(Originally posted July 20, 2010)
Our society here in the US has unfortuantely come to consider the pursuit of trades an unattractive career path. Over the last three decades I’ve observed how a college degree has increasingly been encouraged over any passion to use our hands, physical coordination, or gift to make something. As a result there is a glut of college graduates forced into jobs that take little of the skills and knowledge gained from their four year degrees. Over the same timeframe, manufactuing has moved offshore and the middle class has shrank along with the ranks of trade professionals.
What if we brought back the “shops” we used to have in high schools before caps on property tax capped the ability of public schools to produce capable new entrants to the workforce? What if there were just as many “trade techs” as there are community colleges? What if we offered four year degrees in manufacturing technology like we do for IT?What if the few advanced manufacturing businesses left here in this country could hire the people they can’t seem to find?
I think we’d have our middle class back.
