The higher education capital of the United States does not currently have a single trade or vocational school, but the Boston City Council worked to change that at Wednesday’s weekly meeting, voting to establish one in the near future.

The trade school would be a place where students could learn how to be skilled plumbers, auto mechanics, construction workers or electricians. It would provide opportunities for students who do not excel in school subjects but are gifted at a trade, according to proposal author Councilor Paul J. Scapicchio (East Boston, Charlestown).

Not every 18 year old aspires to go to college and many Boston Public School students who drop out of high school do not have the option of going to college, Scapicchio said. They often end up working menial jobs, he said.

‘Not all kids who go to high school in Boston are the Harvard type,’ Scapicchio said.

There do not seem to be many options for youths in today’s society where ‘a college degree is inventory,’ Councilor Maureen E. Feeney (Dorchester) said.

A trade school would provide another option for people who cannot or choose not to go to college, Feeney said.

Boston is in need of skilled laborers, several councilors said, and Scapicchio said the economy will need an estimated 2.4 million construction workers in the next 10 years.

‘Trade jobs often go to people outside of the city,’ said Councilor At-Large Stephen J. Murphy. ‘A trade school is a great idea to investigate so that our kids our citizens are building the new Boston.’

‘The opportunity to create something, build something, tremendously engage’ someone, will give people who do not attend college a chance serve the community, Feeney said.

Councilor At-Large and former home economics teacher Maura A. Hennigan said it is important to find every child’s strength and to reach out to young people.

‘Everyone has talents,’ she said.

Hennigan said her brother did not do well in school and was never interested in traditional subjects, and is now happy as an airplane mechanic.

Boston University graduate and City Councilor Michael Ross (Back Bay, Fenway) said his father had a theory of three pathways of life.

‘One, a person is born into money and never has to work; two, a person can go through the education system; or three, a person can learn a trade,’ he said.

Ross said Boston does not offer the third pathway as an easy option.

Scapicchio also said Boston does not have any trade school with a ‘real identity.’

‘There is no one place that is mainly focused on trades,’ he said.

Madison Park High School offers instruction in the trades as well as in hairdressing and the culinary arts, but Scapicchio said he wants to either discontinue academic instruction there or to build an entirely new school. He also proposed linking the new trade school to Wentworth Institute of Technology and the Franklin Institute, schools specializing in trades.