Jan 7, 2026
For generations, the promise was simple: put in four years of grinding through lectures, midterms and overpriced textbooks and you’d walk out with a degree that practically guaranteed a stable, well-paying job.
For a long time, that promise held up. College graduates consistently found work faster, faced lower unemployment rates and earned higher wages than people with only a high school diploma, according to research from the Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland (1). But that safety net is starting to fray.
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“For the first time in modern history, a bachelor’s degree is no longer a reliable path to professional employment,” Gad Levanon, chief economist at the Burning Glass Institute, told CNBC (2).
Goldman Sachs analysts have also found that the “safety premium” of a college degree — the buffer that made higher education a secure bet — has shrunk to its narrowest margin in decades.
Meanwhile, trade programs are starting to look less like the “Plan B” everyone whispered about in homeroom and more like a strategic move. The price tag alone tells the story: trade school typically costs about $3,973 to $16,877, according to Citizens College Raptor (3). That’s a fraction of the average $38,270 many students pay for a traditional four-year program (4).
Unlike a bachelor’s degree, where students rack up debt while memorizing theories they may never use, many trade pathways let workers earn as they learn. Apprenticeships, hands-on training and tax credits can help cover expenses while students build real, marketable skills.
The one thing college can’t replace
Trade careers are gaining traction for one simple reason: you can’t automate your way out of a burst pipe or an electrical failure. Electricians, plumbers, welders and mechanics remain the backbone of the U.S. economy, and federal investments like the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law are pushing demand even higher. The country is expected to add about 345,000 new trade jobs by 2027–28, with clean-energy projects creating even more roles for people who prefer tools, troubleshooting and hands-on work.
Mike Rowe, CEO of the mikeroweWORKS Foundation, says the shift is becoming impossible to ignore.
“We’ve been telling kids for 15 years to learn to code. Well, AI is coming for the coders,” he told attendees at the Pennsylvania Energy and Innovation Summit. “It’s not coming for the welders. It’s not coming for the plumbers. It’s not coming for the steamfitters, or the pipefitters or the HVAC. It’s not coming for the electricians.”
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But the boom has a downside: there aren’t enough workers to fill the pipeline. More than a million trade roles are unfilled nationwide, including 500,000 in manufacturing alone. For every five tradespeople retiring, only two are stepping in to replace them. That shortage is pushing wages up and making the field more financially attractive than ever.
It’s the same gap that opened the door for workers like Crist Morillon (6).
A fun auto shop elective at her Phoenix-area high school sparked a passion she never expected. By graduation, she knew she didn’t want student debt or four more years in a classroom. Instead, she enrolled in a one-year automotive program at Universal Technical Institute, earning her associate degree for about $18,000 after scholarships.
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Loans on loans
When Morillon walked across the stage in 2017, she didn’t step into years of unpaid internships or loan statements waiting to be paid. Instead, Tesla recruited her straight off campus for a service assistant role. Within a year, she was promoted to service technician.
She spent four years at Tesla before joining Lucid Motors in 2021, where she still works today, earning about $78,000 a year. That steady income fueled the kind of milestones many peers are still dreaming about.
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Morillon bought her first home at 24, a classic American dream, one she believes would have been out of reach had she taken the traditional college route. It’s not an unreasonable assumption. The median first-time homebuyer in the U.S. is now 40, according to the National Association of Realtors (7).
“I would probably still be living at my parents’ house and paying off student loans,” she told CNBC Make It. “Instead, I’m able to financially support myself, my parents and my younger sister when they need it.”
The average federal student loan balance sits at $39,075 per borrower. So while one pathway requires four years in the classroom and often decades of repayment, another can fast-track workers into stable paychecks and earlier financial milestones like homeownership and retirement contributions.
As the economy shifts, the equation is getting more complicated. AI is already reshaping many white-collar fields, tightening entry-level hiring and redrawing what “job security” looks like. Skilled trades, meanwhile, are getting harder to automate and often easier to enter without life-altering debt.
That doesn’t mean college is the wrong choice. A degree can still be a powerful investment, especially for careers that require one. But it does mean families may want to run the numbers more carefully: compare expected salaries to debt, look for programs with co-ops or apprenticeships and consider which path offers the strongest return in a shifting economy.
Article sources
We rely only on vetted sources and credible third-party reporting. For details, see our editorial ethics and guidelines.
Cleveland Fed (1); CNBC (2); College Raptor (3); Education Data (4); Research.com (5); Skillwork (6); National Association of Realtors (7).
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Victoria Vesovski is a Toronto-based Staff Reporter at Moneywise, where she covers the intersection of personal finance, lifestyle and trending news. She holds an Honours Bachelor of Arts from the University of Toronto, a postgraduate certificate in Publishing from Toronto Metropolitan University and a Master’s degree in American Journalism from New York University’s Arthur L. Carter Journalism Institute. Her work has been featured in publications including Apple News, Yahoo Finance, MSN Money, Her Campus Media and The Click.
