The figures I quoted mentioned free room and board under the assumption your child enrolls while in high school. My son can do this and is enrolled in community college at no cost- these are paid by our county, but not all counties include this.Some of the trade school costs are pretty expensive. Welding, Diesel Mechanic, etc. For sure not "free". Agree that the $156,000 for 4 years of college at a state school is high. Around here you could go to a 2 year associates type college for a very reasonable cost that tracks directly with the larger state universities and I think you could get that done for close to knocking the $100,000 off that number. Again, if you are just looking at cost you can't throw out room and board on one and include it on the other. Either way they have to have somewhere to eat and sleep. Make them go to a school close to home, it's not a vacation.
Some of the overlooked high earning jobs are in the medical field other than Drs. and nurses. Think "technicians". These usually take a 2 year training certification and can make pretty good money.
With that said, I think you can do really well in the trades and I think you can do really well with a college degree. You can do poorly with both as well.