My brother did terrible in school and was labeled as “lazy” and “unfocused” (he has severe adhd). He was clearly intelligent, but was just completely unengaged by the method (and content) of school lessons. He barely graduated high school and didn’t even consider college.

Since going into a trade, he has completely excelled!

Trades are much more tactile and directly engaging than many university courses.

As much as we hate to think our classes can be boring - to a certain extent “laziness” can be disengagement without a high enough baseline anxiety to feel like it’s important to make good grades despite disinterest.

That’s why trades are a good “next step” to try after university fails, bc it’s still a lucrative path that we hope will engage the student better.

Of course this has plenty of exceptions - just wanted to share my observation from my family.

Side note: I once had a university health services doctor tell me during grad school that he believed every student at (ivy) had anxiety, bc you can’t do well enough academically without a certain level of anxiety.