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"The third possible reason for the ubiquity of the wealthy-welder myth is less benign: If we are able to persuade ourselves that there are plenty of lucrative opportunities available for young people like Orry who didn’t much like high school, it absolves us of our shared responsibility to address the reality of his limited economic prospects. And if you are able to define welding training, in the public mind, as something separate from college, rather than what it actually is—a college major like any other—it provides a way to distract public attention from policy shifts that have made it more difficult for young people like Orry to reach the middle class. Over the past decade, as the make-believe story of the rich welder has grown and spread, public spending on the community colleges where actual young people are trying to learn actual welding has shrunk—in some states, quite drastically so."