By Bob Bouyea

I think I’m like most parents when it comes to my children’s education. I’ve given my girls a choice for as long as they could comprehend. They can choose which college they want to attend (as long as it’s not Florida State University. Sorry, FSU grads!). But I haven’t given them the choice of not attending college at all.

 I’m sure those of you who are parents have had similar conversations with your children:

 “To succeed in today’s world, you need a college education.”

 “But I don’t want to go to college.”

 “Oh? Then what will you do?”

 “I’ll work.”

 “Doing what?”

 “I don’t know, maybe a hair dresser, or working at McDonald’s.” (My children are young enough to still consider the latter a glamorous profession.)

 “While those are good jobs where you will work hard, they aren’t the best-paying jobs. You need a college education to get a well-paying job in order to afford house payments, car payments and all the other expenses that come along with everyday living, not to mention the cost of having children. And getting a college education is the only way to achieve that.”

 Have you said that, or maybe been told that yourself?

 It wasn’t until recently that it was pointed out to me that not giving children the option to opt out of college may be the wrong advice. There are well-paying jobs that don’t require a college education. They do, however, require an educated worker; someone who can read, write, retrieve information and who has math skills.

 Those workers are hard to come by and not just here in the Lowcountry. Skilled workers such as plumbers, electricians and welders are needed in communities across the country. The reason for this shortage is the lack of emphasis given and exposure to these professions throughout a child’s K-12 education. This is partly due to the stigma associated with the words “vocational education.” (There is such a stigma that the national association of voc-ed educators changed its name a few years ago to the Association of Career and Technical Education.)

 And maybe, just maybe, if kids are exposed to different careers and they become excited about them and see the practical application of math and reading and writing, they may stay in school. And this will reduce our dropout rate, which sadly is the worst in the country, according to a new report released last month.

 OK. There’s a need for skilled workers. That’s fine for those who have boys, right? Well, I have girls. They don’t go into the trades, right?

 Don’t tell that to Lea Cloyd, director of preservation and construction at the American College of the Building Arts. She is forming a new organization for women in the trades to help trades women connect. (To find out more about this, contact her at cloyd@buildingarts
college.us.)

 Cloyd kicked around in college for a while studying art but then her parents told her she needed to study something where she could make a living, so she settled on veterinary medicine. But after getting into vet school, she realized that she was too emotional to become a vet. It wasn’t until she took a carpentry class, where she says she fell in love with the smell of sawdust, that she realized her calling.

 In 1980 while living in West Virginia, she decided to become a construction worker. She joined the union, becoming the first female trade union member in the state. Her hope was to take advantage of its apprenticeship program, which she calls the union’s free education program. She was one of 470 people who applied for seven spots in the program.

 “My parents were very disappointed that I went into construction,” she says. “That is, until I built them their home. They didn’t understand the complexities that go into building a home.”

 Now working here, she has found she is teaching skills to people that they should have already learned, and she embraces apprenticeships as an invaluable tool to train skilled workers.

 Workers with good skills can make a comfortable living. In the preservation field, Cloyd says, people could earn “six figures.” Not right away, she adds, but in time.

 The trades also offer some stability as well, Cloyd says. “A lot of the jobs trained for in college can be shipped overseas,” she says. “However, you can’t ship construction work overseas.”

 I’m not implying a college education is worthless; it’s not. But it’s obviously not for everyone. Insisting that every child needs a college degree and neglecting the trades could be detrimental for both the child and our society.

 Let’s have that conversation with our kids again.

 “So you don’t want to go to college? OK, then let’s look at some careers that you may enjoy doing and that will allow you earn a comfortable living.”

Bob Bouyea is executive editor of the Business Journal. E-mail him at bbouyea@crbj.com.

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