So, last week I assailed my readers with advice for college-bound seniors, the focus being to choose a major and a profession that you love. But let’s talk today about a topic that can get a little sensitive: is college the best option?

I feel like college is forced on seniors these days, with the heavy focus on test scores and whatnot. The college path is presented as the only path for so many students, when it may not be the right one.

Now, I’m a college graduate, working on my master’s, and probably will want a Ph.D. at some point in time (I may be a masochist when it comes to intellectual stress), but my passion is teaching and the degrees are required for that. I’m not bashing colleges in any way, shape, form, or fashion. I’m simply saying that I believe we set some students up for failure by shoving college down their throats.

Let’s talk about the money. College is expensive and not getting any cheaper in the foreseeable future. So what do we do? Student loans! Good old Sallie Mae, Navient, and all the others who give us money to go to school, and then need it back when we’re done. But the job market post-graduation is not fantastic, to say the least. So we build up this massive amount of debt, struggle to find a job that uses our degree, and then when we don’t we still end up using most of our paychecks to pay back those loans for thirty years.

Let’s talk about the pressure. High school is hard, what with the peer pressure and hormones and bullying and test scores. And the looming threat of college just makes all of that worse. This elitist mindset that further education in the collegiate world is the only viable choice is destructive; all it does is put more stress on these already overstressed seniors, and it sets many up for failure.

Now, let’s talk about the options. And I have to brag on my school here for a bit. The teachers here are extremely open-minded and informative, and we have actually developed programs that lead to places other than colleges. There are classes devoted to useful skills and trades, and the options are made available and accessible to our students. But there still seems to be an overwhelming push for college in so many places, when there are trades and careers within those trades that are necessary, available, and suffering from this wave of “hey, you can only go to college from here” mentality. Plumbers, electricians, welders, construction workers, and so many others are losing manpower because of the push for students to go to college. Education and training for these jobs takes a fraction of the time a college degree requires, and a fraction of the money. In addition, these trades can easily earn the undertaker 60k to 80k a year, something unheard of by most college graduates with just an undergraduate degree. And let’s not forget all the careers that offer training on the job, promote from within based on experience, and never require a college degree.

These trades also have another huge thing going for them: they will always have job security. There will always (barring the apocalypse) be a need for people with those skills. And there are subcategories within these careers as well, specialty fields within fields that come with their own standards and benefits.

So, I mentioned that training within trades is less expensive than college. And college is not the only world with scholarships and grants available. There are foundations that specifically reserve and award grants and scholarships to students who train for a trade instead of taking the college route. One example that jumps to mind is the mikeroweWORKS foundation; a foundation set up to reward students pursuing a career they enjoy outside of the college world. The foundation has scholarships available for students going to technical schools and AED-affiliated schools, and they’re now instituting a work-ethic scholarship program for 2017. It’s the brainchild of Mike Rowe, creator and host of the hit show, “Dirty Jobs.” His goal with this is to close what he terms the “skill gap.” He notes the unemployment rates, the massive amounts of debt nationwide from student loans, and the astronomical number of jobs and trades that students never consider.

Let’s recap. Last week we discussed doing what you love, and the importance of deciding a major that you actually enjoy and will commit to. But what if there’s not a major for you? What if a trade is a better fit, but you never give it a chance because it’s not the college dream?

Don’t be afraid to deviate from the norm. If you feel that the world of academia does not hold a place for you, don’t feel ashamed. Feel proud to be committing to something noble and needed and worthwhile. And don’t let anyone force you down the college path if it’s not the right one for you.