Show your work
How this math works
I'm Brad. Third-generation carpenter, Air Force veteran, 20+ years running remodeling jobs, and I also build software. I put this site together because the trades-vs-college conversation runs on vibes and brochures, and I wanted it to run on numbers instead. Here is every assumption, so you can check my work.
One thing before the tables: I'm not anti-college. Nurses, engineers, teachers, go get the degree. This site exists because nobody shows 17-year-olds the other column of the spreadsheet before they sign the loan papers. That's the gap I'm filling.
Where the wages come from
All wage data is the Bureau of Labor Statistics Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics survey, May 2025 release: employment counts and the 10th/25th/50th/75th/90th percentile wages for each trade in each state. Public data, no adjustments. Where BLS suppresses a state cell (small sample), we show national figures and say so right on the page.
The trade path
- Training cost is charged in year 1 (per-trade values below).
- Apprentice years earn a documented fraction of the state median wage, stepping up yearly.
- After the apprenticeship you earn the state median.
- Years 8-10 ramp from the median toward the 75th percentile, standing in for experience, leads, and overtime. OEWS does not publish wages by tenure, so p75 is our proxy and we say so.
| Trade | Training cost | Apprentice wage steps (% of median) |
|---|---|---|
| electrician | $7,500 | 50% → 65% → 80% → 90% |
| plumber | $7,500 | 50% → 65% → 80% → 90% |
| hvac technician | $10,000 | 60% → 80% |
| welder | $8,000 | 65% |
| carpenter | $5,000 | 55% → 70% → 85% |
| diesel mechanic | $12,000 | 60% → 80% |
| elevator installer | $2,000 | 50% → 65% → 80% → 90% |
The college path
- Four years of tuition and fees at $15,000/year, zero earnings while enrolled.
- $37,850 of student debt at graduation, amortized on the standard 10-year federal plan at 6.39%.
- Starting salary $60,000, growing 3.5% per year.
- Each working year adds salary minus that year's loan interest to net worth. Principal payments move money, not net worth.
Career switch mode
The calculator's second tab compares switching into a trade against staying in your current job. The switch path is the same trade math as above (training cost year 1, apprentice wage ramp on real state data, then median, then the p75 climb). The stay path takes the salary you type in and grows it 2.5% per year (long-run average annual nominal wage growth for incumbent workers (bls eci, conservative end)).
One honest caveat: your current salary is the only number on this site we do not source ourselves. The stay path is exactly as accurate as what you type in. And when the math says staying wins, we say so on the page; a comparison tool you can only "win" is a brochure.
What we leave out, on purpose
Taxes and living costs are excluded from BOTH paths, so they wash out of the comparison. The output is cumulative earnings net of education costs and loan interest. It is a path comparison, not a savings account projection. We also cut the window at 10 years: long enough to show the early-career gap that nobody talks about, short enough to stay honest. Over a 30-year career, some degree fields catch up and pass. Many don't.
Two more things that favor the college column in our model: we assume graduation in exactly 4 years (the real median is longer), and we assume the average debt, not the scary end of it.
Every constant, with its source
| Constant | Value | Source |
|---|---|---|
| annualTuitionFees | $15,000 | College Board, Trends in College Pricing 2025: blended average of published tuition and fees across public in-state (~$11.6k), public out-of-state, and private nonprofit sectors, enrollment-weighted and rounded |
| debtAtGraduation | $37,850 | Average student loan balance at bachelor's graduation, borrowers with debt (project brief research, July 2026) |
| loanRate | 0.0639 | Federal Direct Subsidized/Unsubsidized Loan interest rate for undergraduates, 2025-26 award year |
| loanTermYears | $10 | Federal Standard Repayment Plan term |
| gradStartingSalary | $60,000 | NACE first-destination survey data for recent bachelor's graduates, blended across majors and rounded |
| gradAnnualRaise | 0.035 | Long-run average annual wage growth for college-educated workers (BLS ECI range 3-4%) |
| yearsInSchool | $4 | Standard bachelor's program length; actual median time-to-degree is longer, which favors the college path in this model |
Model constants file lives in the site source and gets reviewed with every OEWS release. Spot a number you can beat with a better source? Email brad@estimationpro.ai and it gets fixed.