College. The ultimate goal. The pathway to the future. It’s the end all be all, the “best four years of your life”, and where everyone seems to be going after high school. Or is it?

Although it may seem like it, college isn’t the only option for after high school, and it shouldn’t be the only one considered either. Another option may even be a better-suited one.

As William Probert, a counselor of 24 years at Dallastown (four years in his current role), puts it, “We have been conditioned as a society that college degrees bring more money but that doesn’t bring the happiness factor into it.”

College is expensive; that’s no secret. The average cost for a four-year college is $40,000 while the average cost for trade school ranges from $5,000 to $10,000 and is typically completed in three to 18 months.

Many people don’t know that the average student debt per borrower is about $37,000, which can take an average of twenty whole years to pay off!

For the class of 2021, the average monthly student loan payment is $433, which is certainly a hefty amount of money to have to put aside each month.

This doesn’t even consider what these graduates may have to pay in rent or mortgage, car payments, cell phone payments, groceries, and other monthly expenses.

However, there is another after high-school path – the road less taken, trade school.

Dallastown provides students with an entire assortment of opportunities to explore the trades while still in high school.

According to Probert, some of these opportunities include “work transition, shadowing, HACC Academy, pre-apprenticeships, and even the courses offered here in the Tech Ed department.”

One senior, Delilah Hughes, took advantage of some of these opportunities and participated part-time in the construction program at York County School of Technology and the Kinsley Construction pre-apprenticeship program.

“Going into senior year, I had no idea what I wanted to do. I had so many interests, and none of them seemed to be related to each other,” says Hughes.

Although Hughes has decided to go to a traditional four-year college for environmental science, she credits the trades programs for helping determine her true passions and learning what she would and would not like to do as an everyday job.

“I definitely think that all high school students should experiment in the trades. Even though I’ve decided to go to college and get a degree in environmental science, I have no regrets about trying out the construction industry,” Hughes goes on to say. “You don’t have to work in one of these fields in order to use the skills, as they are helpful in everyday life.”