American culture leads kids to believe that trades jobs have low social standing, so they borrow obscene amounts of money to go to college because they think it will get them a good job where they do paperwork for lots of money.

Instead they wind up in debt working in an unskilled retail sales or service job, or just unemployed. If they had gone to a legitimate trade school[1] or even just an entry-level manual labor job that trains you they'd be much better off.

[1] most of the trade schools in America are outright scams, signing up people for government tuition loans then giving them garbage education. Some of them are not, and anyone who graduates from them will have valuable skills that can support a family. Have fun finding out which ones, 17 year olds!