the student who would have thrived as a plumber spends four years studying something they're less suited for, graduates into an oversaturated job market, and ends up underemployed. The economic irony is brutal. A journeyman electrician earns $60,000-$80,000 with zero student debt after a 4-year apprenticeship where they were paid to learn. A bachelor's degree holder earns a median starting salary of $58,000 with an average of $37,000 in student loans. The trades path has better ROI for a huge segment of the population, but the information asymmetry at the decision point — age 17, in a guidance counselor's office — means millions of potential tradespeople never even consider it. This problem persists because the entire K-12 education system is structurally optimized for college placement. Schools are ranked by college acceptance rates. Guidance counselor training programs focus on college admissions. Federal education funding flows to college-prep programs. Shop classes and vocational tracks were systematically defunded starting in the 1990s. There is no institutional incentive for a high school to route students toward trades, and strong institutional pressure to maximize college enrollment numbers.