As we explored in our last post conventional wisdom about the value of a B.A. in obtaining a good-paying job and having a prosperous forty-year career is vastly underestimated. The Georgetown University Center on Education and the Workforce calculates that 59 percent of today’s good-paying jobs require a B.A. and that will grow to 66 percent in 2031.

The stories that dominate the public conversation about the labor market are not only inaccurate in their portrayal of the value of a B.A. compared to sub B.A.credentials, but also in its description of which occupations provide the most good-paying jobs. Conventional wisdom has it that good-paying jobs are narrowly focused in the skilled trades and in STEM occupations. Not close to reality both today and tomorrow.

The reality is that there are a wide variety of good-paying jobs now and as projected by the Center on Education and the Workforce will be a decade from now. As you can see below, management is, by far, the occupation cluster with the most good-paying jobs. Computer and math occupations are the largest STEM occupation cluster and it ranks the seventh largest. The largest skilled trades occupation cluster is construction and extraction ranking eight.

In the Michigan Future analysis of good-paying jobs we pull out first-line supervisors from all the occupation groups. If you do that, the proportion of good-paying management jobs goes up substantially. We found that first-line supervisors are the largest good-paying jobs occupation among jobs that don’t require a B.A.

Here are the proportions of good-paying 2031 jobs by occupation in the Georgetown report. Only those occupations that have at least 3 percent of all good-paying jobs are listed. A far more diverse list of occupations than conventional wisdom.

• Management: 21%
• Business and finance: 9%
• Healthcare professional and technical 9%
• Education, training and library: 7%
• sales: 7%
• Office and administrative support: 7%
• Computer and math: 6%
• Construction and extraction 5%
• Transportation and materials moving: 4%
• Production: 4%
• Architecture and engineering: 3%
• Installation, maintenance and repair: 3%

How many parents and students do you think know that there are more good-paying jobs projected in 2031 in both sales and office and administrative support than either construction or computers?

If we’re serious––as we should be––about providing all students information about all good-paying occupations we will have to dramatically change the story we are telling them about what the labor market today and tomorrow looks like. We need a reality based story about a labor market where there are a wide variety of good-paying job opportunities. Where the path to a prosperous career is not narrowly focused on either a STEM degree or learning a skilled trade. And where a four-year degree in any major is the most reliable path to the middle class.

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In a 2012 post entitled Low pay driving job vacancies I posited that the reason manufacturers had a shortage of skilled trades workers was low pay, not a skills shortage. That post featured a New York Times Magazine article by Adam Davidson entitled Skills don’t pay the bills. Davidson wrote:

The secret behind this skills gap is that it’s not a skills gap at all. I spoke to several other factory managers who also confessed that they had a hard time recruiting in-demand workers for $10-an-hour jobs. “It’s hard not to break out laughing,” says Mark Price, a labor economist at the Keystone Research Center, referring to manufacturers complaining about the shortage of skilled workers. “If there’s a skill shortage, there has to be rises in wages,” he says. “It’s basic economics.” After all, according to supply and demand, a shortage of workers with valuable skills should push wages up. Yet according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the number of skilled jobs has fallen and so have their wages.

In a recent study, the Boston Consulting Group noted that, outside a few small cities that rely on the oil industry, there weren’t many places where manufacturing wages were going up and employers still couldn’t find enough workers. “Trying to hire high-skilled workers at rock-bottom rates,” the Boston Group study asserted, “is not a skills gap.” The study’s conclusion, however, was scarier. Many skilled workers have simply chosen to apply their skills elsewhere rather than work for less, and few young people choose to invest in training for jobs that pay fast-food wages.

This, of course, is what most of learned in introductory economics. That, except in the rare case when you run out of a natural resource, market economies cannot have structural supply/demand imbalances. That price is what brings the two into balance. In labor markets wages and benefits (and to some degree working conditions) are the price. So that the way to deal with too few skilled trades workers is to raise wages.

Nearly a decade later Michigan manufacturers are still complaining there is a shortage of skilled trades workers. To determine whether those are now high-paid blue collar manufacturing jobs, I looked at the May 2020 Michigan occupation and wage estimates for production occupations from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. I looked at the average yearly wage and used the University of Michigan RSQE $47,000 middle class household of three threshold.

First the big picture. Contrary to conventional wisdom, blue collar manufacturing jobs are no longer high paying. The May 2020 average wage for Michigan’s 3,924,000 payroll jobs was $53,390. For the 399,000 production (blue collar manufacturing) jobs the average pay was $42,470. So blue collar manufacturing jobs were ten percent of all Michigan payroll jobs and their average wage was 80 percent of the statewide average.

More specifically, here are the production occupations with an average yearly wage of $47,000 and above and how many people they employed.

• Engine and other machine assemblers: $53,690, 7,850 workers
• Model makers, metal and plastic: $68,510, 600 workers
• Model makers, wood: $69,280, 50 workers
• Pattern makers, metal and plastic: $57,250, 270 workers
• Tool and die makers: $57,040, 9,910 workers
• Layout workers, metal and plastic: $50,830, 80 workers
• Chemical plant & system operators: $58,110, 100 workers
• Chemical equipment operators and tenders: $57,630, 4,780 workers
• Computer numerically controlled tool programmers: $55,300, 2,120 workers
• Furnace, kiln, oven, drier and kettle operators and tenders: $47,080, 1,010 workers
• Jewelers and precious stone and metal workers: $51,370, 480 workers
• Stationary engineers and boiler operators: $65,160, 510 workers

That is it! 12 occupations. Totaling 27,760 jobs. 27,760 is less than one percent of all Michigan payroll jobs.

Given all the attention it gets it is worth noting that welders are not on the list. The average wage for May 2020 Michigan welders was $42,370.

The occupation list does not include production occupations in utility plants and oil and natural gas extraction, which most of us would not think of as manufacturing. The data are for 40 hours a week, 52 weeks a year. So it does not include overtime pay or bonuses.

The evidence continues to make a strong case that if there is a structural shortages of manufacturing skilled trades workers the prime cause is low pay and benefits and unattractive working conditions. That the primary answer to this chronic labor shortage is market based: employers increasing price and improving working conditions.

The post The paucity of high-paid blue collar manufacturing jobs appeared first on Michigan Future Inc..

This post answers the question “What are Michigan’s top ten upper middle class occupations?” Where we define upper middle class as jobs that pay at least $70,539. Our calculation of what it takes to be upper middle class for a three person household.

In 2019 there were 914,000 of those jobs out of a total of 4,344,000 Michigan payroll jobs.

The answer is:

1. Management: 160,000
2. Healthcare practitioners: 127,000
3. Business and finance: 100,000
4. Architecture and engineering: 94,000
5. Computer and mathematical: 65,000
6. Educational instruction and library: 61,000
7. Sales: 60,000
8. Office and administrative support: 44,000
9. Production: 43,000
10. Construction and extractive: 30,000

What big picture lessons about today’s Michigan labor market can we learn from this list?

• First and foremost is the paucity of Michigan jobs, even in a robust economy, that are high-wage jobs. Only 21 percent of Michigan payroll jobs paid upper middle class wages for a three person household in the full-employment 2019 Michigan economy.
• High-wage jobs are predominately in occupations that require a four-year degree. The first six of our top ten upper middle class occupations are in major occupation where most jobs require a B.A. Those six major occupations account for 66 percent of all Michigan’s upper middle class jobs. 607,000 of 914,000 upper middle class jobs.
• As we have detailed previously, STEM occupations do not dominate high-wage jobs. Of the top ten major occupations, three are in STEM fields: healthcare practitioners; architecture and engineering; and computer and mathematical.
• Blue collar occupations don’t dominate high-paid work. Only the ninth and tenth of our top ten are blue collar occupations. They don’t even dominate the major occupations that don’t require a four-year degree. Of the four top ten major occupations that don’t require a four-year degree, the top two (sales and office and administrative support) are not in the trades.
• Given Michigan’s history, it is surprising––even shocking––that only 43,000 high-paid Michigan jobs are in blue-collar factory work. About 1% of all Michigan jobs.

A final word about what these data represent. They are for payroll jobs only and for full-time equivalent jobs only. So earnings from self employment and/or gig jobs are not included. Neither is overtime pay or any bonuses workers receive. Even with those limitations, these data provide a good description of what employers pay workers by occupation. And of today’s labor market realities.

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In recent posts we have been exploring payroll jobs wages by occupation and education. Dividing the labor market into occupations with median wages below the national median of $39,810, occupations we call middle-paid occupations with median wages between the national median and the 75 percentile of $64,230, and occupations with median wages at or above the 75th percentile.

The first post, The truth about the relationship between education and earnings, in this series summarized how many jobs were in each of the three categories: low-paid, middle-paid and high-paid occupations. Then we focused on the proportion of good-paying jobs in STEM occupations and blue collar occupations.

Those posts were based on data from the more than 800 occupations identified by the Bureau of Labor Statistics. BLS divides those 800 occupations into 22 occupational groups. In our last post we looked at which of those occupational groups have a median wage above the national 75th percentile which we call high-paid occupations.

In this post we will look at the middle-paid occupations groups with median wages between $39,810 and $64,230. There are seven of these middle-paid occupations groups:

• Life, Physical, and Social Science Occupations
• Community and Social Service Occupations
• Educational Instruction and Library Occupations
• Arts, Design, Entertainment, Sports, and Media Occupations
• Protective Service Occupations
• Construction and Extraction Occupations
• Installation, Maintenance, and Repair Occupations

Combined they employed 771,000 Michiganders in 2019. 18 percent of the 4.344 million Michigan payroll jobs in 2019. Employment in each is:

• Life, Physical, and Social Science Occupations: 32,000
• Community and Social Service Occupations: 63,000
• Educational Instruction and Library Occupations: 225,000
• Arts, Design, Entertainment, Sports, and Media Occupations: 54,000
• Protective Service Occupations: 78,000
• Construction and Extraction Occupations: 147,000
• Installation, Maintenance, and Repair Occupations: 172,000

Median wages in each of the middle-paid occupations groups are:

• Life, Physical, and Social Science Occupations: $59,820
• Community and Social Service Occupations: $46,890
• Educational Instruction and Library Occupations: $47,660
• Arts, Design, Entertainment, Sports, and Media Occupations: $46,000
• Protective Service Occupations: $41,590
• Construction and Extraction Occupations: $49,540
• Installation, Maintenance, and Repair Occupations: $45,780

The best portrayal of middle-paid occupations comes from an analysis of the more than 800 occupations. In addition to our analysis, you can check out information on each occupation at the state’s Pathfinder website.

You will, of course, find middle-paid occupations that are not in these seven occupation groups. And you find some of the occupations in these seven are not high-paid.

An example of middle-paid occupations that are not in these seven occupation groups, is that there are four-occupation groups with median wages below the national median that have wages at the 75th percentile between $39,810 and $64,230. So 25 percent of jobs in these occupations groups we would consider middle-paid.

• Sales and Related Occupations
• Office and Administrative Support Occupations
• Production Occupations
• Transportation and Material Moving Occupations

What this look at middle-paid occupations groups does provide is a snapshot of today’s labor market realities. The reality is that there are far fewer middle-paid jobs than conventional wisdom has it. Only 18 percent of all Michigan jobs in the strong 2019 economy. Also these middle-paid occupations are not predominantly in the blue collar trades. Construction and Extraction Occupations and Installation, Maintenance, and Repair Occupations account for 41 percent of Michigan jobs in middle-paid occupations groups.

In fact what most jumps out at you is the wide variety of occupations, needed skills and education requirements in these middle-paid occupations groups. This finding is aligned with what we found when we did focus groups with individuals earning more than $40,000 a year who did not have a four-year degree. The focus group participants were in a wide variety of occupations and had an equally wide variety of education and training paths that they followed to their current jobs. Far fewer than conventional wisdom has it got to their job by earning a credential in a trade.

The post These are Michigan’s middle-paid occupations appeared first on Michigan Future Inc..

The oft-repeated case for you don’t need to go to college is almost always anchored by the claim that there are plenty of six-figure jobs available to young workers who do not have a four-year degree. The story goes that others’ kids should forgo pursuing a four-year degree because some so-called professional trade is paying $100,000 right out of a high school or short-term post-secondary technical training program in welding, coding, auto mechanics, you name it.

The data tell a very different story. The first reality is there are very few six-figure jobs for young adults. Less than eight percent of 25-34 year olds had $100,000 in work earnings in 2019: 3,139,000 of the 38,016,000 25-34 year olds who worked.

The second reality is the few six-figure jobs for young workers overwhelmingly are held by those who have a four-year degree. Of the 3,139,000 25-34 year olds with work earnings of $100,000 or more 2,615,000 (83.3 percent) had a four-year degree.

In 2019 21,276,000 25-34 year olds without a four-year degree had work earnings. Of those 524,000 (2.5 percent) had work earnings of $100,000 or more. Of the 16,740,000 25-34 year olds with a four year degree 15.6 percent made six figures.

(Work earnings includes money earnings from any and all jobs: payroll jobs, gig jobs, self-employment jobs, second jobs, overtime pay, bonuses, you name it.)

You may be saying to yourself, okay the claim that there are lots of young workers without four-year degrees in six-figure jobs is exaggerated, but surely there are lots of those jobs for older workers without four-year degrees. Think again!

In 2019 there were 23,158,000 Americans 25 and older with work earnings of $100,000 or more. Of those 17,676,000 (76.3 percent) had a four-year degree. In 2019 84,735,000 25 and older without a four-year degree had work earnings. Of those 5,482,000 (6.5 percent) had work earnings of $100,000 or more. Of the 63,123,000 25 and older with a four year degree 28.0 percent made six figures.

As we have written frequently most of those telling kids not to get a four-year degree are doing the exact opposite with their own kids. Most affluent parents are preparing their children for four-year degrees from preschool on. They are doing so because they know this reality: That the most reliable path––even with a student loan––to a good-paying career is to obtain a four-year degree or more.

thinkLaw’s Colin Seale got is exactly right when in a Forbes column entitled The Equity Problem With Saying ‘College Isn’t For Everyone’ he wrote:

It is inequitable to support a “college isn’t for everyone” mentality that treats higher education as an obvious expectation for students from privileged backgrounds and as a luxury good for others. Simply put, as long as a four-year college degree continues to be a valid predictor of lifetime earnings with a multiplier effect for diverse populations, a key to long-term success in the 21st century workforce, and a reliable pathway for increased social capital, high schools ought to prepare all students to have a legitimate opportunity to successfully complete a four-year degree.

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Michigan’s Bureau of Labor Market Information and Strategic Initiatives recently released their 2018-2028 employment projections by occupation and industry.

Also released was their Michigan’s Hot 50 Job Outlook Through 2028. Which lists the 50 occupations over the next decade that most combine high demand and high wages. High wage in this case means an occupation with median wages above the state median full-time wage of about $38,500.

The hot 50 jobs list tells the overall story of the projections pretty well: 38 of the 50 occupations require a four-year degree, 7 of the 50 are in STEM occupations, 7 of the 50 are in the skilled trades

The basic story of the job openings projections is:

1. A preponderance of openings are in low-wage, low-education-requirement (high school or less) occupations.
2. The preponderance of good-paying jobs are in occupations requiring a four-year degree.
3. Good-paying jobs are in occupations much broader than the skilled trades or STEM fields. 

These projections, of course, tell of a far different reality than we have been told over and over by far too many of our business and political elites. As we have explored previously (see here and here), their story that there are lots of good-jobs that don’t require a four-year degree is not accurate. As is their story that good-paying jobs are narrowly concentrated in STEM occupations and the skilled trades.

The hot 50 jobs list tells well the story we should be telling everyone about labor market realities today and tomorrow. Most importantly, that the most reliable path to a good-paying forty-year career is getting a four-year degree in any field, not just in STEM.

Are there good-paying jobs and careers that don’t require a four-year degree? Of course. But far fewer than conventional wisdom has it. And that those good-paying non four-year degree jobs include non skilled-trades occupations.

The hot 50 jobs list is well aligned with our research findings on good-paying Michigan jobs. Using a slightly different classification of education requirement by occupation, and a much higher bar to be a good-paying job, as the pie chart below illustrates, we found that more than three-quarters of employment in good-paying occupations required a four-year degree or more. And that most of the good-paying jobs that did not require a four-year degree were in jobs you got through promotion, rather than technical occupational skills including, but not limited, to the trades.

For those of you wanting to learn more about specific occupations the best place to start is the state’s pathfinder website. There you can find out about pay, projected job openings and education requirements for hundreds of occupations.

The post Lessons from Michigan’s Hot 50 jobs appeared first on Michigan Future Inc..

Month after month, year after year, there are four most-read blogs. All have in common an exploration of the skills and occupations that are most rewarded in today’s labor market. That those skills are not occupation specific, but rather broader career rock climbing skills. And that the careers most rewarded are professional and managerial, not the skilled trades.

The four most-read posts on this blog are:

1. Google finds STEM skills aren’t the most important skills: Google found that the most valuable skills were being a good coach; communicating and listening well; possessing insights into others (including others different values and points of view); having empathy toward and being supportive of one’s colleagues; being a good critical thinker and problem solver; and being able to make connections across complex ideas.
2. What actually predicts college success?: In nearly all the research that’s been done on student success in college, the most predictive indicator, time and again, is a student’s high school GPA. … It captures a student’s mastery of academic content to be sure, but also ends up capturing their ability to pay attention in class, take notes, participate, complete assignments on time, seek feedback, seek help, advocate for themselves, manage their time, and create study systems.
3. What skilled trades jobs actually pay updated: Only 22 occupations met the criteria in 2016 of employing at least 1,000 (out of four million employed Michiganders then) and an average annual wage of more than the statewide average of $45,100. No carpenters, truck drivers, welders and automotive service technicians. And all the other hundreds of so-called high-paid/high-demand blue collar skilled trades. If the list was for occupations that pay at least the statewide average and employ at least 5,000 the above number of occupations would decline from 22 to 7.
4. The skilled trades and six-figure salaries: And while there are some skilled trades occupations in which you can earn a good living (based on our analysis of Department of Labor data, electricians and plumbers earn a median over $50,000, and the top 10% of earners can indeed earn over $90,000), the median income for most jobs in the skilled trades hovers between $35,000 and $45,000 (reference the BLS occupational handbook for data on individual jobs). So while these jobs might put you over the national median of roughly $37,000, and would certainly help you earn more than most individuals with no education beyond high school, it’s unclear where this idea of welders earning six-figure incomes came from (BLS has the median welder at $39,390).

As our readers keep telling us, each of these four most-read blogs are still worth reading, or rereading, today. Together they tell an important story about today’s labor market realities. About what in-demand skills are and are not, and about what are, and are not, the best-paying occupations and careers.

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We first wrote about welders in 2013. Its a topic we keep coming back to, most recently in a 2018 post entitled What skilled trades job actually pay.

The reason why we keep writing about welders is they have become Exhibit One for the case why others’ kids don’t need to get a four-year degree to have a good-paying career. We are told over and over again that there are many job openings for welders making more than $100,000.

One problem: there is no evidence anywhere that there are many welders who make six figures. In Michigan the median wage for welders, cutters, solderers, and brazers is $36,750. Below the national median for all occupations. You read that right, welding is an occupation that has a median wage below the national median for all jobs! At the 90th percentile Michigan welders, cutters, solderers, and brazers make $53,900.

This is all part of a larger story that the so-called skilled trades pay less than conventional wisdom has it and that there are far fewer jobs in above national median wage skilled trades occupations than conventional wisdom has it.

In his new book The Years That Matter Most, Paul Tough does a deep dive into the myth and reality of welders. Tough traces the history of the myth of welding as a six figure occupation to a 2014 Wall Street Journal op ed written by then Ohio State Treasurer Josh Mandel entitled Welders Make $150,00? Bring Back Shop Class. Tough writes:

…its premise was that in rural Ohio there was such a shortage of skilled tradespeople that employers were regularly hiring welders at salaries of $150,000 a year and up. Some Ohio welders, Mandel said, were earning more than $200,000. In the column, Mandel contrasted the bountiful opportunities available to blue-collar workers without college degrees with the dismal prospects he said many college graduates faced.

This story, of course, has been repeated over and over again by way too many business leaders and elected officials of both parties. Once again, it isn’t accurate. As we have explored many times, most recently here, the preponderance of high-wage jobs are in occupations requiring a four-year degree or more. Yes there are good-paying jobs and careers that don’t require a four-year degree; some in the trades, some in non-trades occupations. But the data are clear: the most reliable path to a middle class career is getting a four-year degree.

Tough demonstrates the reality of those preparing to become welders through the story of Orry who in his mid twenties enrolled in a community college to pursue a degree in welding. Tough writes:

Orry was no longer feeling all that optimistic about the welding profession. … the real life welding jobs that Orry was able to find in western North Carolina were paying experienced welders between $12 and $15 an hour, which was less than he was making at the door factory. Orry knew that better paying welding jobs existed, but they were all far away, in Colorado or Arizona or working on a pipeline in Alaska. Those jobs were generally short-term and physically arduous, and if Orry went out and chased one, he’d have to leave his kids behind. Now that he was back together with Katie, and they had what felt like a genuine family, he wanted to stay close to home and be a real father, the kind of steady male presence that he himself had never had growing up. Besides, even those good-paying welding didn’t pay that well––maybe $30 or $40 an hour, if he got lucky.

Add to those labor market realities that Orry had wracked up $19,000 in student loans and still hadn’t finished his two-year degree. I have no idea how typical Orry is of those who set out to become a welder. It is possible that many can get into welding without a two-year degree and without student loans. But to become a skilled welder does require some post- secondary training and there is a cost to that training. And whatever the cost and however it is paid for the labor market reality of welding is that it is at best a median-paying, not a six-figure-paying, occupation.

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All of a sudden there is lots being written about the trend of employers hiring generalists more than specialists. What is so disturbing is the disconnect between this reality and way too many policymakers pushing our education and training providers towards preparing students for a trade or profession.

In a world where generalists are what increasingly is being rewarded, the emphasis on occupation-specific skills in our education and training systems is not good for either students or the economy. Knowing coding or welding or accounting is not what matters most to having a successful 40-year career. All of those occupation skills have a shorter and shorter half life. It’s not that knowing how to code, weld or do accounting is irrelevant to getting a job today, it is those are the icing on the cake career-ready skills not the foundation skills. 

Two recent books detail this trend towards generalists: Range: Why Generalists Triumph in a Specialized World by David Epstein. And How to Win in a Winner-Take-All World, by New York Times economic columnist Neil Irwin. Both highly recommended.

Fatherly has an article about Range entitled Why Parents Should Raise Kids to be Generalists, not Specialists. But maybe the best place to start is an Atlantic article written by Jerry Useem entitled At Work, Expertise is Falling Out of Favor. For those who prefer listening to reading, there is a terrific NPR podcast which starts with Useem’s article.

All of these books, articles and podcast make clear that what employers value now–and, almost certainly, will even more going forward––are generalists, those with broad, rigorous, non-occupation specific skills.

As readers of this blog know, we think the best description of those skills are the 6Cs from the book Becoming Brilliant. Collaboration, communication, content, critical thinking, creativity and confidence.

This trend of employers preferring generalists is consistent with Google’s findings that STEM skills were not the defining characteristic of their most successfully employees. Of the focus groups we did on the path those without a four-year degree took to get jobs paying at least $40,000 a year. Of Heather McGowan’s framing of losing job skills being the operating system, a job skills the apps. And of George Anders’ findings of the value of a liberal arts degree.

My summary of all these writings about future work: All of us will need generalist skills––no matter what our first job/occupation is––and most of us, at least for a first job, will need some specialist skills. But where we have gotten off track, across the board in education and training, is which are the foundation skills. To use Heather McGowan’s terrific analogy the generalist skills are the operating system we all need; the specialist skills are the apps  (with a shorter and shorter half life). So it is not either/or but both/and for most of us, but where the most important 40-year-career-ready skills are the 6Cs/generalist skills.

To make matters worse too many of us are telling parents and kids that the only path to prosperity is to be a specialist in the trades or STEM. Which is not supported when you look at today’s data, let alone what is likely to happen in the future. So our messaging even narrows the fields where one can do well as a specialist.

The other reality of all this emphasis on learn a trade or profession is that it completely misses the reality that most of us got to where we are today through our second and third jobs, not the first. It is the promotion job that makes one prosperous for most.  And that for most our first job specialist skills were not what got us the promotion jobs. It was the generalist skills.

If, as all these readings say, increasingly rigorous generalist skills are what the labor market most demands––rather than learning a trade or profession–– we need to rethink completely what we mean by career ready and to redefine our definition of career-ready skills. This is the core of the education policy debate we need to be having.

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Far more likely is that kids growing up in affluent households are being told by most of the adults in their lives that they need to get a four-year degree. But, by and large, they are the only kids getting that message.  That most kids growing up in non-affluent households––those in the bottom three quarters by income––rarely and/or inconsistently get that message from the adults in their lives. And when they go to make a decision about what path they will pursue after high school they are being pushed far more often than conventional wisdom has it not to pursue a four-year degree. If anything pushed into the skilled/ professional trades rather than getting a four-year degree no matter what their qualifications or interest.

What is clear in the data is that even if all kids are being pushed into getting a four-year degree it is not working. The pattern is consistent with the suggested messaging above. Kids in affluent schools overwhelmingly pursuing four-year degrees, those in non-affluent high schools not so much.

Lets start with the overall data which comes from the state’s terrific mischooldata.org database. For the graduating class of 2015 twelve months later 41.2 percent of all Michigan high school graduates had enrolled in a four-year college; 28.4 percent had enrolled in a community college; and 30.4 percent had not enrolled in college.

Now lets look at the difference in enrollment between affluent and non-affluent high schools. I looked at one of each in Wayne, Oakland and Macomb counties. There is nothing representative about the high schools I picked. They represent my  perception of high schools that are predominantly white with one in each county largely serving affluent students, the other predominantly serving non-affluent students. Predominantly white to take race as an excuse/explanation off the table. If you don’t believe the pattern below is representative, I encourage you to look at high schools you think are more representative.

In Wayne County I looked at Northville High School and Garden City High School. 70.6 percent of Northville’s 2015 graduates enrolled in a four-year college within twelve months; 22.3 percent enrolled in a community college; 7.1 percent did not enroll in a college. At Garden City High School 27.4 percent of 2015 graduates enrolled in a four-year college within twelve months; 38.0 percent enrolled in a community college; 34.6 percent did not enroll in a college.

In Oakland County I looked at Birmingham Seaholm High School and Waterford Kettering High School. 77.5 percent of Seaholm’s 2015 graduates enrolled in a four-year college within twelve months; 12.6 percent enrolled in a community college; 9.8 percent did not enroll in a college. At Kettering 39.2 percent of 2015 graduates enrolled in a four-year college within twelve months; 35.4 percent enrolled in a community college; 25.4 percent did not enroll in a college.

In Macomb County I looked at Utica Eisenhower High School and Lake Shore High School. 54.6 percent of Eisenhower’s 2015 graduates enrolled in a four-year college within twelve months; 33.2 percent enrolled in a community college; 12.1 percent did not enroll in a college. At Lake Shore 36.1 percent of 2015 graduates enrolled in a four-year college within twelve months; 40.5 percent enrolled in a community college; 23.4 percent did not enroll in a college.

Finally lets look at college completion rates. The six year graduation rates for the high school class of 2010 is:

• All Michigan: 27.2 percent four-year degrees; 8.6 percent associate’s degree or certificate
• Northville High School: 66.2 percent four-year degrees; 4.4 percent associate’s degree or certificate
• Garden City High School: 19.3 percent four-year degrees; 11.2 percent associate’s degree or certificate
• Birmingham Seaholm High School: 65.1 percent four-year degrees; 1.7 percent associate’s degree or certificate
• Waterford Kettering High School: 25.1 percent four-year degrees; 14.8 percent associate’s degree or certificate
• Utica Eisenhower High School: 56.3 percent four-year degrees; 9.0 percent associate’s degree or certificate
• Lake Shore High School: 29.8 percent four-year degrees; 7.5 percent associate’s degree or certificate

Looking at the data it sure seems like one can make a much stronger case that if Michigan high school graduates are not pursuing first jobs in the skilled/professional trades at the scale that employers need it is far more to do with those jobs not being attractive to the majority of Michigan kids who are not pursuing a four-year degree rather than all kids being pushed to get a four-year degree.

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