One of the most common questions asked of high school juniors and seniors is this: &8220;Where are you going after high school?&8221;

Time and again students are under pressure to aspire to four-year universities and become doctors, lawyers, scientists, engineers, educators and similar university-based career fields. Parents, counselors, teachers and the school systems have our young men and women on fast tracks into universities, whether they want it or not. This has only resulted in high rates of college dropouts, transfers or even taking six or seven years to get four-year degrees.

It&8217;s more difficult for a young man or woman to respond with this answer: &8220;I&8217;m going to go to the community college and become a welder.&8221;

But the fact is, that student who will become a welder likely is going to make more money than several university-based careers and have less college debt.

Let&8217;s look at lawyers. Not all lawyers end up wealthy like on TV shows. (The lawyer in Cambridge who is pushing the theater loophole in the state smoking ban works in a doublewide trailer.) As journalists, we meet a surprising number of people with law degrees who didn&8217;t stay in law because they found the work to be unsatisfying or they weren&8217;t wanted. There&8217;s no shortage of lawyers.

But there is a shortage of welders. Once you have the skills, you have a guaranteed career. There will be high-paying employment. At the 10-year class reunion, you can meet your high school pal who became a lawyer and know you probably are in all likelihood making more money, at the 10-year-mark, than he or she is and you probably have a lot less debt.

But it seems parents, counselors, teachers and the school systems &8212; not all, but in general &8212; don&8217;t know this fact about vocational fields.

That&8217;s the marketing challenge Riverland Community College and other community and technical colleges in Minnesota face. This week is Career and Technical Education Week. This year, not only are the colleges highlighting fields from accounting to truck driving, they want to change the way people think about these jobs.

The big sell is that the baby boomers are retiring. Not only is there already demand for people to work jobs such as machinist or nurse, the demand is only going to increase as the baby boomers retire. Plus, the people who pursue vocational careers tend to stay in the region.

Either America need to change how it guides &8212; and pressures &8212; students toward a university life they might not be suited to meet or we will face a worsening employment challenge.