Society has overemphasized the conventional college route to the detriment of young people who might want to pursue specific marketable skills. Becoming a plumber, a cosmetician, a computer fix-it person, or a heating/ventilation/air conditioning technician, to name a small fraction of the skill areas on what is an extremely long list, is a perfectly valid aspiration that can produce an economically attractive life path.

Supporting this point of view is that according to the Center on Education and the Workforce at Georgetown University (http://cew.georgetown.edu), 27% of all those individuals who pursue a marketable skill and get a vocational license or certificate after high school earn more than the average of those graduates with a Bachelor’s degree.

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