College tuition has skyrocketed in recent years.  More and more students graduate from high school with ambition to get a college degree.  New universities can only be built so fast and existing universities can only serve a limited amount of students.  In reaction to this great increase in demand and slow increase in supply, colleges increase the price of tuition more and more.  However, these students are able to turn to a limited amount of scholarships and loans.  Excessive loans lead to excessive debt once the student graduates.  These former students begin their independent lives, already overcome with crippling debt.  They now find themselves behind and trying to catch up.  On the other hand, industry faces problems with labor shortages and many turn to outsourcing their companies or employing illegal immigrant labor.  This has happened because a generation decided to teach their children that going to college is for smart people while working with your hands is for stupid people.  Flooding of the higher education market conversely leaves the industry market wanting.  There is a simple solution to this issue, invest in programs targeted at high school students that encourage more to seek a blue collar job.  By hiring retired factory workers to teach and setting aside space to hold classes on high school campuses, students could go to most any school and learn the benefits and drawbacks of both white collar work and blue collar work as well as which field suits them best.

The current policy on this issue is to ignore it and continue to expand higher education and loans, along with it debt.  While, as a band aide, this will work in the short term, long term many people will graduate from college to discover either that their degree is useless or that there are far too many people with the same degree competing for a limited number of jobs.  Conversely, workers in blue collar industries are experiencing better treatment from their employers (Kelly 2014).  Another shortcoming is that industry work has been stigmatized as being for those not intelligent enough to succeed in higher education.  Consequently, those holding blue collar jobs are thought to be on lower standing than white collar workers.  Luckily, some action is being taken to show high schoolers the alternatives to college work.  A number of vocational schools have been rising and bringing in prospective students to learn the trade (Teresa 35).  These schools have a very wide variety of different skills for people to focus on.  Unfortunately, there are a number of disadvantages to this system.  These classes are on separate facilities miles away from the other high schools.  This means that students would have to decide already that they wanted to learn the skill and devote most of the school day to learn it.  This system does not address the issue that many students are ill exposed to the opportunities they have in vocational work.  

My proposal is simple.  Funding should be allocated to high schools to provide for new teaching staff and possibly new space for vocational education and training.  The teachers could be retired industry workers struggling to live off of social security.  Their immense experience in their line of work would be a huge help in conveying the reality of the field.  This employment would also aid the teachers by offering a line of work to enter after one becomes too old for physical labor.  Next, space would need to be allocated for these classes.  While it is possible that some of these classes could be taught outside, classroom space would need to be acquired.  Rooms that once were woodshop classes would work quite nicely for these new classes.  But, more space is needed.  It is likely that external facilities, near or on campus, would need to be constructed.  Once built, these many classrooms could be available for normal one hour classes, or block 2 hour classes, to any student interested in that particular craft.  These classes would be offered as electives to incentivize students to try multiple while still gaining the credit needed to graduate.  Also, a requirement for one or two of these classes could be implemented in a way similar to how foreign language is required.  This could further expose students to different possible future jobs in vocational work.  A last extension onto this program would result from the teachers themselves.  Any student reaching his later years in high school could talk to his instructor in order to seek a job.  These instructors would have relationships and perhaps even funding from companies in a similar way to that which is found in the German vocational system (Teresa 34).  This would be a mutually beneficial agreement because the schools could receive funding for supplies and materials for their students from private companies, while the schools connect the interested students with a possible employer.  Consequently, students face less stress from worrying about where to work or where to start a career.  I hope and believe that this relationship will be mutually beneficial to all three parties.  

In conclusion, by hiring retired blue collar workers to teach vocational skills to students as a normal class in high school, more students will go into blue collar fields to reap the benefits.  Consequently, this will alleviate, to some degree or another, those on the college path of the crippling debt they face and allow them to find a less competitive job market for their degree.
