Gen Z workers increasingly opt out of college and into the trades

Gen Z workers increasingly opt out of college and into the trades

As members of Gen Z continue to graduate high school and enter adulthood, many elect to forgo traditional college degrees.

That’s in part because of the cost of getting a bachelor’s degree, they tell CNBC Make It. The annual cost of attending a four-year, in-state public college increased by about 30% between 2011 and 2023, according to Make It calculations based on data from the Education Data Initiative, and went up by 42% at private, nonprofit four-year colleges.

“There are about 2 million fewer students in a traditional four-year university now than in 2011,” says Nich Tremper, senior economist at payroll and benefits platform Gusto.

Instead, many young people are entering skilled trades like construction, plumbing, electrical contracting and automotive repair. In the first quarter of 2024, Gen Z made up 18% of the workforce, according to the Department of Labor, but 18- to 25-year-olds made up nearly 25% of all new hires in skilled trade industries that year, according to Gusto.

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CNBC