(NewsNation) — As college tuition continues to rise, many high school graduates are forgoing higher education for well-paying, traditionally blue-collar jobs in response.
Some jobs where more than half of employees have just a high school diploma include highway maintenance workers, construction crane operators, miners and loggers. As of last month, pay for those jobs ranged from $1,300 to $1,700 a week.
Gen Z appears to be weighing the higher cost of college and the guaranteed return on investment in the trades and thousands of young people are skipping college, well aware they are following a generation deep in student loan debt.
In recent years, more and more Americans are becoming plumbers, electricians and construction workers, taking the blue-collar route with a healthy paycheck.
High demand for skilled trade workers and persistent labor shortages have pushed annual salaries well above six figures for some trades. And with new technology, many blue-collar jobs are less hands-on as industries lean into AI and robotics.
Those who veered off the college track, like electrician Andrew Ubaldi, are glad they did.
“That was the first time in my whole life that I went to school and was like, I’m good at this,” he said. “You could become a journeyman by the time you’re 20 and make $70,000, $80,000 a year. How do you do that in college?”
Robert Farrington, a finance expert, told NewsNation that college grads are less likely to see those earnings.
“If you were to spend more than $80,000 on going to college today, you have a very slim chance of making that back over your lifetime,” he said. “Not to say that there’s not people that do, but you’re probably not.”
According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, construction jobs are especially lucrative. The average pay is now nearly $1,500 a week, a 43% increase over the past decade.
A third of all construction workers are now under the age of 34, with Gen Z filling the void as the bulk of veterans in most trades head into retirement.