Somebody has to maintain the hospitals where all these future medical students work.

Last week, I found myself standing in the middle of a classroom at Fordson High School surrounded by about 25 rambunctious teenagers. This was a first for me. I probably ended up learning more from the experience than they did. It was career night and they were there to earn extra credit by listening to a older, slightly out of shape, balding dude talk about the virtues and headaches of being your own boss.

These were good kids, respectful. Most importantly, they have their whole lives ahead of them, no career mistakes, nothing. They were basically babies with futures that, for all intents and purposes,  were an empty canvass.  

As I stood in the center of that room, with half of them staring at me with big bright eyes and the other half staring at their smart phones. I started with a question: How many of you are planning to go to college? Every hand went up.

Who has a full ride scholarship? No hands went up. Who knows college is expensive? Half of the hands went up. Who here is considering learning a skilled trade? No hands went up. Who knows what a  skilled trade is? One or two hands went up.

Does anyone see where I’m going with this?

If I had to guess, I’d say about three out of every four students I asked were headed to college to study in the medical field. They wanted to be nurses, doctors, pharmacists and such. And why not, since Obamacare has doubled my healthcare premiums, the  industry appears quite lucrative these days.

While the medical field appears to be a smart choice and America isn’t the industrialized giant it once was, somebody is still going to have to get their hands dirty.

Who’s going to build and supply all these new hospitals to keep up with the demand for new medical students? Who’s going to maintain them? Who will make the cars so these people can drive to work? Without skilled tradesman, there won’t be any electricians, pipefitters, carpenters, boilermakers, millwrights or die makers. 

I know it may now not sound very exciting to a bunch of teeny boppers, but I also know union pipefitters making more money than a lot of attorneys.

An article in Forbe’s magazine suggests the lifetime earnings of a skilled tradesman is more lucrative than an average graduate with a bachelor degree after taking into account student loans and schooling. The article goes on to say even today, employers  have a harder time finding welders and electricians than they do nurses and web developers. The demand  for skilled labor is likely to grow in the near future as the older tradesmen retire.

The Forbes article also confirms my notion that the public school system has shifted  its focus away from promoting vocational schooling and upon preparing kids for college and introducing them to student loan officers.

Let’s face it, even if Bernie Sanders is elected president, not everybody is going to college. Sooner or later, the government will run out of other people’s money, indeed it already has, as evidenced by our staggering national debt. Besides, college is no guarantee of a job. I had a buddy go off to college once. He graduated from a university with a degree in physiology and behavioral sciences, specializing in the mating habits of Silverback gorillas of the Congo (or something stupid like that).

Anyway he entered a dried up job market with a useless degree and $100,000 in student debt.  To his credit, the degree did sound cool, 15 years ago when he told me about it over a beer in a bathroom at a nightclub in Windsor, Ontario. But today, in the real world, it just doesn’t have the same luster. He now sells real estate. 

So I had planned on talking to the youngsters about how cool it is to be your own boss, about managing cash flow and self discipline. But I found myself warning kids about the pitfalls of “doing” college the wrong way. You know, don’t use the student loan for food and entertainment, just classes and books. Get a part time job for the tomfoolery. I also told them not to be like my buddy with the gorilla degree.

I’ve talked about it before, but I think it’s important kids know college isn’t the only option. But after speaking with those great kids at Fordson, it became clear to me that our public school system and the educators also know college isn’t the only option. Like Napoleon Dynamite once said “Chicks like guys with skills.” 

-Regan J. Ford is the founder and president of Dearborn-based VIVID Maintenance.  He serves his community as the president-elect of the Rotary Club of Dearborn and president of the Southwestern Outer Drive Neighborhood Association.