About a decade ago, schools embraced a major shift in teaching and learning. Teachers swapped lectures for project-based lessons. Students built, designed and solved problems with their hands. We told them that you learn best by doing. And they listened.
Now, many of those same students, shaped by years of collaborative, tactile, real-world projects, are drawn to careers that let them keep working this way. Many of those careers are in construction and the skilled trades — from carpentry to ironworking to electrical work.
And yet, as a society, our response has too often been: Don’t do that. Go to college instead.
But if we truly value the kind of learning we’ve promoted for the last decade, we should also value the careers that embody it.
Yet outdated biases still persist. Too many influential adults, including parents and career counselors, still equate the trades with low pay, low prestige and limited opportunity. The mindset still persists even as employers, parents and students increasingly agree that education must be more directly tied to real-world readiness and economic mobility. But they don’t see the wide variety of career paths available or the fact that many trade careers outpace the earnings of recent college graduates without the student debt.
The pathway problem
One of the greatest barriers to getting young people interested in the trades is they don’t know how to get started. If you want to work at a tech company, there’s a clear entry point. If you want to work on the construction project you drive past every day, you don’t just walk through the fence and ask for a job. Without industry connections, most young people don’t know where to begin.
[Related: Navigating to next — Making complex pathways clearer with people-powered supports]
That’s why creating construction career pathways requires both a top-down and bottom-up approach. Policymakers are talking more about apprenticeships and credentials because industries are facing critical workforce shortages and because these pathways give students a quicker, more affordable route to stable, well-paid careers. Organizations such as the Lumina Foundation are reinforcing that shift, calling for 75% of Americans to hold a degree or credential that can “lead to economic prosperity” by 2040. We need to make sure parents, teachers and career counselors hear this message. This applies not only to those in career and technical education but to every educator who influences how students see their options.
More than a backup plan
Courtesy of Melissa Perkins
Melissa Perkins
Construction is too often framed as a fallback, when in reality a job in the construction industry can give any student a career that matches how they’ve been learning for years, including the high-achieving student who loves building and problem-solving but is told college is the “right” path. We need to stop focusing on an outdated perception and look at the reality of opportunities.
I think about a student from my years at a private school in New England. He was top of his class, a student leader, an athlete — exactly the kind of graduate everyone assumed would follow the traditional college route. Instead, he started his own landscaping business. Today, he runs a fleet of trucks and a team of employees. No one at his school ever suggested that career as a meaningful, lucrative option. But the school’s early embrace of project-based learning made hands-on work central to its teaching and gave him the spark to pursue it.
How many more students might choose a hands-on path
if they knew they could?
It’s not about a “right” way and a “wrong” way. Students need to feel empowered to explore opportunities and choose the path that motivates and inspires them.
Breaking the bias
Stereotypes about construction — that it’s dirty, unsafe or strictly manual labor — are more than just outdated. They close doors for students before they can even consider what’s behind them. Yes, some jobs are physically demanding. But there are also roles like estimators, field leaders and safety management that most young people do not even know exist. With more than 500,000 jobs in construction open nationwide, the industry offers a wealth of opportunity. And as artificial intelligence reshapes the job market, there remain careers in the skilled trades that won’t be outsourced to a machine.
What needs to happen
Changing this narrative doesn’t mean steering every student toward the trades. It simply means showing that fields like construction offer fulfilling aspirational pathways, whether through a four-year degree or hands-on career in the field.
That starts with:
• Parents asking not just “Where will my child go to college?” but also “What career will make them happy, fulfilled and secure?”
• Teachers and counselors supporting students to explore many options, not just the ones they are familiar with.
• Industry and policymakers building visible, accessible pathways into the trades.
We’ve spent a decade telling students that hands-on learning is one of the best ways to master complex concepts. They believed us. Now they want careers that let them keep working that way. Let’s connect them with the possibilities we know are out there.
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Melissa Perkins, CFRE, is director of philanthropy and partnerships at the National Center for Construction Education and Research (NCCER). With more than 19 years experience in fundraising, marketing and communications, she is passionate about using NCCER as the connector to turn resources into real opportunity and change lives through construction education.
