My tradespeople relatives; uncles, my brother, etc... tell me they wish they had gone to college. My brother actually did and went from a (quite good from what I could tell) general contractor to an engineer (not the software kind). He couldn't believe that he could get a day off work and still get paid for it, and he got health insurance for the first time in his life. They also make money that's much more in line with the national averages (like $60K/year; a number that would be scoffed at here) than the wild several hundred thousand dollar fantasies I see people here engage in.