ATLANTA, Ga. – Aya Alhaddad loves the feeling of being in a busy kitchen. Plates clattering, oil swishing in the pan, sweet and savory scents mingling in the air.
When she first moved to Atlanta, working in the restaurant business was a means to an end. Her hometown of Knoxville, Tenn., had begun to feel small after high school and Alhaddad wanted room to grow.
Atlanta seemed full of opportunity and back-of-house jobs were plentiful. Soon enough, Alhaddad, 22, began to see a prosperous career path. She dreamed of opening her own cafe and enrolled in business classes at Atlanta Technical College, a two-year community college, to make it a reality.
Today, she is part of a growing group of blue collar Gen Z workers who say they don't believe that the results of the 2024 election will make a difference in their lives, even as Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump seek their votes in a remarkably close race. “They do whatever they want,” Alhaddad, who isn’t registered to vote, said of the . “I just stay out of it because I don't trust them.
” Non-voters like Alhaddad say they have more important things to do than voting. As tuition costs at traditional four-year colleges have skyrocketed, young people have increasingly opted for vocational programs, trade schools and blue-collar jobs. Between 2010 and 2019, the number of students enrolled in four-year colleges .
Vocational-focused community colleges, meanwhile, saw a in enrollment between 2022 a.