I'm not opposed to trade schools either. I think they're a good idea for people who don't want to go to college. A plumber or electrician can make good money. While we should encourage people with intellectual interests to go to college, we should also provide a path for people who don't want that. It's wrong to imagine that everyone ought to have a college degree. Once upon a time, it wasn't a universal goal. And making it one cheapens it.
I think what we need to do is improve our high schools. Some, mostly located in wealthy suburbs, are terrific. A great many, however, aren't wonderful. Many, especially in inner cities, are disasters.
I went to an ordinary high school in northwestern Indiana. It was a bedroom suburb for people who worked in the shell industry in Gary. It was still small, and part of it was a farming community, which made it more interesting. As I've said here before, way too many of our male high school teachers were guys who went to college on the GI Bill and really wanted to teach gym. But there weren't all that many jobs available for gym teachers, and as far as I knew, coaches weren't paid. So they coached in the afternoons, and taught stuff like World History and Psychology during the day. Subjects they really knew nothing about. That pissed me off.
But I got into the elite college I wanted to attend. And most of my classmates were accepted by the colleges of their choice.
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