I understand if you respond TLDR

We do. The vocational technical high schools are governed by each state with significant differences from state to state.

We also have a post secondary market for technical/trade training. Again, this is regionalized and the markets are different depending on geography.

A lot of the post secondary market was gutted by partisan DOE hacks and liberal state and federal administrations.

Over the past two decades we have seen a precipitous drop in this type of training due to policies that favor traditional four year colleges. Literally hundreds, if not thousands of post secondary trade schools have closed their doors due to capricious stiff regulation.

For example, Obama and Biden admins and like liberal states have forced regulation on these schools that they don't on traditional colleges. Gainful Employmnet rules force schools maintain employment rates and cost controls based on median salary. These rules are waved for traditional colleges. If the cost outweighs the benefit or you don't place a certain percent of your graduates, you can lose funding or get closed down, but if you major lesbian basket weaving theory from Harvard, you are elevated, even though you are not employable, and there is no accountability for Harvard.

To put it in perspective, these schools are self funded through tuition, not endowments, international student funding, or state grants that prop up the institution. These schools are a fraction of the cost of traditional schools and provide a valuable service to the non traditional student.

I think most people see the value in vocational education, but policy makers dislike these schools because they are usually for profit institutions. Profit is bad. Surplus (non profit) is good. Essentially schools are regulated by tax status. The attack on these schools have been relentless for a while. Maybe this will change.

I do know that the median age of plumbers is like 55 and there are not a lot of plumbing schools.