It is college application season, and current high school seniors are pushing to their final deadlines to get their applications in. However, not everyone is applying to college; in fact, those who don’t get into a top school decide not to go to college and take a trade instead.
The decision to pursue a trade often stems from a desire to avoid the escalating financial burden of a four-year degree, which many young adults now question as “worth the cost.” For many, a two-year vocational or technical program represents a faster, more desirable pathway to a professional career with high job security and an immediate starting salary. Enrollment data reflects this shift, showing that the trade school enrollment grew by 4.9% from 2020 to 2023, while overall traditional university enrollment saw a slight decline during the same period. According to EducationData.org, fall 2024 undergraduate enrollment in the U.S. was a million down from the 2010 peak.
Some institutions may potentially face enrollment declines, especially regional ones, pushing them to loosen criteria or expand access by offering incentives to outweigh the high costs. This trend is particularly notable because of the high employer demand and labor shortages for blue-collar jobs. In addition, these jobs have a perceived immunity from AI, which, in the current times, has increasingly taken many jobs off the market and replaced them with automation.
At the same time, while overall four-year university application rates have gone down, application volumes have continued to rise for elite institutions, driving down acceptance rates. The role of test-optional policies, holistic review, and socioeconomic factors is in identifying and changing the makeup of admitted classes. As a result, top-tier schools have become even more competitive than ever, but a four-year college isn’t looking like the only sustainable option anymore. Between labor shortages, the transfer to AI, and the increasing cost, how people apply to college, if they choose to do so, is a more difficult decision than ever before.
