Wes Bihn watched his sister slogging her way through six years of university training to enter the psychiatry field, and he knew that path wasn’t for him.
“I was raised on a farm,” Bihn told Cowboy State Daily. “And I’ve pretty much worked nonstop my entire life, and I just always hated being in school.”
The mere thought of spending six years in a classroom was like torture for Bihn, who is from Indiana, really driving home the realization that he wanted something different.
Bihn is like a lot of people in Generation Z, ranging in age from 13 to 28, who are choosing trade schools instead of four-year universities or two-year community colleges. They are attracted by the shorter timeframes, lower costs, and better job opportunities. The trend is earning the generation a new moniker, the Toolbelt Generation.
Trade schools can take as little as eight weeks, ranging on up to two years, but many have programs that take just six months.
WyoTech automotive students like Bihn can finish their career-ready program in as little as nine months, unless they decide to take additional electives to improve their skills.
Bihn initially thought he wouldn’t go to any sort of post-secondary training at all, but changed his mind after hearing from a friend who went to WyoTech and then talked to a recruiter who showed up in Indiana at his school for a career-day event.
Hearing that it was mostly “shop time, very little classroom instruction time,” was exactly what Bihn needed to hear.
“You’re up on your feet doing stuff, using your hands when you’re learning,” he said. “So that just started to eat away at me, and I realized I don’t know what I don’t know.”
After applying for scholarships, he won a big one from the mikeroweWORKS Foundation, which helped fund this new career path.
Now he has three months left studying diesel mechanics, after which he plans to return home to his old electrician’s job, armed with new skills that he believes are setting him up for life.
“I know the area mechanics and I know all the farmers around there,” Bihn said. “So, I’m just gonna moonlight as a mechanic until I feel I have enough experience to start my own business.”
Students at WyoTech don't do a lot of sitting around in a classroom, and the programs are also much shorter than a four-year degree program. That's a factor that's making it particularly attractive to Generation Z. (Renee Jean, Cowboy State Daily) 
The students at WyoTech, most of whom are Generation Z, all learn the Cowboy Code. (Renee Jean, Cowboy State Daily) 
WyoTech offers a range of hands-on work like repairing diesels. Trade jobs like diesel mechanic are finding fans in Generation Z, which is earning itself a new moniker as the Toolbelt Generation. (Renee Jean, Cowboy State Daily) 
Students at WyoTech can learn a variety of skills. Here, the students are learning to do professional body work. (Renee Jean, Cowboy State Daily) 
Students learn how to do custom finish work in one of the paint rooms at WyoTech. Most of WyoTech's students are Generation Z, which has been earning itself a new moniker as the Toolbelt Generation. (Renee Jean, Cowboy State Daily) 
Students at WyoTech often work in teams, which further helps prepare them for job settings. Most of the students are from Generation Z, which is earning itself a new moniker, the Toolbelt Generation. (Renee Jean, Cowboy State Daily) 
WyoTech has career fairs on a regular basis, and many of the students will graduate with multiple job offers. Most of WyoTech's students are Generation Z, which is earning itself a new moniker as the Toolbelt Generation. (Renee Jean, Cowboy State Daily) 
Jim Mathes, center, owner of WyoTech in Laramie, talks with students and alumni at one of its many job fairs. Most of WyoTech's students are Generation Z, which is earning itself a new moniker as the Toolbelt Generation. (Renee Jean, Cowboy State Daily)
Generation Z Is Filling Up Vo-Tech Programs
The vastly shorter timeframes, the chance to start a business, the cheaper tuition, the hands-on nature of the learning are among the many factors that Generation Z cite when picking trade schools over universities.
WyoTech, based in Laramie, has a student body that is almost exclusively Generation Z, with 96% of the student body ranging in age from 17 to 23 years of age. Granted, the trade school is geared toward exiting high school students, but WyoTech isn’t the only beneficiary of Generation Z’s interest.
Nationwide, vocationally focused community colleges have seen back-to-back double-digit growth. In 2023, enrollments rose 16%, then in 2024, they rose another 13.6% at two-year institutions with high vocational program emphasis, according to National Student Clearinghouse Research Center data.
Graduates of trade school programs face great job prospects, as many of the schools like to tout, thanks to a growing shortage of skilled workers.
Welders, for example, had 584,000 job openings in January of 2024, according to figures from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. The construction industry, meanwhile, said it needed to attract about half a million new workers in 2024, just to keep up with supply and demand.
Plumbers, electricians, and other such trades are reporting similar shortfalls ahead, by 2030 or so, as Baby Boomers continue to retire from the workplace.
Those Eye-Catching Salaries
The rising demand is fueling healthier salaries than other options for Generation Z, many of whom are at that stage in life where a person is hyper-focused on getting that healthy start in life.
ZipRecruiter lists the average annual salary for skilled trades as $52,487 in Wyoming, which compares to $54,604 nationwide. But many Generation Z graduates from WyoTech and Western Welding Academy say they and their colleagues are fielding multiple job opportunities and have seen much higher offers than those averages.
“The reason why I wanted to go to trade school was to like jump-start my career,” Jericho Turman told Cowboy State Daily.
The Virginia resident is attending Western Welding Academy, which initially attracted him through a robust social media platform. He’s happy so far with the results of his training.
“I graduated March 7, and the connections I got through those six months were amazing,” he said.
He believes it would take someone years working in the trades to develop the kind of connections he was able to make through Western Welding, which offers a six-month program.
“It just kind of gives you some experience that you probably never thought you’re going to get,” he said. “Connections with people, so that you’ll always have eyes in different places in the industry.”
Turman took a couple of weeks off after graduating before starting to apply for jobs because he wanted to reconnect with family, as well as focus his eventual search on jobs within his state.
But many of his colleagues already have multiple job offers to consider, which he said has been another attractive aspect of attending Western Welding.
“You’re never like, completely out of a job unless you’re not looking,” he said.
Generation Z has grown up digital, and many aren’t choosing traditional colleges. They’re packing Wyoming’s trade schools, lured by shorter, cheaper programs and better job prospects. It’s earned these Gen Z’ers the nickname The Toolbelt Generation. (Courtesy WyoTech) 
Generation Z has grown up digital, and many aren’t choosing traditional colleges. They’re packing Wyoming’s trade schools, lured by shorter, cheaper programs and better job prospects. It’s earned these Gen Z’ers the nickname The Toolbelt Generation. (Courtesy WyoTech) 
Generation Z has grown up digital, and many aren’t choosing traditional colleges. They’re packing Wyoming’s trade schools, lured by shorter, cheaper programs and better job prospects. It’s earned these Gen Z’ers the nickname The Toolbelt Generation. (Courtesy WyoTech) 
Generation Z has grown up digital, and many aren’t choosing traditional colleges. They’re packing Wyoming’s trade schools, lured by shorter, cheaper programs and better job prospects. It’s earned these Gen Z’ers the nickname The Toolbelt Generation. (Courtesy WyoTech) 
Generation Z has grown up digital, and many aren’t choosing traditional colleges. They’re packing Wyoming’s trade schools, lured by shorter, cheaper programs and better job prospects. It’s earned these Gen Z’ers the nickname The Toolbelt Generation. (Courtesy WyoTech)
Not Becoming Their Parents
For Carson Holmes, who calls northern Colorado home, part of his calculus was avoiding the cost of a four-year program, but it was also avoiding the kinds of jobs his parents had while he was growing up.
They were both office managers, and Holmes decided that office politics would drive him crazy.
“A lot of Generation Z have parents who weren’t in the trades at all,” Holmes told Cowboy State Daily. “So, they’d come home and talk about their office jobs. And a lot of things I heard my parents dealing with at work was just stupid. I didn’t want to have to deal with that.”
Holmes knew from his parents’ conversations that he didn’t want to be cooped up in a cubicle, too close to a potentially micro-managing boss.
Now that he’s graduated from the automotive program at WyoTech, he’s found a job where he’s on the road much of the time. No office required.
“I see the manager once a week and review the work and then I’m back on the road again,” he said. “I’m only in the office for an hour.”
Since finishing the program, he has been reflecting on the rise of Artificial Intelligence in the workplace and decided he has made a smart career choice for the foreseeable future.
“Basically, at the end of the day, my coworkers and I have said forklifts will start driving themselves, and they’re going to work harder, because they’re driving all the time,” Holmes said. “Maybe you had a machine that was up 15, 16 hours a day, but once it’s fully autonomous, it will be 24 hours a day.”
And that’s more maintenance work for people like Holmes.
“They don’t hire robots to do maintenance diagnostics,” Holmes said. “It still takes a whole brain to do that.”
Renée Jean can be reached at renee@cowboystatedaily.com.
