The majority of HS students coming out of Lane County are not applying because they don't have the requisite skills to meet minimum requirements of a tech occupation job description. Increased capacity in HS to teach computer science to students, as a result of the 'Elevate Lane County' program, will change that. There were ZERO main stream public high schools in Lane County offering  CTE Programs of Study in Computer Science, next year there will be four. What if instead of these skills being "advanced training", it was education available to all HS students?  'Average' salary in this article comports to the generally accepted def of the word, taking the total salary of all employees of tech companies and dividing by the total number. Yes, the specific occupation of 'Computer Specialist' makes $59,693 on average, which is less than the industry average. If you could give kids a guided path to any of these higher paying tech occupations and a way out of poverty, isn't that worth doing?