Meet a 23-year-old electrician who was a 'good student' but skipped college to become his own boss. He makes 6 figures | Fortune

"Growing up in Concord, North Carolina, just outside Charlotte, Jacob Palmer was a classic academic achiever. "I was a good student," he said in an interview with Fortune. "In high school, I participated in all types of extracurriculars, student leadership, I did a lot of public speaking. I had all sorts of friends." But he said something changed during the pandemic. "School looked drastically different doing online classes and Zoom calls. It felt very intangible." He said he figured out pretty quickly that online college "didn't work for me. I hated it.""

"When he returned home, in need of a job, his mom was putting in a hot tub and she mentioned the electrician working on it was "super passionate and loved his job." Palmer said he sounded him out, estimating that the electrician was about 29 at the time, and Palmer liked that he worked for himself. "I had a general interest in working with my hands, fixing and making things, as well as a basic understanding of electrical theory from my time in AP Physics class," he said. Soon afterward, he started as a full-time apprentice at a small, Charlotte-based contracting firm, earning $15 an hour at first and working his way up the ladder."

"He was far from alone. Palmer's micro-generation abandoned college in droves during the pandemic, driving 42% of an overall 15% decline in undergraduate enrollment between fall 2010 and fall 2021, according to the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES). Overall, college may have peaked, as experts have predicted a " demographic cliff " ever since 2007, when Americans started having fewer children with the coming of the Great Recession, and birthrates have not recovered since,"

Jacob Palmer, a high-achieving student from near Charlotte, left online college during the pandemic and tried several jobs before finding interest in electrical work. A connection through his mother led him to an electrician, and Palmer pursued a full-time apprenticeship at a small contracting firm, starting at $15 an hour and advancing over time. He was motivated by a preference for hands-on work and prior exposure to electrical theory. Large numbers of his micro-generation also abandoned college during the pandemic, contributing substantially to a measurable decline in undergraduate enrollment amid longer-term birthrate decreases.

Read at Fortune