Blueprint — Apr 08, 2026

States are throwing serious money at building more shop floors, welding booths, and auto bays — not because trades are trendy, but amid widespread waitlists for existing programs. At the same time, a few very specific apprenticeship windows are open right now with real deadlines, and the math on college vs. trades just got a fresh data point that's hard to ignore. The theme isn't hype. It's a capacity crunch meeting a demand surge, and the students who move first get the seats.

Applications for Ironworkers Local 7 in Boston opened on April 8 and close on April 19. First-year apprentices start at roughly $31/hour plus benefits. The program runs about three years, and journey-level ironworker pay in the Boston market tops $60/hour. The process includes a written test, a physical agility test, and an interview, with an open house on April 10 for anyone who wants to walk through the training hall before committing.

What changes if you get in: you skip college debt entirely, earn a living wage from day one, and land in a union with a pension and health plan — in a city where construction cranes aren't going away anytime soon. The risk is real too: ironwork is physically demanding, heights are non-negotiable, and the apprenticeship has structure that rewards showing up every day in every weather condition. If you wash out in year one, you're back to square one with no credential.

What to watch: if this window fills fast (and it often does — these lists historically close well before the deadline), that's another data point that union apprenticeships are behaving like competitive college admissions. The observable signal is whether Local 7 stops accepting applications before April 19.

If you want a six-figure trade that almost nobody at your school can describe, elevator mechanic is near the top of the list. The International Union of Elevator Constructors just posted a new apprenticeship in Peoria, Illinois. Applications open at 9:00 a.m. on April 17 and slam shut either May 15 or when 250 people apply — whichever comes first. You need a high school diploma or GED, decent algebra, and to pass an aptitude test and interview.

The numbers: BLS puts median pay for elevator installers and repairers at about $106,580/year (~$51/hour), with union mechanics in major metros clearing $60+/hour. The apprenticeship is five years, paid from day one (typically starting around 50% of journeyman rate), with structured raises, health insurance, and a defined-benefit pension. No tuition.

What changes if this works for you: you're on a path to one of the highest-paid trades in the country with a union safety net, doing work that's complex enough (hydraulics, electrical controls, code compliance) to stay interesting for decades. What failure looks like: the 250-person cap fills in days, and you're locked out for a year or more — which mirrors conditions at oversubscribed electrical programs in California. The signal to watch is how fast that cap fills. If it's gone in under a week, treat it as confirmation that the best trade apprenticeships now have acceptance rates that rival selective colleges.

The Healey-Driscoll Administration opened applications for $15 million in capital grants to help school districts expand and modernize career technical education programs, with the explicit goal of adding 400–600 CTE seats and reducing waitlists. This is the second CTE capital round this fiscal year — earlier, the state opened $60 million for existing program expansion and equipment. That's $75 million in CTE capital from one state in one year, funded through $100 million in Fair Share dollars earmarked to add more than 3,000 CTE seats over three years. The application deadline is April 28.

The waitlist detail is the real news. Massachusetts isn't building CTE capacity as an aspiration — it's building it amid students who are already trying to get in and can't. If this succeeds, districts get new welding labs, auto bays, and HVAC trainers that translate directly into more apprenticeship-ready graduates. If it fails — if the money goes to cosmetic upgrades or districts can't hire enough CTE instructors to staff the new seats — the waitlists stay, and students keep getting funneled toward four-year degrees by default.

What to watch: whether the new seats actually open with industry-aligned equipment (CNC machines, simulation hardware, EV diagnostic tools) or just more desks. The equipment list in each grant application will tell you whether a district is building for 2016 trades or 2026 trades.

Industrial maintenance technicians keep factories, food plants, and distribution centers running. A typical day: swap bearings on a conveyor before lunch, troubleshoot a sensor that keeps shutting down a packaging line after lunch, run preventive maintenance checks before you leave. You're the person who fixes everything — conveyors, pumps, motors, PLCs (programmable logic controllers — the small computers that run automated equipment), and the electrical systems connecting them.

The BLS reports a median annual wage of about $63,510 for the industrial machinery mechanics/maintenance workers/millwrights cluster, with projected growth of roughly 13% from 2024 to 2034 — much faster than average. Experienced techs in high-demand sectors (food processing, logistics, chemicals) regularly break into the $70,000–$90,000+ range with overtime and shift differentials. Apprenticeships typically run 3–4 years, combining paid on-the-job training with around 24 college credits of classroom work. Programs at places like Fox Valley Technical College, Waukesha County Technical College, and through Washington state's apprenticeship system lay this out clearly.

What changes if you pursue this: you become the person a $50 million production line depends on, which makes you very hard to replace and very easy to pay well. The risk: without a formal apprenticeship, Reddit's r/IndustrialMaintenance community reports it can take 6–8 years of bouncing between helper jobs to reach journeyman-equivalent skill — so the structured path isn't just faster, it's dramatically faster. A new Talking Jobs YouTube episode shadows industrial maintenance techs doing PLC troubleshooting and sensor calibration — worth 15 minutes if you want a realistic preview before committing.

Georgetown's Center on Education and the Workforce published analysis showing the median 10-year ROI for an associate's degree at roughly $142,000 versus $125,000 for a bachelor's. Over 40 years, the bachelor's typically pulls ahead (~$1.2M median vs. ~$655K for an associate). But that long-run advantage assumes you finish, don't switch majors, and land in a field that uses the degree — and it completely ignores the four years of lost earnings and accumulated debt.

Run the side-by-side with current numbers: BLS puts median electrician pay at $60,000–$70,000 nationally (Alaska: ~$88K, New York: ~$80K, Oregon: ~$72K). Aggregated apprenticeship wage data from Gild shows national averages starting around $18/hour and rising roughly 77% over the apprenticeship to about $32/hour. By age 23–24, a union electrician could be near journeyman making $40–$50/hour (~$80K–$100K with overtime) with zero student debt, while a business grad from a non-elite school might be starting at $45K–$55K with $30K–$60K in loans.

What this means practically: for the first decade of your career, a well-chosen trade apprenticeship often wins on net earnings — sometimes by a lot. The bachelor's degree advantage kicks in later and depends heavily on field and institution. The underused strategy almost nobody mentions: finish an apprenticeship, work several years, then earn an online bachelor's (business, construction management) while employed. That combo frequently produces better management and earnings outcomes than either path alone. The signal to watch: if more states follow South Carolina's lead in converting high school HVAC coursework into college credit, the stacking strategy gets cheaper and faster.

A teenager in Peoria racing 249 strangers to apply for an elevator job that pays $106K. A state legislature in Alabama openly saying the four-year-degree default is the problem. A welding lab in Nebraska so new the exhaust fans still have plastic on them.

The FAFSA — the form that has funneled millions of 17-year-olds toward college without mentioning alternatives — might soon be required to show them the other door. Which means the most disruptive thing in trades this month isn't a tool. It's a checkbox.

Build something.

If someone you know is staring at a college brochure and wondering if there's another option — send them this.