There's a path that doesn't get talked about enough, and it's one that I genuinely think more young people should be considering, especially the ones who aren't sure college is for them but who feel pressured to go anyway because it's just what everyone else is doing.
That path is trade school, or community college, or some kind of specialised programme that actually teaches you a specific skill that gets you a specific job.
I think a lot of high school graduates have been quietly raised to look down on this path, and I think that's a real shame, because it's one of the most underrated routes available right now.
Here's why.
When you go to a four year college, you spend a lot of time and money learning a broad range of things, some of which are useful, most of which aren't directly tied to a job. When you go to trade school or community college, you're usually picking up a specific, marketable skill in a much shorter time, for a much smaller fraction of the cost, that translates almost immediately into employment. You finish, you have a qualification, you go and work.
Plumbing. Electrical work. HVAC. Welding. Dental hygiene. Nursing. Real estate. Coding bootcamps. Mechanic work. There are dozens of these, and most of them lead to jobs that pay genuinely well, that aren't going anywhere any time soon, and that don't require you to be in debt for the next twenty years.
And here's something most people don't think about. A lot of these trades are actually really hard to outsource and really hard to automate. The plumber in your town isn't being replaced by AI. He's there, he's needed, and the demand for his work isn't going down. If anything, with the older generation of tradesmen retiring and not enough young people coming in to replace them, the demand is going up.
There's also something to be said about the kind of life these jobs allow you to live. You finish your day, you go home, you don't take it with you. You're not lying in bed at 11pm worrying about a slide deck. You did real work, you got paid for it, and now your evening is yours. There's a peace in that kind of life that office workers spend their whole careers trying to recreate, and you can have it from the start.
I'm not saying everyone should be a plumber. I'm saying that if you're not particularly drawn to academic work, and you're not sure what you want to study, and the only reason you're considering college is because you don't know what else to do, please look at this path before you sign up for a hundred thousand dollars of debt.
Because if you're going to spend two years in school anyway, you might as well come out the other end with a specific skill that pays the bills, instead of a degree in something vague that might not.
And honestly, even if you do eventually want to go to a four year college, community college can be a smart way to handle the first two years. Cheaper, often easier to get into, and the credits often transfer. You finish your first half of college without nearly as much debt, and you can decide whether you actually want to go on for the rest.
This isn't a glamorous chapter, I know. But it might be the most practically useful one in this whole course for some of you, and if it is, please don't skip past it just because the path doesn't sound as exciting as the four year college dream.
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Reflect: If you took college off the table for a second, and the only options on the table were trade school, community college, an apprenticeship, or going straight into work, which one would you pick? And what does your gut reaction to that question tell you?
