Trade School is Not Always Second-Best for Our Kids

When I was a foster parent, the question of “what comes after high school” sat differently for me and my kids than it did for most of my friends. The assumption in those conversations — that college was the next logical step, the obvious goal — often felt disconnected from what I was seeing. I had teenagers with interrupted school histories, fragmented transcripts, and real, concrete skills from a different life that classrooms had never quite known what to do with. Trade school for foster youth was not a phrase I heard anyone use. I wish it had been.

The cultural script around post-secondary education is powerful and narrow. College or university, a degree, a professional job. When that script does not fit a child — and for many children who have suffered trauma, it genuinely does not fit — families are often left filling in the blank themselves, without much guidance. I certainly don’t regret any of the conversations I had about college. But I do wish someone had made the case for the trades to me and my kids more plainly, earlier, and without embarrassment.

So here is that case.

The Numbers Tell a Specific Story

I want to be careful not to stereotype. Not every young person in a blended or foster family struggles academically, and several of my kids thrived in a college environment. But the data on kids who have suffered trauma — specifically foster youth — are hard to ignore, and the statistics say something important about why the default college track fails so many of the kids we are raising.

One 2022 survey found that roughly 35% of young people who were in foster care at age 17 go on to enroll in college. Of those who enroll, 86% attend community colleges. Only 8% of those community college students graduate with a certificate or degree. The National Foster Youth Institute estimates that fewer than 5% of former foster youth complete a four-year degree.

These are not numbers about motivation or intelligence. They reflect what happens when a child has changed schools repeatedly, has gaps in learning no one fully addressed, and enters a college system that assumes a kind of continuous academic preparation that was never actually available. Researchers at the University of Wisconsin Institute for Research on Poverty note that as many as one-third of young people with foster care histories are disconnected from both education and employment by age 21.

Blended families face a different version of this dilemma. The disruption may not be as severe, but the financial picture often is. Stepparents are rarely positioned as primary financial supporters for a child’s college education, and the legal and emotional complexities of blended families can leave teenagers navigating post-secondary decisions with less guidance and fewer resources than their peers. The trades offer a path that does not require a full family financial commitment to succeed.

What the Trades Actually Pay

The persistent cultural stigma around skilled trades rests on an assumption that is simply not accurate: that trades pay less, offer less stability, and represent a step down from professional work. I held some version of that assumption myself, and I was wrong.

The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported in 2023 that elevator and escalator installers and repairers — one of the top apprenticeship occupations — earned an hourly mean wage of $48.11. Electricians earn a median of around $60,000 annually, with plumbers and HVAC technicians in comparable ranges. Experienced tradespeople who move into supervision or start their own businesses routinely earn six figures.

The demand picture is just as strong. Other experts note that 40% of the current construction workforce will retire by 2031, leaving more than 430,000 unfilled positions nationwide. Ninety-two percent of apprentices who complete their programs stay employed. These jobs do not disappear when the economy shifts, and they cannot be easily automated or outsourced. Someone has to be there, in person, to wire the building.  Robots someday may be able to do those jobs, but they do not appear to be ready any time soon.

The Cost Comparison Is Not Even Close

For a young person launching adulthood without a family financial safety net — which describes most children who have aged out of foster care, and many who grew up in kinship or blended families — the difference between trade school and college is not just a matter of tuition. It can determine whether they stabilize or spiral.

One 2024 survey found that the total cost of a trade school program typically runs $5,000 to $33,000. Another 2024 survey estimates that the average cost of one year of college is more than $24,000.  The costs for private colleges and universities usuallly are much higher.  Given those high costs, being able to graduate from a trade school program, particularly without the debt of education loans, offers significant advantages, at least in the short term.

The debt numbers are equally stark. The average bachelor’s degree graduate leaves school owing around $39,000, according to the Education Data Initiative. Trade school graduates typically carry around $10,000 in debt, and apprenticeship participants often carry none — they earn wages from the first day of training.

Earning While Learning: The Apprenticeship Advantage

The registered apprenticeship model may be the clearest argument for the trades for young people who are building toward independence without a family financial backstop. College asks students to pay tuition for years before earning a paycheck. Apprenticeship programs invert that entirely.

The U.S. Department of Labor’s Apprenticeship.gov tracks registered programs across construction, electrical work, healthcare technology, information technology, and more. Most run three to five years. Apprentices earn wages throughout — starting at 40–50% of a journeyman’s rate and rising as they demonstrate competency. Union apprenticeship programs typically add health insurance and retirement contributions on top.

For a teenager in a blended or stepfamily who is not going to have college costs covered, this model is worth talking about early. For a teenager in foster care, it may be the clearest available path to economic stability. The ASPE research on aging-out youth consistently finds that early work experience and professional network-building significantly improve long-term employment outcomes. Apprenticeship delivers both.

What You Can Do Before the Conversation Gets Urgent

The time to start talking about the trades is not when your teenager is filling out applications in the fall of senior year. It is years earlier, when the conversation can be exploratory and low-stakes and genuinely curious.

Start by examining your own assumptions. I certainly had to. If you think of skilled trades as something people do when they couldn’t get into college, that assumption will come through in how you talk about it — and your child will hear it. The electrician who completes a five-year apprenticeship has demonstrated sustained technical mastery and professional reliability. The master plumber who runs her own business is an entrepreneur. This is not consolation-prize territory.

Look for concrete exposure opportunities now. Many high schools offer career and technical education (CTE) programs in construction, HVAC, automotive, and similar fields. If your child’s school has one, it is worth asking about. Summer programs, job shadows with tradespeople you know, and introductory courses at community colleges can give a teenager a real sense of whether this kind of work fits — without any commitment.

Use the Apprenticeship.gov program finder to look up what is available in your area. Search by state and occupation. Many programs recruit actively from high school CTE pipelines. If your child has been in foster care, ask her caseworker about vocational rehabilitation services and Chafee funding — the federal Chafee Foster Care Program for Successful Transition to Adulthood funds independent living support in every state, and many states use those funds to cover vocational training and apprenticeship preparation.

For stepparents and blended-family parents: this conversation is yours to have too, and it matters just as much. A teenager who grows up hearing that trades are a legitimate first-choice career — not a fallback — enters the workforce with options that many of his or her peers do not have.

On the Stigma

I’ve sat in rooms where the phrase “trade school” landed with a certain deflation — a subtle pulling back, a polite pivot to what the child “really” ought to aspire to. I understand it. We inherit our assumptions about education from a culture that has spent decades telling children that college is the only serious path. But I’ve also sat across the table from teenagers who were genuinely gifted with their hands, who learned by building and fixing and doing, who were not well-served by the assumption that they should find a way to thrive in lecture halls.

Many of the children in our homes have already absorbed enough messages about not being good enough. They do not need one more. The trades offer a counternarrative — one where the skills that may not have translated into strong grades are the exact skills the economy is hungry for. That is a message worth delivering clearly, and early, and without apology.

I wouldn’t trade my years as a foster parent for anything, including the hard conversations about what came next for the teenagers in my home. The ones I most wish I’d had sooner are the ones where I said plainly: the trades are a real option, a good option, and for you specifically, they might be the best option of all.