Conservative activist Charlie Kirk, who dropped out of a community college before he founded Turning Point USA at the age of 18, is amplifying a Wall Street Journal article which features high school juniors being wooed by companies in need of laborers (welders, plumbers) and which are reportedly willing to pay the teenagers $70,000 a year.
Kirk wrote on X: “High school juniors with shop class trade skills like welding and plumbing are getting job offers for $70,000/year before they even graduate. No debt. No four year career delay. No indoctrination. College is a scam.”
High school juniors with shop class trade skills like welding and plumbing are getting job offers for $70,000/year before they even graduate.
No debt.
No four year career delay.
No indoctrination.College is a scam. pic.twitter.com/VzBCjh7ZvW
— Charlie Kirk (@charliekirk11) May 7, 2025
Kirk is receiving a lot of backlash on X with comments including “Ask anyone who spent a career in trades how their body feels. Huge physical toll in most trades, wages aren’t everything if you destroy yourself in the process.”
“It’s a good career til you hit mid 30’s and then you will wish you either started a company or got a degree. I have been both blue collar (15+ years in construction) and white collar (20+ in tech with PhD). I make almost 12x what I made in construction and cut my finger off in construction (sewed back on). Please don’t mislead people.”
Another replied: “They will make 70k a year but have little to no financial management skills. Business, Doctor, Law grads will have knowledge of how the system works on the backend: Stocks, Trusts, Retirement, Loopholes, Taxes, etc…. all taught at those higher levels.”
Another wrote: “Charlie, I get it—you love the idea of kids welding their way to $70,000 a year, no college required. It’s a nice story, until you look at the fine print. That $70K comes with a catch: 40% of welders are hobbling around with chronic back pain by 50, according to Occupational Medicine. Meanwhile, college grads are pulling in 68% more per week—$1,432 versus $853 for high school grads, per the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Over a lifetime, that’s a $1 million gap. You’re not just selling a job; you’re selling a ceiling. And for what? So you can keep railing against ‘elites’ while making sure no one climbs the ladder to challenge you?”
Lisa Britton warned: “Although I’m a big supporter of investing in vocational training and apprenticeships to support our young men, it’s also important to encourage them to pursue a college education. We need men in professions such as teaching, law, therapy, and medicine that require a college degree. Nearly 60% of college students are already female. They can’t all be female! I think influencers like Mr. Kirk here should be a bit more mindful with their messaging.”
Another replied: “Would a guy like JD Vance have been better off for America if instead of going to Yale he became a plumber?
Promoting college education as a pathway to prosperity, the Association of Public and Land-Grant Universities links to an upward mobility study out of the National Bureau of Economic Research that reveals the following four takeaways:
- College graduates are half as likely to be unemployed as their peers whose highest degree is a high school diploma.
- Typical earnings for bachelor’s degree holders are $40,500 or 86 percent higher than those whose highest degree is a high school diploma.
- 87% of bachelor’s degree holders report financial wellbeing, 20 percentage points higher than groups with any other level of education.
- Median lifetime earnings are $1.2 million higher for bachelor’s degree holders.
The economists who authored the paper studied outcomes data from over 30 million students.