@Magnum
Welding is not unlike painting. You either have a skill for it or you don't. Some people who don't have a natural talent can learn techniques to help them become adequate and some people will never be able to draw anything more elaborate than stick figures.
There was a student there (ex-con) who had an incredible talent for welding. Within 3 or 4 months he was welding every alloy they put in front of him on every kind of surface imaginable. I was just so-so at it. There was another guy there who was a janitor during the day and was going to the school 4 hours a day, every day, after work. He could never get to the point where he could string together a bead on the easiest flat surface. The teacher bullied him and made it seem like it was his own fault. The poor guy appeared to have an IQ just north of mentally retarded and I don't mean that in a mean way.
A lot of young JWs from my generation got taken in by IT schools that promised to prepare you for professional IT certifications yet were unable to deliver the goods. There was usually weasel language there where they didn't guarantee results. There's a whole industry out there of schools that receive accreditations required to participate in the student loan program although the results just aren't there.
I remember reading that the Obama administration had begun efforts to crack down on these institutions, requiring that they meet certain post-graduation employment standards in order to continue being eligible for the student loan program. There was a huge backlash and lobbying effort against it. I'm not sure where those efforts ended up.
With respect to the trades, that's what I'm seeing now with JWs from my parents' generation. Men who never thought they'd grow old still working in manual labor. These jobs typically don't offer health insurance, much less a 401(k) or a pension. My parents subsist on social security alone. It's sad.