&quot;Even so, the economic recovery has progressed more slowly for young high school graduates than for those coming out of college.&quot;<p>I&#x27;d imagine this has something to do with the job pool coming out of the recession being heavily seeded with people who already have degrees or degrees plus working experience. Economy takes a nosedive, people get laid off- so when the economy is on the upswing, those with degrees and working experience will be the first to get hired again. I&#x27;d be curious about pre-recession numbers of high school grad employment vs. now, post-recession.<p>&quot;He added that vocational schools should no longer be thought of as dead ends, since they can serve as steppingstones to associate degrees at community colleges or to enrollment at four-year institutions.&quot;<p>I also think it&#x27;s a tremendous disadvantage to say &quot;Oh yeah, vocational school can get to you an associate&#x27;s or a college degree&quot; because at some point we have GOT to stop acting like a college degree is the be-all-end-all. We cannot keep protesting against the tremendous student loan debt burden that&#x27;s creeping ever bigger on the one hand while touting college degrees as being the ONLY way to get a high-paying &quot;respectable&quot; job. Not to mention there are a shitton of services out there that you don&#x27;t need a college degree for that are for jobs which are highly skilled and that pay well. There&#x27;s always going to be a need for welders, plumbers, electricians, mechanics, crane operators, etc etc etc. These are jobs that are absolutely necessary for society to function as a whole- and I think it&#x27;s really dumb how at some point these jobs were downgraded to being for &quot;dumb people&quot; or people who weren&#x27;t &quot;rich or smart enough&quot; to go to college.