For people who are good with their hands, don't enjoy academia and don't navigate institutions and bureaucracies well (whether from temperament or lack of access to that kind of knowledge in the family etc.), the trades are a kind of passport. They let you earn a healthy income, find decent work almost anywhere in the world (provided you can get a visa etc.), and ultimately set up an independent business and earn as much as you're willing to work for.

To be frank, I think programming may be better suited to a trade-oriented approach for many people, with only a relatively small academic oriented aspect for things like discrete mathematics.