Vocational enrollment is up among younger Americans as the toolbelt generation takes shape, and one nurse-turned-union ironworker thinks it's a good opportunity for students to secure their futures.
"I think going into a trade school is a great opportunity because, with a lot of trade schools and especially apprenticeship programs for the union, by the time you're done, and you turn out as a journeyman, you don't have any debt that you have to worry about," Tiffany Younk, a Michigan-based ironworker, told Fox News Digital on Wednesday.
Tiffany said the "go to college" mindset was drilled into her mind as a younger millennial. She decided to deviate from that path and follow in her father's footsteps in trade labor after realizing the traditional college route — and her earlier dreams of becoming a graphic designer as well as her later venture into nursing — weren't satisfactory.
"I told her, ‘You can be whatever the hell you want,'" Robert Younk told Fox News Digital. "And I think that women can be whatever they want."
Robert, who retired from ironworking in January, said he spent approximately 35 years in the trade. When asked to give advice for young adults who are on the fence about enrolling in trade school, he said it's "the only way to go."
"Back when I was growing up in the ‘60s and early ’70s, it was preached back then by my father, ‘trade schools, trade schools, trade schools.’ We didn't have the money to go to trade school, but we lived 250 miles north of the big cities, up in the country, so it wasn't an option up here," he said.
Robert praised a multimillion dollar training center his union funds.
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