Counter anecdote: I had a friend who went to a mechanics trade school around that time. He is/was very talented: as a teen he built a working 6ft trebuchet and he was always tinkering with cars. He did 2 years of trade school, graduated in the height of the recession, and couldn't find a single mechanic job. No one was hiring, and he ended up working basic service industry jobs instead. While I agree trades are under appreciated as a career path, I don't think we should treat trade school as the antidote to job market woes and a broken education system.