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My guidance counselor in 2011 swore the bachelor's degree was the only ticket, and my community college diploma is why I have a job now
Back in my senior year at a high school outside of Sacramento, my guidance counselor sat me down and gave me the hard sell on a four year university. She said a two year diploma would "cap my ceiling" and that nobody hires people with associate degrees for real work anymore. I let her talk me into two years at a state school, and I racked up about $19,000 in loans before I dropped out partway through junior year. After that I enrolled at a community college and finished a two year drafting diploma for roughly $4,500 total. Within six weeks of finishing, I had a job at an engineering firm doing CAD work, and the guy who trained me had the exact same diploma from the same program. Last spring I sat in on a hiring meeting and watched us pass on two candidates with bachelor's degrees because they could not read a set of plans. My counselor meant well, but she was working off a playbook from a different decade. Did anybody else get pushed toward the four year route and end up better off with a diploma instead?
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diana_schmidt7811d ago
Guidance counselors were told that line for decades because it used to be true, but trades and tech jobs changed all that. Plenty of people do fine with a two year degree, and some four year grads end up underemployed with a mountain of debt. That said, it really depends on the field, since nursing or teaching still needs the bachelor's.
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