I've scaled 2 schools. Now, I help trade & vocational schools scale enrollments with proven out-of-the-box strategies. I hold a PhD (Public High School Diploma)
Joined May 2024
- Tweets 14,694
- Following 1,349
- Followers 15,026
- Likes 28,028
2,005 Photos and videos
Pinned Tweet
Well, now that we've zoomed by 10k followers... let me reintroduce myself.
I’m not a policy guy.
I’m a builder who learned the system by getting my hands dirty.
I’ve started businesses, made mistakes, burned time and money, and figured things out the hard way.
Somewhere along the way, I realized the biggest leverage point wasn’t another app or funnel.
It was helping people get skills that lead to real jobs.
Now I build and advise trade schools.
I work with workforce boards.
I help founders turn “training programs” into actual pipelines to employment.
Here’s the truth from inside the machine:
The trades aren’t dying.
They’re being ignored.
And while we argue about college ROI, every city is quietly short on the people who keep the lights on, water running, and systems working.
If you’re into skills over status and building things that actually matter, welcome.
Newsletter and services below.
tradeschoolsecret.com/
14
15
105
25,426
What Hourly Pay to Afford a House
In 1970: $3.60/hour
In 1990: $11.25/hour
In 2000: $16.05/hour
In 2010: $22.45/hour
In 2020: $32.70/hour
In 2025: $57.32/hour
In 2026: $61.85/hour
Inflation has destroyed the value of the dollar, making it nearly impossible for Millennials & Gen Z to buy homes.
Do you agree with this?
1
3
501
Want to know where the money is?
Follow the construction cranes.
Austin.
Nashville.
Phoenix.
Dallas.
Charlotte.
Raleigh.
Columbus.
Every one of these cities is growing like crazy.
Apartments. Warehouses. Factories. Data centers. Hospitals.
Someone has to build all of it.
That’s why experienced superintendents, project managers, electricians, and heavy equipment operators are making serious money.
The next millionaire won’t necessarily be sitting behind a laptop.
They might be sitting inside a bulldozer.
What city did I miss?
Day 161 tagging @mikeroweworks and bringing awareness to the trades.
1
1
203
Shout out to my tribe bro @1JoeSpringsteen for sending me one of his sick company hats.
Check him out, he’s a great follow.
@Tribefounders
1
4
154
The biggest lie told to high school students:
"If you're smart, you should go to college."
Why why why?!
I've met electricians making $200K.
I've met crane operators making $175K.
I've met construction superintendents making $180K.
I've also met college grads making $55K while carrying $80K in debt.
Being smart isn't about choosing college.
Being smart is understanding ROI.
Some of the smartest people I know never stepped foot on a university campus.
But they understood supply and demand.
Day 160 tagging @mikeroweworks and bringing awareness to the trades.
7
5
21
1,692
The highest-paid 25-year-old I know isn’t a lawyer, doctor, or software engineer.
He’s an electrician and he almost didn’t finish high school.
Working on data centers in Northern Virginia.
No student loans. No MBA. No corporate ladder.
Just a skill that’s in short supply and a market that’s willing to pay for it.
While thousands of college grads are applying for the same remote jobs, companies are fighting over skilled tradespeople who can actually build the infrastructure behind AI.
College system is broken and does not give the same ROI it use to.
Who agrees?
Day 159 tagging @mikeroweworks and bringing awareness to the trades.
5
9
901
You SMBs with company vehicles are sleeping on Money Mike.
Hector approves this msg.
Quick math.
$889/month per vehicle on an open-ended lease. $1,027/month per vehicle financed. $138 difference per truck per month.
20 trucks = $2,760 saved per month. $33,120 saved per year. $165,600 saved over a 5 year term.
And you get 3 more trucks on the same budget.
That's not savings. That's a different business.
1
1
899
The government holds "for profit" trade schools to a 70% completion rate.
60% of graduates have to get jobs IN THEIR FIELD.
If you miss those numbers, you lose the ability to operate.
Now, someone tell me what the average 4-year university job placement rate is in the student's actual field of study?
I'll wait.
Because if we applied my standards to Harvard, Georgetown, and every other diploma mill in between... half of them would be shut down by Friday.
But they're nonprofits.
So the rules don't apply.
2
3
30
2,564
Guess what?!
It’s day 158 of tagging @mikeroweworks and bringing awareness to the trades.
If your career can be outsourced to another country, automated by AI, or replaced by software, you should be nervous.
If your career requires showing up, solving problems, working with your hands, and making things function, you should be optimistic.
The next decade is going to be brutal for average white-collar jobs.
Not because those people aren’t smart.
Because supply exploded.
There are millions of people with degrees.
There aren’t enough electricians.
There aren’t enough welders.
There aren’t enough linemen.
The market doesn’t care about your diploma.
The market cares about scarcity.
1
2
7
344
When do we open the Dallas location?
Jun 10
She brought her 9 year old daughter to a job interview.
No one to leave her with. No money for a sitter. She went for broke.
Me, being too soft, I gave her the job.
Week two, she shows up with the kid again, begging to let her stay in the break room, drawing while mum worked. It happened a few more times. The little girl would grab tattoo equipment and play with it like toys.
Then life slowly got stable. We'd only see her at work parties after that. Quiet. Kind. Sketchbook always in hand.
What none of us saw coming was that she was learning. Watching her mum. Absorbing everything.
By her teens she was already better than most adults. She became our first second generation artist. While her mother came to the US to help us build Miami, she stayed in Buenos Aires and kept perfecting her craft.
Last year, at 21 Azul was granted an extraordinary achievements visa to join us in the US.
She followed her mum to IRIS. Then to Miami. And now writing her own story in Nashville, where she's become one of the key people holding that studio together.
Roughly 20,000 of these visas are issued every year. Less than 3% go to people under 25. A handful, if that, go to tattoo artists.
But some people are just born to beat the odds.
I should know.
1
4
826
Get into sales early.
You’ll learn more from a sales gig than from college.
Yup, I said it.
I’ve sold door to door.
I’ve sold timeshares.
I’ve sold gym memberships.
I’ve sold DIRECTV to the masses.
I’ve sold insurance.
I’ve sold mortgages. I
I’ve sold debt settlement.
Now, I sell the mission that trade school is a better ROI than college.
2
1
6
388
Everyone with a kid that is going to college should read this.
Jun 10
It’s child abuse to have the means but then watch your kid graduate college with $100,000 of student loan debt.
This is a gross lack of parental guidance.
First off, I’m not saying that just because they have the means that they should pay for the school of their choice.
No, they should advise to stay in-state and knock out the first two years at a local community college.
I mean, can you imagine, as a parent watching your kids drown in debt when you have both the wisdom and money to help? It’s sheer insanity.
I grew up very poor and actually paid for college all four years at the University of Washington. My tuition was $7,000/year. Never did a fraternity and because I was running my own moving business, I missed out on most events.
Honestly, I’m thankful for it. I’m also thankful for my parents advising me to stay local and be smart. Once I saw the numbers it wasn’t even a question. Graduating with tons of debt sounds like a freaking nightmare.
Same goes for these glamorous weddings. $100,000 for a 24 hour event? Hard pass! I would rather spend it on a sexy honeymoon.
I just don’t get it. Maybe you do and I’m missing a piece of the puzzle. It just seems so wrong for parents to allow their kids to be enslaved the rest of their lives. It makes zero sense to this Texan.
Heck, I ran the numbers here and the average in-state tuition is $12,000 which isn’t bad!
I’m already counseling both my boys to live at home, home tons of hours, drive a paid off Toyota, and graduate college debt free or skip it altogether and go into the trades.
Common sense is lacking in this Instagram society!
End of rant.
4
4
2,527
For-profit trade schools face federal completion and job placement standards that could shut them down if missed.
The schools I help have to hit a 70% completion rate. And 60% of those completers have to land a job in the field they trained for.
Miss those numbers? You’re done.
Meanwhile, a nonprofit trade school? No such requirement.
And a nonprofit university? Same free pass.
Here’s what I want to know and what’s the average 4-year college graduation rate? What’s the job placement rate in their field of study?
Go ahead. Look it up.
Then tell me why a welding school in Texas has to prove its worth every single year… but a university collecting $80K in tuition can churn out unemployable graduates with zero accountability.
The standards aren’t about protecting students.
They’re about protecting the right kind of schools.
1
1
135
Most trade school owners are the best teachers in their building.
That is also their biggest problem. When you are the best instructor, you teach every class. When you teach every class, you cannot focus on enrollment. When enrollment slips, you panic and start discounting or chasing leads yourself.
Now you are teaching, selling and managing compliance at the same time. This is not a growth strategy. This is a ceiling.
The operators I have seen break past $500k and keep going all made the same shift. They stopped being the talent and started being the architect. They hired or trained instructors. They documented the curriculum. They built a school that could run a cohort without them in the room.
Your job is not to be the best instructor in the building.
Your job is to build the building.
1
223
Where do I sign up?
Jun 10
Would you accept $100 an hour to be a massage receiver during the championship events?
You have to be massaged for long periods of time without breaks!
525
America doesn’t have a student loan crisis.
America has an expectations crisis.
We told millions of kids:
Go to college.
Get a degree.
Get a good job.
Then we handed them $80,000 in debt and a $55,000 salary.
At the exact same time, we ignored electricians, plumbers, welders, heavy equipment operators, and HVAC techs.
Now we have too many degrees and not enough skilled workers.
One group can’t find jobs.
The other can’t find workers.
That should tell you everything you need to know.
Day 157 tagging @mikeroweworks and bringing awareness to the trades.
Yes, this is me. Can you believe they turned me into a meme?! 😂
1
2
4
227
Do you go to your HOA meetings?
Does it make a difference. I’m going for the first time tonight and I was told to bring popcorn 😂
2
4
405
Most trade school owners I talk to have no idea WIOA funding exists.
It's not their fault. Nobody teaches this stuff.
I've been breaking it down every week in a free newsletter. Real numbers, real programs, no fluff.
Link in bio if you want it.
3
160
The biggest financial mistake a 17-year-old can make in America is taking career advice from someone who hasn’t looked at a paycheck in 20 years.
Most guidance counselors have never hired anyone.
Most professors have never run a business.
Most parents are repeating advice they were given in the 1990s.
Meanwhile, a kid can become an electrician, HVAC tech, welder, or crane operator and be making six figures before many of their classmates finish college.
We’ve convinced kids that debt is an investment but somehow a trade is a risk.
That’s backwards.
The safest career isn’t the one that requires the most school.
It’s the one employers can’t find enough people to do.
Day 156 tagging @mikeroweworks and bringing awareness to the trades.
5
3
20
1,366
$150K drywall contractor in Phoenix or a
$65K business administration degree.
One can build a crew, land contracts, and scale into a multi-million-dollar company.
The other is hoping their annual raise beats inflation.
The craziest part about construction is how many businesses can be started with skill instead of massive startup capital.
Drywall. Painting. Framing. Concrete. Roofing.
A truck, tools, relationships, and hustle can still change someone’s entire financial future.
Meanwhile we’ve convinced people the only way to succeed is through a corporate job and a degree.
That advice is getting outdated fast.
Day 155 tagging @mikeroweworks and bringing awareness to the trades.
6
373