Have you ever worked a trades job? It takes "smarts" to be a good HVAC technician...it involves knowing and understanding practical thermodynamics, electricity, and mechanics.
Due to the evolving nature of the equipment that mechanical and electrical technicians work on, they now have to know how the equipment works, how its networked, and how to troubleshoot any problem involving the equipment. It isn't uncommon, at least in the industry I work in, to find technicians that have extensive knowledge of electronics, electrical/mechanical equipment, and even have their CCNA and good networking/system administration knowledge.
What I'm trying to say is that you don't need grades or genius to get in the door. And once you're in, smarts will help, sure, but hard work pays off more.
Man some of the comments in this thread really are disgusting.
The reality is though that what universities prize- this strange form of 'smart' that involves sitting and reading for hours on end, usually of subjects that have no meaning towards the actual career objective- is not a skill that needed to get a trades degree. There, everything you learn is specially needed in the job you'll do. And there's a lot of kids right now sitting in University classrooms desperate to learn something practical while going deep into debt to learn something else.
That's not a form of 'smart,' but a form of discipline that greatly influences how successful a person will be. Lots of careers require people to spend hours learning material that they have absolutely no interest in for the sole purpose of achieving some goal.
Lawyers don't give a crap about Clark v. West Virginia, but there might be a time when they need to learn ever single detail of the case because it is relevant to their job. The same situation applies to many top-tier careers.
Three years out of high school, with 4 more to go before I finished my University education, I was back home for a weekend. I met up with a buddy of mine from high school to grab a beer at the local pub in town and we ran into another guy from our year- Let's call him 'Jim'. My friend had been sort of friends with Jim in grade 8 or something so he wound up sitting down with us for a bit.
The most astounding part to me was that Jim wasn't in prison. I mean, Jim had been the kind of guy even in high school where he probably should have been arrested a dozen times for the trouble he got up to. Seeing him a free man was like "wow, he made it" on its own. He wasn't a dumb brute, but he wasn't the type for University either.
We got talking about what we'd been up to. Me: education and debt; my friend: similar story. But Jim had gone out west to Alberta and gotten himself a welder's license. Training for 8 months right after high school, paid for by the oil companies. Making $80k/year[0], more if he put in the extra time. Had almost saved up enough to buy that welding rig for his truck and then he could go independent and probably bring in $120k or more- again, depending on how hard he wanted to work.
We were 22-ish, and in terms of lifetime income, Jim was probably close to $200k ahead of us with zero debts.
I suspect that in the last decade, I may have caught up. Maybe. I've had a good career so far. But not if Jim's been working hard that whole time. If he has, and if he's saved and invested wisely, then he's still long ahead of me. (Or if he's in prison- then I might catch up!).
[0]All monetary amounts in Canadian dollars, but you know around 2007 we were above the USD in value.