The Question
This is not a prediction about the death of college. Universities are not going anywhere. What we are predicting is a rebalancing — a moment at which the financial logic of spending four years and $100,000 to get a degree in a field with uncertain employment prospects finally breaks down against the concrete, countable reality of an electrician who earned $70,000 in year one without a dollar of debt.
The specific forecast: by 2032, the year-on-year enrollment growth rate in vocational and trades programmes will exceed the equivalent figure for four-year colleges — something that has not happened in the modern American education system. We put the probability at 65%. The forces driving this are cultural as much as economic: the stigma that pushed a generation away from trades is lifting, and a new generation that watched their older siblings drown in student debt is doing the maths differently.
What the Evidence Shows
The case for trades has rarely been stronger. The median annual wage for electricians in 2025 was $72,000 — with experienced master electricians routinely earning above $100,000. Plumbers averaged $68,000. HVAC technicians $56,000. These roles require two to five year apprenticeships that pay while you learn, produce zero degree debt, and result in licences that cannot be offshored or automated away. A robot cannot rewire a 1940s house.
Meanwhile, four-year college costs have risen 180% in real terms since 1980. Total US student debt has crossed $1.7 trillion. The employment rate for recent four-year graduates in their degree field sits below 50% by most measures. And here is the number that should give every parent pause: the median entry-level salary for a liberal arts graduate in 2025 was $42,000 — less than an apprentice plumber in their second year.
"We are graduating 80,000 more philosophy majors than the market needs and simultaneously facing a shortage of 500,000 electricians. This is not a supply problem. It is a perception problem we created, and we are about to pay for it."
— National Electrical Contractors Association, Workforce Development Report, 2025AI is accelerating this shift in a way most commentators have missed. The jobs most vulnerable to AI automation are not trades jobs — they are precisely the knowledge-economy jobs that a four-year degree was supposed to provide access to. Paralegal work, financial analysis, entry-level software development, marketing copywriting: these are the roles being automated first. The jobs that require physical presence, manual dexterity, and problem-solving in unpredictable environments — the jobs that describe most trades work — are the most AI-resistant category of employment.
"The generation that watched AI eat their older siblings' white-collar jobs is not going to chase the same degree."
Why This Is Happening
The trades shortage is acute and worsening. The average age of a skilled tradesperson in America is now 47. Roughly a third of the current trades workforce will retire by 2030. The construction, energy transition, and infrastructure sectors — all of which are expanding rapidly — depend on skilled trades that simply do not exist in sufficient numbers. This creates both economic opportunity and growing awareness among young people of where the jobs actually are.
The ROI on college has gone negative for many degrees. Return on investment — meaning lifetime earnings minus cost of education — is now negative over a 20-year horizon for a significant portion of undergraduate degrees, according to studies by Georgetown's Centre on Education and the Workforce. This is not theoretical. It is showing up in enrollment data: four-year college enrollment has fallen for five consecutive years, with the steepest declines among men from lower-income households, who are most sensitive to the cost-benefit calculation.
The cultural stigma is fading. A decade of media coverage of student debt, combined with visible success stories of tradespeople earning six figures, has begun to shift the perception that trades are a consolation prize for those who could not make it to college. States like Ohio, Tennessee, and Georgia have invested heavily in vocational education marketing specifically designed to reach parents who might otherwise pressure their children toward a four-year track regardless of aptitude or interest.
What Could Happen
Vocational enrollment surges through 2032 as word spreads and state investment in technical education grows. Four-year colleges respond by creating hybrid programmes — two years vocational, two years college credit — that let students build practical skills while keeping a degree pathway open. The result is not a zero-sum competition but a reconfiguration of post-secondary education around clearer return-on-investment logic. Trades gain prestige. Some colleges shrink. The smartest ones pivot successfully.
Faced with falling enrollment and the existential threat of the trades boom, universities slash costs aggressively — primarily through online delivery, standardised curricula, and the elimination of low-demand departments. Tuition falls meaningfully. The four-year degree regains its comparative value. Trades enrollment growth slows. This is possible — some universities are already moving in this direction — but the institutional inertia in higher education is enormous, and cost-cutting at scale requires political will that most university administrations have not demonstrated.
Trades not only outpace college growth but permanently displace college as the dominant post-secondary pathway for Americans without inherited wealth. The four-year degree becomes a marker of class aspiration rather than economic logic — retained by the affluent but abandoned by the majority. AI displacement of knowledge-economy jobs accelerates this shift beyond what current models project. Less likely in the 2032 timeframe, but more likely than most would have predicted five years ago.
What Can We Do
Whether you are a parent, a young person at a crossroads, or a school counsellor, the most useful thing to do right now is evaluate the actual numbers — not the cultural assumptions.
Run a real ROI calculation before choosing a degree. Georgetown's Centre on Education and the Workforce publishes a free tool that shows median earnings by degree type and institution. The gap between the best-returning and worst-returning undergraduate degrees is larger than most people realise, and it should drive the choice at least as much as interest or prestige.
Investigate apprenticeship programmes in your state. The US Department of Labour's ApprenticeshipUSA database lists registered apprenticeship programmes by trade, location, and pay rate. Many programmes offer starting wages above $20 per hour while training, with no tuition cost. They are chronically undersubscribed relative to demand.
Treat the trades as a genuine first choice, not a fallback. Master electricians, plumbers, and HVAC technicians routinely earn more in lifetime income, with less debt and earlier labour market entry, than the median four-year college graduate. This is not a niche finding. It is the expected outcome for a majority of trades entrants — and treating it as such changes how you advise young people.
Advocate for vocational education funding in schools. School districts that cut shop classes, technical programmes, and vocational tracks in the 1990s and 2000s in pursuit of college-for-all policies created a generation without basic trades exposure. Reversing this requires political choices about how schools spend their budgets — choices that parents and local officials can influence.
- National Electrical Contractors Association — Workforce Development Report, 2025
- Georgetown Centre on Education and the Workforce — The College Payoff, 2024
- Bureau of Labour Statistics — Occupational Outlook Handbook, 2025
- National Student Clearinghouse — Postsecondary Enrollment Trends, 2025
- US Department of Labour — ApprenticeshipUSA Programme Data, 2025
- Forecast The World Research Desk — 800+ data sources