I just went through this three times in the last 18 months or so.
One, upped and joined the Army.
One, went to trade school, and got married.
One, went to college.
Full disclosure, I have three degrees, so one would think I value college. And I do, but as I watch the arcs unfold I think more and more that there is no right answer here. What's more important to me, in hindsight, is that you take the time at that age to get out of your comfort zone, that you test your boundaries, and that you start to find where your potential lies.
It has nothing to do with "trade school", per se, but I think the middle kid got short-changed (and I take some but not all responsibility for that). I think there's benefit and value to being away from home. I think there's benefit and value to see, first hand, the impacts of your choices, with little or no safety net. I think there's benefit and value to finding out that you can do a, b, and c, but there's no "d" at the end of the equation, and vice versa, someone else might get to "d" and not have given fuck one about a, b, or c. My stepson, in the Army (and formerly a licensed mechanic) is everything you'd want in a son. Values, humility, respect, drive... and when I met him he was basically drinking and hooka-ing his life away in his mom's basement. I had little directly to do with getting him out of that, but I was there to help him navigate (he doesn't speak to his dad) and work through choices. The youngest, my daughter, is now in her freshman year, and is starting to realize that there's a LIFE out there to be had, and she's starting to, as I call it, build her book of stories.
I feel bad for the middle kid, my stepdaughter. She went right from high school to beauty school (she did not drop out.
), and right from her bedroom in our house, to her house in NC with her husband. I think she needed to touch the hot stove maybe. I think she needed to experience that dorm life, sitting in a hallway at 4:00 am talking about life with people that were strangers in every way two months before. I think she needed to have to navigate interpersonal waters without the paddle of her mom/boyfriend. I think she needed to see life and people and society outside of her safe little world.
None of that is "college" per se, but it is an opportunity that is built in to college.