If this is the start of a trend, it should be welcomed enthusiastically.

Slippery Rock School Board this week substantially increased its financial commitment to vocational education. The district will pay 36 percent more next year to send students to Butler County Area Vocational-Technical School than it’s paying this year. The current bill, $231,603, will be $315,603 in 2018-19, a rise of $83,416.

These adjustment will be reflected in Slippery Rock’s 2018-19 budget, which is due June 30.

It will be interesting to see how many other school districts follow Slippery Rock’s lead. We predict some will, and all should follow.

Slippery Rock Superintendent Alfonso Angelucci speaks voluminous truth, saying the higher price is justified when vo-tech students are landing careers straight out of school.

“The benefit is the opportunity it provides to the students who need that course of study or who are interested in the trades,” Angelucci told board members.

The trades have not stood still. Evolving technology keeps changing the demands on every career field, from construction to automotive to food services. It takes a certain amount of capital outlay — money — to maintain relevant equipment and instructional training to run a vo-tech school.

An apparent linchpin in Slippery Rock’s interface with the vo-tech is the qualified admissions of 10th-grade students into the curriculum. Previously, only juniors and seniors had access to this alternative school, but Slippery Rock started sending sophomores this year on a case-by-case basis. The arrangement has been beneficial for the vo-tech as well as for the selected students — so much so, according to Kurt Speicher, the vo-tech school’s executive director, that all seven Butler County schools are planning to send 10th-graders next year.

And why not? Demand for skilled trades professionals is as great as it ever was. Alternatively, the average cost of four years at a private college is $139,000 — and studies show that the value of a bachelor’s degree has fallen — college graduates are not making significantly more than skilled trades professionals.

Generally speaking, it seems like a far greater value for a school district to invest an additional $83,416 in the training of as few as a half-dozen future mechanics, bricklayers and hairdressers than it is for one family to sink $139,000 into a liberal arts education and an undeclared major.

It might be a more practical approach to consider, at least. But we’re hoping and predicting it will be a trend.