>FWIW, one of the findings was that college education no longer is enough: to thrive, now you need an advanced degree.
>
>In some cases, you don't even need a college degree to thrive. There are loads of skilled jobs - welders, machinists, and so on that pay very good money that employers are having trouble filling because everyone thinks that they need to go to college.

When I hear employer employers are having "trouble filling positions" I immediately add the words, "for what they want to pay" to the sentence. Keep bumping up the rate and eventually you'll have people falling over themselves to get those jobs. Create outreach programs to get to kids while they're still in high school; offer free training; etc. The job can't support that wage? (shrug) maybe it's not that important. Or maybe they need to work on other incentives (flex time, not expecting everyone to work 50+ hour work weeks, etc.).