There is literally nothing stopping you from going to trade school and skipping college.
College is still a gate for higher paid trades because advanced manufacturing wants educated workers that can do math and/or programming g-code and/or know advanced metallurgy
I know someone who went to welding school, and he was basically practice welding 40 hours a week after class because he was working on some very advanced welds that actually required some decent chunk of engineering knowledge
I mean, most trades do expect some sort of a college education now as well (minimum AA), and vocational programs are increasingly require attending a community college.
Edit: can't reply below, but all of those vocations listed are offered at community colleges now and linked with an AS/AAS degree, as apprenticeships are often coordinated with CCs.
Just for future reference: when a comment thread is sufficiently nested the “reply” link is missing, but you can click/tap on the timestamp link. That’s a hardlink to the comment, whence you can reply.
College is still a gate for higher paid trades because advanced manufacturing wants educated workers that can do math and/or programming g-code and/or know advanced metallurgy
I know someone who went to welding school, and he was basically practice welding 40 hours a week after class because he was working on some very advanced welds that actually required some decent chunk of engineering knowledge