Pub. 1 2018-2019 Issue 3

18 I fyouliveintheU.S.,youalreadyknowwhat most peoplewant for their children: auni- versity education followedby a high-pay- ing white-collar job. The decision to earn a four-year academic degree has also tradi- tionallybeenencouragedby thehighschool students attend, as most high schools are focusedonacademics andgetting students ready for college. Unfortunately, the idea of preparinggood students for anythingother than college has been lost. The career path of a four-year degree is not for everyone. This is something that teach- ers have known, as well as even parents and students themselves, in 20/20 hind- sight. But economists are now weighing in as well. In fact, millions of good-paying jobs areopeningup in the trades. And some pay better than what the average college graduate makes. The reality is that young people can get a particular skill in a particular field and make more than a college graduate. For example, according to Anthony Carnevale, the director of the Georgetown University Center onEducationand theWorkforce,“the average electrician makes $5,000 a year more than the average college graduate.” So why have PR trade careers not been as glowing as that of college graduates? Well part of the problem is that “averages lie.”Also, according to Carnevale, the aver- ages often quoted with salaries of those in skilled trades, when compared with college graduates, tend to lump people who work at RadioShack or Target in with master carpenters and electricians, which skew the numbers. While the demand for certain jobs that need college degrees can expect to see some growth in the next few years, there is at least asmuch growth expected in trades and technical jobs, if not more. Carnevale continues to say,“The baby-boomworkers are retiring and leaving lots of openings for millennials,many of which are in the trades.” Interestingly, that same generation – mil- lennials – are alsogeneralized as under-em- ployed with crippling student debt. Student debt is widely referenced as this generation’s top financial concern and SKILLED CONSTRUCTION WORKERS the average millennial has $38,000 in student loan debt. The biggest driver of the student loandebt crisis has been the increases in college tuition costs over thepast 10 years, with the average cost of a college degree now being close to $30,000, or more, per year. Many millennials were forced to take out loans to pay for college and were hopeful that theywould graduate and be able to enter into a successful career track – but that largely hasn’t been the case and many have had a hard time paying off their student loans. The average millennial is underem- ployed and it is quite common to see millennials who graduated with huge student loans making $12 per hour in service jobs. Yet, right now, there’s a major labor shortage in construction jobs across theU.S., with200,000unfilledpositions across the country. Growing cities are in desperate need of moreworkers. As the construction sector booms – due to infrastructure upgrades and fueled WHY THE U.S. NEEDS