Wary of student debt, a new generation test whether skilled trades pay off (Courtesy of the Florida Trend) — Growing up in Flagler Beach, Matthew Marcusky watched his older brother and sister go off to college and it was expected he would follow. He had other ideas. “I was pretty much ruling it out,” he says, “I didn’t want to sit in a classroom for another four years.” Marcusky cleaned pools after high school, then heard about a welding program at Orange Technical College, a part of the Orange County public school system.
Members of Generation Z like Marcusky have swelled the numbers of students and apprentices pursuing careers that don’t require a four-year degree and student debt. The 2022-23 year saw an 8% increase in Florida in public, post-high school career and technical education enrollment, and a 14% increase to a record 19,605 apprentices and pre-apprentices, according to the state Department of Education. “These trends indicate a visible shift towards vocational training and workforce education in Florida,” says Nathalia Medina, state education department press secretary.
The trends cause trepidation at some four-year colleges but represent a welcome shift for many young people and Florida employers and business groups. Employers have long lamented that society, families and K-12 schools focus young people on four-year college as the expected next step without considering student needs — and the community’s need for people to install or repair power lines, vehicles, plumbing, wiring, air conditioners and more.
The value proposition of a sheepskin has become a little woolly for Gen Z. They’ve seen millennials become the most educated generation but also burdened by student debt. Higher education enrollment has been in decline because of the pandemic and a smaller number of students. A sizable share of young people also are skeptical of college, according to a Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation-funded study of high school juniors and seniors and 18- to 30-year-olds not enrolled. The majority surveyed still saw value in a two- or four-year degree to make money, have a better job, train for a career and have job security. But the percentage who were confident in a degree’s value was down, especially among those out of high school. Debt, lack of interest in school and poor return on investment were survey respondents’ concerns. Increasing percentages saw value in on-the-job training and certificate or license programs. Indeed, larger shares had confidence in certification as the path to a good job than had confidence in college.
“More and more students are enrolling. We have had very strong recovery and are exceeding our pre-pandemic levels for enrollment at the technical college level, at the Florida College System institution level and for registered apprenticeships here in Florida,” says Lee Chipps-Walton, the Florida Education Department state director of career and technical education. In addition to private career schools and registered apprentice programs run by businesses or unions, the state has 47 public technical colleges and 25 state colleges.
Apprentice track
Marcusky received a grant to cover tuition at Orange Technical. He completed the program and began a five-year apprenticeship with the pipefitter union, the United Association of Journeymen and Apprentices of the Plumbing and Pipefitting Industry of the United States and Canada. He started at $15 an hour, earning as he learned. It wasn’t easy, he says, to put in 10 to 12 hours a day and then twice a week spend another three hours at night in training. But he says hands-on training suits him.
That sentiment would resonate with Mike Brannen, an executive at Jacksonville-based Miller Electric, a 3,400-employee company in 40 states where 80% of workers come from an apprentice program. Brannen, in a July workforce webinar hosted by the Florida Chamber of Commerce, described his own start as an apprentice 37 years ago after he finished high school. “I knew college was not something I wanted to do. I was more of a hands-on learner. Reading about it isn’t going to work. If I could get my hands on it, I could figure it out.” He’s now senior vice president of industrial and workforce development for the company. “It’s been great for my family, great for our company. I can confidently say apprenticeships work. You get a good wage. It’s all ‘earn while you learn.’ You learn without tuition and college debt.”
Before or aside from apprenticeships, tuition at career programs generally runs just a few thousand dollars. Many students like Marcusky graduate from trade school debt-free thanks to federal or state resources, veterans benefits, the Bright Futures program or the largesse of donors. In Collier County, for example, Best Buy founder and Naples philanthropist Richard Schulze supports job-training programs and individual students with need.
Says education department press secretary Medina, “We are committed to continuing to provide students with opportunities to gain job-ready skills without the accumulation of debt.”
The Florida Chamber of Commerce says Florida needs a net gain of 1.36 million jobs by 2030 to meet the organization’s goal of moving Florida from the world’s 16th largest economy to 10th. “If we can’t get our talent right, then a lot of the other things we want to accomplish probably aren’t possible,” says Rachel Ludwig, the Florida Chamber’s vice president of talent development for the future of work. Gov. Ron DeSantis says he wants Florida to be the top state for workforce education by 2030. This year’s state budget has $765 million to support workforce education programs.
Beyond shop class
Along with more funding, the Legislature in recent years has given career and technical education more flexibility to meet businesses’ needs and maximize the dollars for training and business services. The state has cut the number of CareerSource local workforce boards from 24 to 21 and began grading them. The CareerSource board for Miami-Dade and Monroe counties ranked highest in the state by numerical grade and rated an A-plus, while the lowest grades in the state were the C-plus grades earned by the two Career-Source boards covering Columbia, Dixie, Gilchrist, Union, Alachua and Bradford counties.
The state overhaul aims to make it easier to start new apprentice programs, and the state has seen them proliferate. “It’s just not shop class anymore,” says state career education director Chipps-Walton. Project management, IT support, software development, business analysis, home health, teaching, law enforcement and solar panel installation have become “apprenticeable” occupations. Miller Electric, for example, now has support staff apprenticeships in the fields of cybersecurity, software development, and business intelligence, and 35 people in a project management development apprenticeship — with another 35 coming in the next cohort, Brannen said. “We can’t get the new employees so we’re going to better train the ones we have,” he says.
Some 64% of apprentices in Florida, the state says, are found in five occupations traditionally known for apprentices: electricians, plumbers, HVAC technicians, boilermakers and elevator constructors. The attractive pay, pensions and benefits outweigh the disadvantages of physically demanding, potentially dangerous, dirty work, in sometimes loud, hot environments — perhaps at heights. St. Petersburg College has a wait list for its utility lineworker program, which lasts 14 weeks for a daytime cohort and 19 weeks for night school, says Jackie Skryd, the college’s vice president for workforce development and corporate partnerships. The sticker price is $7,500. Successful completion can bring a job with Duke Energy or another industry employer that generally pays $60,000, she says. Continuing their education as apprentices can bring them to six figures after several years.
Wage outlook
Overall, for all occupations for 2022-23, the average starting apprentice salary in Florida was approximately $33,000, and the average “exit” wage upon completion — which can take years in some fields — was $53,642, the state reports. One year after completing apprenticeships, the average wage hit $61,623, and five years after finishing apprenticeships, the pay on average reached $65,293.
For comparison, the average annualized pay the fall after graduation for 2021-22 Florida public university bachelor’s degree grads was $53,741, according to state Department of Education data. Community college career certificate earners averaged a tad more — $54,862. Those with only a high school diploma or high school vocational completion were at the bottom of the earnings ladder, averaging $32,800. Those who finished high school with a career certificate made an average of $45,336.
Caveat: Averages obscure the considerable variation in earnings by career field or major. Apprenticing in some occupations thus far has led to low-paying jobs. Apprentice cooks start a program at $8,320 per year and exit at $16,640, the state reports. Other low-paying apprentice fields are childcare, bricklaying and sheet metal working. High-wage skilled trades, meanwhile, can take some doing to enter. The highest exit wage for apprentices that the state tracked was $95,097 for an elevator constructor. According to the union website, union locals take applications only every two years. The Tampa region local, for example, next takes applications in 2026.
Demand from Gen Z, Gen Alpha behind it and employers forces innovation and flexibility on Florida’s career education approach. Each year, public Lorenzo Walker Technical High School in Collier, where students take regular academic courses and job-training electives, has had about twice as many students apply as it had room for in its 150-student first-year cohort. But only about half of the students, by the time they’re juniors and seniors, take dual-enrollment courses at the post-high school technical college on the same campus.
To open up more space for dual enrollment, this year marks the last time Lorenzo Walker takes in a first-year cohort. Instead, the college will expand into the high school space. Students will stay in traditional high schools for academic classes and take buses to Walker for dual-enrollment technical college career classes. “I can tell you unequivocally (in) 2023-24, we had the highest adult enrollment at Lorenzo Walker Technical College ever. We had the highest enrollment at iTech ever. (iTech is the system’s career college in Immokalee). We had the highest adult education numbers ever. We are booming,” says Carlos Artime, Collier’s career and technical education director. He says all programs are in high-wage, in-demand fields. “Everything we’re doing is workforce driven,” he says.
Marcusky, the young welder, saw his wages regularly increase as he became more proficient in his trade. He’s now 25 and makes just over $30 per hour, or roughly $60,000 a year before overtime. Benefits are robust. Still, the combination of work and training at nights wasn’t smooth for everyone. Only about half the cohort he started with graduated with him in July as journeymen. “I feel like I accomplished something,” he says. He’s worked on projects at Orlando area resorts, amusement parks, hospitals and the airport. “I love it,” he says.
Career takeoff
With two years of training, Daniela Gonzalez landed a job with Bombardier repairing airplanes.
All her life, Daniela Gonzalez has had a love of airplanes. The Colombia native came to the U.S. at 16, enrolled in Barron Collier High School in Naples, played soccer for the school team and graduated in 2019. A few months later, she joined the airplane mechanic program at Lorenzo Walker Technical College, the public school system vocational school in Collier County. It cost a couple of thousand dollars.
Roughly two years later, she graduated in airframe mechanics and aviation powerplant mechanics, and the next month started work in Miami-Dade for aircraft maker Bombardier. The 23-year-old says she makes in the mid-five figures. That’s about the average for a graduate of a Florida four-year university but earned in half the time and with no student debt.
Gonzalez says she dreamed of being a pilot but is aware of the expense of accumulating the necessary flight time hours and also wanted to get to work after high school. “I always wanted to challenge myself to do different stuff and I said, ‘OK, why not do the mechanical side?’ I’ve been working two years and three or four months. I really love it. You always learn every day. I want to keep learning.”
A&P mechanics like Gonzalez are licensed to work on the external frame (the airframe) of the aircraft and the engine, or powerplant.
She hopes one day to manage a crew and be a supervisor. And perhaps one day, she’ll get her private pilot license. “Maybe as a hobby,” she says.
Pilot pipeline
Within 20 years, the aviation industry will need more than half a million new pilots. JetBlue is teaming up with schools like Broward College to train them.
Educators and businesses are innovating to improve the pipeline of workers available outside traditional four-year colleges. This year, Broward College became the first community college to partner with airline JetBlue’s 16-year-old Gateway University pilot development program. JetBlue has one of its largest crew bases at Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport. Students accepted in the program get a conditional job offer as a first officer for JetBlue, along with guidance and mentoring. Students earn a two-year, associate’s degree in professional pilot technology and the foundational FAA flight certificates necessary to progress toward becoming an airline pilot: private pilot, instrument rating, commercial pilot, multi-engine rating, certified flight instructor and certified flight instructor instrument. Students can go on to earn a bachelor’s in aerospace science.
The major hurdle for all would-be pilots is accumulating expensive flight time. The payoff is an airline salary. “Becoming a pilot is a well-paying and fulfilling career with a starting salary of more than $100,000 for a first officer with most major airlines,” says Russell McCaffery, dean of Broward College Transportation Programs. “There is tremendous opportunity for upward mobility, with senior captains making a $500,000 salary.” Boeing, in its annual study, projects a need for 649,000 new commercial pilots by 2042.
JetBlue’s Gateway University program also has partnerships with Embry Riddle, Jacksonville University and Florida Tech. Additionally, JetBlue partners with Aviator College in Fort Pierce, offering programs to JetBlue employees and their immediate family members that help them develop the skills, certifications and experience to become a JetBlue pilot or aviation maintenance technician.
Photo courtesy of CareerSource Florida