“The younger generations are casting aside price-inflated college degrees as part of their identities. They watched as Millennials struggled with two and three jobs just to make ends meet and pay the minimum amount on their student loans, only to find that after ten years they owed more on those loans than they were originally for. GenZ would rather redefine success than live a life chained to debt and regret.
GenZ is also the first generation to define their identities by their education and careers instead of their families and upbringings, which means that developing a career and getting a useful education is still important to them. But for this newer generation, school to college to career to lifelong debt is not an acceptable path to take.
Vocational schools are starting to appeal more to the more practical in the Millennial and GenZ cohorts. HVAC technicians, electricians, and plumbers are some of the most in-demand and highest paid careers for people who don’t have college degrees, but there are also a lot of people with college degrees who are training for these careers because the demand is often so high.”
