It depends. School isn't for everyone.

I took a partial gap year and took a couple college classes with a good friend who dropped out and went on to become a journeyman in a union trade. I went on to get a bachelor's degree. School wasn't his thing. He continues to makes more than a lot of software/data engineers. And he has a pension that should* start paying out more than a decade before I'll be ready to retire.

*Interestingly though, because fewer people are going into the trades, he has noticed the quality of incoming people has gone done year after year and the aging union leadership has lowered the hiring bar to keep the pension numbers up. He can't count on people to do their job right or even show up on time, and they come in already knowing everything and not wanting to learn. With higher cost than non-union and struggling with quality it makes them less competitive with non-union shops in the contract bidding process.

There are good opportunities for people willing to work hard and learn.

You don't think an electrician in a big city with their own business is pulling down six figures?

Business owner != electrician.

My wife is a doctor of physical therapy who owns her own business. Most of her job is marketing and paperwork.

If you want to throw the title Business Owner in front of a career title, I'd still suggest Electrical Engineer business owner over Electrician business owner.

When I say "electrician that owns their own business", I generally just mean an independent contractor that has structured their personal finances as an actual business.

I wasn't really talking about someone who employs lots of other electricians.

Not all of them have their own thriving businesses. The people working for electrician companies probably don’t make six figure.

Sure they can and do but the EE is going to be pulling six figures much sooner and have a more stable and less physically and mentally taxing career path than the electrician.

That electrician with his own business could probably do better with a MBA though.

But could he do enough better [than hiring business advisors] to make up for probably a 15+ year delay in starting the business (due to time spent in college and postgraduate work PLUS the debt incurred in schooling)?

Edit: thanks autocorrect.

Depends. There have been exceptions you can point to, but many small businesses fail because the owner doesn't spend enough time in the office. "Joe Electric" works when "Joe" and one assistant is the extent of the business, but "Joe" - if he is in a good location - will soon have more business than he can accept at which time it is temping to expand, and then the MBA skills are needed or Joe's poor handling of the office work ends up killing the company.

If Joe was good at business he could keep 200 electricians busy with jobs that pay about as much as they would earn on their own, and no need for them to do all the book work in the office, and ultimately Joe makes more money.