For decades parents have urged their children to earn a college degree. Nothing wrong with that. Many of the parents did not have the opportunity to attend college and they wanted their children to have a degree.What has happened is that college enrollments were on the increase, but the number of students is less at many institutions today. The high cost of attending college and the debt after graduating is too much for many college-age prospects. Another reason for the decrease has been a decline in college-age students.The community colleges also have experienced fewer students. Many are offering vocational and technical programs to meet the demand for workers. They have a long way to meet the numbers needed for skilled workers, but the effort is there. Community colleges are more flexible than four-year colleges.If more parents today would encourage their children to take technical training, it would help in the labor shortage we have. The pay is good and working conditions are the best ever.Wednesday’s Missourian had 121 help wanted ads. The openings range from skilled production workers to retail, restaurants, nursing, sales positions — the help wanted listings go on and on. No one in this area can say there are no job opportunities here.The fact is, with the jobless rate in the state at about 4 percent, we have a major shortage of workers, especially for technical positions and production jobs. In some technical jobs, the pay is better than what college graduates make.The critics of immigration neglect to mention that we need immigrants to fill some jobs. Let’s face it, Americans don’t want to do some types of work. They consider it to be below them. Immigrants have filled those positions.The economists who say there will not be a full recovery because we don’t have the workers appear to have hit the nail on the head.One answer to the problem is for an attitude change — not every high school graduate is college material. There are other paths to take leading to a successful life.