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The Skilled Trades Comeback: Why Electricians Out-Earn Many College Grads

A historical and economic look at how the four-year degree lost its monopoly on the middle class.

For roughly half a century, American families heard a single, consistent message about success: go to college, earn a four-year degree, and the rest will take care of itself. The trades were quietly recast as a consolation prize — the path for kids who “weren’t college material.” That framing shaped guidance counseling, school funding, parental expectations, and ultimately the career decisions of tens of millions of people.

Today, the math behind that advice is breaking down. A licensed electrician in 2026 frequently out-earns the typical recent bachelor’s degree holder — and does so without student debt, with several years’ head start on income, and in a labor market that is actively short of qualified workers (Bureau of Labor Statistics [BLS], 2025; Federal Reserve Bank of New York [FRBNY], 2026a). This post traces how we got here, what the historical and current data actually show, and what it means for anyone weighing the question of what comes after high school.

A Brief History: When the Trades Built the Middle Class

Skilled trades were once central to American economic identity. The apprenticeship model — a structured progression from apprentice to journeyman to master — predates the republic itself, imported from European craft guild traditions. Formal federal support arrived early: the Smith-Hughes Act of 1917 funded vocational education in public schools, and the National Apprenticeship Act of 1937 (often called the Fitzgerald Act) created the registered apprenticeship system that still governs electrical training today.

Through the postwar decades, a unionized electrician, machinist, or pipefitter could reliably support a family, buy a home, and retire with a pension — without ever setting foot on a college campus. Shop class was a standard part of the American high school, and entering a trade carried no particular stigma. It was simply one of several respectable routes into the middle class.

The Rise of “College for All”

Two forces changed that. First, the GI Bill of 1944 sent millions of veterans to college and normalized higher education for the broad middle class. In 1940, fewer than 5% of American adults held a bachelor’s degree; by the 2020s, that figure had climbed to roughly 38% (U.S. Census Bureau, 2022). Second, the economy itself shifted. Economists Claudia Goldin and Lawrence Katz documented how technological change steadily increased the wage premium for educated workers across the twentieth century, making the degree look like an ever-safer bet (Goldin & Katz, 2008).

By the 1990s and 2000s, “college for all” had hardened from a trend into an ideology. High schools began measuring their own success almost exclusively by four-year college placement rates. The unintended message to students was unmistakable: working with your hands meant you had fallen short.

The Quiet Dismantling of Vocational Education

As the college-for-all consensus took hold, vocational programs paid the price. Districts facing budget pressure cut shop classes — expensive to equip, staff, and insure — and redirected resources toward college-preparatory coursework. Federal investment in career and technical education, governed since 1984 by the Carl D. Perkins Act, stagnated in real terms even as overall education spending grew.

The result was a generational gap in the talent pipeline. An entire cohort of students who might have thrived in the trades never encountered them in school at all, while the existing skilled workforce kept aging. That demographic imbalance — too many electricians near retirement, too few apprentices behind them — is one of the core reasons wages in the trade are rising today (BLS, 2025).

The Cost Side of the Ledger: Tuition and Debt

While the trades were being de-emphasized, the price of the alternative exploded. Published tuition and fees at public four-year institutions have grown far faster than inflation and household income over the past four decades (Office of the New York City Comptroller, 2025). Students filled the gap with borrowing: outstanding U.S. student loan debt now stands at approximately $1.66 trillion, and as of early 2026, more than 10% of balances were 90 or more days delinquent (FRBNY, 2026b).

The proportion of 25-year-olds carrying student debt rose from 27% in 2004 to 43% by 2012, with average balances growing roughly 70% over the same period (Brown et al., as cited in Luo, 2018) — and balances have continued climbing since. This matters for any honest earnings comparison, because the relevant question is not just what a degree holder earns, but what they keep after debt service, and how many years of earning they sacrificed to get there.

What Electricians Earn Today

So what does the other path actually pay? According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the median annual wage for electricians was $62,350 as of May 2024, with the lowest 10% earning under $39,430 and the top 10% earning more than $106,030 (BLS, 2025). Industry salary surveys show similar figures: median pay for senior electricians is approximately $76,600 nationally, with entry-level medians around $60,600, and significantly higher wages in major metropolitan markets such as San Francisco, New York, Newark, and Seattle (ServiceTitan, 2026).

Specialization pushes earnings higher still. Electricians in energy, utilities, aerospace, and rail transportation earn median total pay above $70,000, with top employers in those sectors paying well beyond that (Glassdoor, 2026). Master electricians who hold contractor licenses and run their own businesses commonly report take-home income between $60,000 and $150,000, with top performers exceeding $200,000 (Workiz, 2026).

The Comparison: Electricians vs. Recent College Graduates

The college wage premium remains real in the aggregate — over a full career, the median bachelor’s degree holder still out-earns the median high-school-only worker by a wide margin (Goldin & Katz, 2008; FRBNY, 2026a). But averages conceal the part of the distribution where the comparison gets uncomfortable for the college-for-all narrative.

As of the first quarter of 2026, the unemployment rate for recent college graduates stood at roughly 5.7%, and the underemployment rate — graduates working jobs that do not require a degree — was 41.5% (FRBNY, 2026a). Underemployment varies enormously by major: fields such as criminal justice and performing arts see well over half of recent graduates working in non-degree jobs, while nursing and engineering fare far better (Wooclap, 2026). In other words, the “average graduate” is a statistical fiction; outcomes depend heavily on field of study, completion, and debt load. A licensed electrician earning $62,000–$76,000 with no loans compares very favorably against a large share of actual graduate outcomes — particularly during the first decade of a career, when the graduate is repaying debt and the electrician has been earning since age 18.

The Apprenticeship Advantage: Paid to Learn

The structural difference between the two paths is starkest in the training years. A registered electrical apprenticeship typically runs four to five years, combining on-the-job training under licensed electricians with classroom instruction. Crucially, apprentices are paid throughout — generally starting at 40–50% of journeyman wage and rising on a fixed schedule. Entry-level apprentices earn roughly $18 per hour, or around $32,000 annually, in their first year (Buildforce, 2026; Jobber, 2026).

Consider two 18-year-olds. By age 23, the apprentice has become a licensed journeyman with five years of income, work history, and often employer-funded benefits and retirement contributions — and zero education debt. The college student is just graduating, just entering a difficult entry-level market (FRBNY, 2026a), and just beginning loan repayment. Researchers consistently find the college premium takes years, often a decade or more, to overcome that head start — and for the 30–40% of college entrants who never complete a degree, it may never materialize at all, leaving debt without the credential (Office of the New York City Comptroller, 2025).

Why Demand for Electricians Is Surging

This is not a momentary blip in the labor market. The BLS projects employment of electricians to grow 9% from 2024 to 2034 — much faster than the average across all occupations — with roughly 73,500 job openings per year over the decade, driven by both growth and the need to replace retiring workers (BLS, 2025; Buildforce, 2026).

The demand drivers cut across political lines. Electric vehicle charging infrastructure, heat pumps, residential solar, grid modernization, and the data-center construction boom all require licensed electrical work, regardless of which energy policies one favors. And unlike much white-collar work, the job is structurally resistant to offshoring and automation: a service panel in Oklahoma City has to be replaced by someone physically standing in front of it.

The Comeback Is Visible in Enrollment Data

Students and families have noticed. Enrollment at vocationally focused public two-year institutions has grown nearly 20% since spring 2020, reaching about 871,000 students, and these trade-focused schools now account for almost one-fifth of all public two-year enrollment (National Student Clearinghouse Research Center [NSCRC], 2025a). In fall 2025, enrollment in mechanic and repair technology programs grew 10.4% year over year, engineering technology programs grew 8.3%, and undergraduate certificate programs grew 6.6% — compared with just 1.2% growth for bachelor’s degree programs (NSCRC, 2025b).

Survey data echo the shift: roughly one in three American adults now report they would advise a graduating high school senior to attend trade school rather than a four-year university (WVLT News, 2025). Commentators have begun calling Gen Z the “toolbelt generation” — a label that would have been unthinkable in the peak college-for-all years.

An Honest Accounting: The Trade-Offs

A credible case for the trades has to include the costs. Electrical work is physically demanding — attics, crawlspaces, ladders, weather — and carries higher injury risk than office employment, with cumulative wear on joints and backs over a 30-year career. Apprentice wages in the early years are modest, and pay varies widely by region, union status, and licensing regime (ServiceTitan, 2026). Career ceilings differ too: while ownership and master licensure offer high upside, the median electrician’s lifetime earnings still trail those of graduates in fields like engineering, computer science, and nursing, where underemployment is low and the degree premium is robust (Wooclap, 2026).

And for many careers — medicine, law, research, teaching — college is not merely the better path but the only one. The point is not that college has become a bad investment. It is that we have spent decades comparing an idealized version of college against an outdated caricature of the trades, and the honest comparison is far closer than the conventional wisdom allows.

Close to Home: Ace Electric and the Next Generation

Everything in this article so far has been national data. But I don’t have to look at a BLS table to see the trades comeback — I see it every morning when I walk into work, and every evening at my own dinner table.

I’m the office manager at Ace Electric, a family-owned and operated electrical company in Stillwater, Oklahoma. We’re exactly the kind of small business this story is about: local, hands-on, and busier than ever. And like a growing number of small trade shops around the country, we’ve decided the answer to the skilled-labor shortage isn’t to wait for someone else to fix the pipeline — it’s to build one ourselves. That’s why Ace Electric runs a teen apprenticeship program, bringing young people into the shop early to learn the trade the way it’s always been learned best: alongside experienced electricians who take the time to teach.

One of those apprentices is my daughter. She’s fifteen.

Here’s what makes my perspective on this a little unusual: I hold five college degrees, including a master’s in human services. I am, by any definition, a product of the college-for-all era — and I don’t regret my education for a moment. But I’ve also lived the other side of the math this article lays out, and I now spend my days watching the trade side of the ledger up close. So when my own daughter showed interest in the apprenticeship program, I didn’t see it as settling. I saw it as a head start.

What I see in her experience is everything the national numbers promise, made personal. She’s getting genuine mentorship and support — the kind of patient, person-to-person teaching that a master’s in human services taught me to recognize and value. She’s building confidence, work ethic, and a real skill with her own two hands. And most importantly, she’s earning something no one can take from her: a trade that can travel. Whether she someday runs her own shop, goes union in a big city, studies engineering, or does something none of us have thought of yet, this skill goes with her. The trades aren’t closing doors for her — they’re propping every one of them open.

That’s the part of this story the statistics can’t quite capture. The skilled trades comeback isn’t just happening in federal projections and enrollment reports. It’s happening in small shops in towns like Stillwater, one teenager and one toolbelt at a time.

Conclusion: Asking a Better Question

The history here is instructive. America did not discover some eternal truth when it embraced college-for-all; it responded to the economic conditions of a particular era. Conditions have changed — tuition has soared, debt has accumulated, entry-level white-collar markets have tightened, and a retirement wave has made skilled trade labor scarce and valuable. The data have simply caught up with the new reality (BLS, 2025; FRBNY, 2026a; NSCRC, 2025a).

The better question for a 17-year-old — or a 37-year-old considering a change — is not “college or trades?” but “what is the actual math for the specific path I’m considering?” That means real program costs, real local wages, real completion odds, and real ten-year trajectories. For a growing number of Americans, that math points toward a license, a set of tools, and a six-figure ceiling that never required a single student loan payment.

What’s been your experience — college, trades, or something in between? Would you give today’s high school seniors different advice than you received? Share your story in the comments.

References

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