The Push For College - Southern California Health Institute

THE SHOVE TO COLLEGE:

According to the College Board, the average cost of tuition and fees for the 2017–2018 school year was $34,740 at private colleges, $9,970 for state residents at public colleges, and $25,620 for out-of-state residents attending public universities. This does not include the fees for gas, living expenses, books, various supplies, extra-curricular events, and anything else that isn’t just solely marked as tuition. Even with loans or small grants, students still end up with excessive amounts of debt once they receive their degree. Then with all this debt, college graduates are not guaranteed a job to pay their loans off. In America, we have pushed this idea that going to college after high school is the best way to solidify your career, but that is just not the case for everyone. It is up to each individual to find out what is best for them and their career goals and we can help you figure that out here.

SET FOR STRESS:

Many students naively expect that if they attend a 4-year university they will then be “set for life”, but the validity of that ideology has withered overtime. The renowned staffing firm that assists college graduates in finding employment known as Gradstaff did a brief survey of 503 entry level graduates. This survey brought some facts that highlight how 4-year universities are not always the answer for people looking for a steady career. One interesting finding was that about 70 percent of the respondents were either unemployed or working a job that had nothing to do with what they studied. To focus on something for four years in terms of work ethic, fiscal responsibility, and time only to have it not benefit you at all seems like something went awry in the process.

The whole point of a higher education is to enlighten our minds as well as put students in the lead to financial stability, but is that coming across when we realize that a large portion of graduate students are doing something unrelated to their focus of study and starting goal? It is one thing to have a non-professional full time job that is unrelated to your previous study to make ends meet. That is a problem in itself because the time dedicated to your studies was lost since it was not utilized correctly, but to be unemployed all together seems like a major devaluation of education. This devaluation is not only a shocker to many who are just finding out about these statistics, but it is directly streamlined to us at a young age. Somewhere down the line in our lives, the rhetoric around “securing your financial future and goals” was conflated with the chore of going to a 4-year university under any circumstances. Those circumstances can include almost a life time of debt and overwhelming discouragement from the reality you are faced with once a diploma is placed in your hand.

This new concept of insisting that college is right choice for everyone is not only problematic, but riddled with fallacies. As a society, there is a common understanding that everyone is different. We have different goals, needs, and yearning, therefore we all have different methods of reaching those goals. This solution to following our goals seems as though it is ending up many graduates with more issues than when they began their education.

EXPAND YOUR HORIZONS:

In a broad sense the only issue is that there is a plethora of perspective students hastily making the decision to go to the nearest 4-year college to keep up with the times. As stated above, that may not always be the best choice for everyone so you’re probably wondering, “What else is there?” What method of education not only optimizes efficiency, but also entails a strong bank of knowledge to utilize all while securing your future. The answer is vocational school! Vocational school is a credible source to get an education focused around a specific career and in turn using the resources provided at that school to get a job in the field. Vocational school doesn’t assist students in acquiring any job, but jobs focused in their field. These jobs are worthy of being called careers and offer graduates with a steady income. Most importantly, the jobs you will get will be worth the work put in to achieve them.

The same survey we mentioned earlier stated that “86 percent of respondents reported having no job offers pending at the time they took the survey”. The work put into a 4-year university should not parallel having no job offers. With vocational school, a graduate is nearly sure to have success in their field. The focus of a vocational school is to get people started in their career path and this is done by believing solely in the idea that if you put in the work, you get an outcome that is worthwhile. Vocational schools entail programs that are normally about a year long and revolve around getting specific training and gaining a skill set that targets employer qualifications. This way when you are certified from your vocational schools program, employers are sure to know that you are more than qualified for the job since there is no room to deny it.

Vocational school eliminates the complex uncertainty after higher education. Since 4-year universities include a broad sense of education and harbor in the masses, often times many end up graduating with anxiety and a blurry path ahead of them. The same survey from above claimed that more than half of the participants said the phrase, “I don’t know what to do with my major” at least once in their interview. This fickleness is done away with at vocational school since the main goal is to get students to absorb a practice and skill set garnered to suit their career path. After vocational school, graduates know for certain that they have at least one career path and learned skill set in their back pocket ready to use at all times. There is no hesitancy in the topic of career decisions and a graduate’s certification of completion is the tangible proof aside from their newfound sense of accomplishment.

SOCHi Knows Best

Imagine a world where we as a society are complacent with wasting our hard earned time and money on life decisions we are hesitant about. Imagine taking out multiple loans just to graduate and work at the local restaurant or as a driver for a ridesharing company. Essentially there is nothing wrong with those jobs, but when people attend 4-year universities they are expecting different types of jobs. The type of jobs that create a stable life and are able to pay of the loans you took out to pay for the higher education in the first place. Is the industry of 4-year universities making our time and money worthwhile? With vocational school, students know exactly what they are getting into and the types of ensured benefits they will receive from that education.

Now that you know that vocational school is more than a viable option for higher education, you may wonder which one to go to. Here at Southern California Health Institute, we have included programs in fields of life that will statistically have an increasingly growing need for consumption. SOCHi offers five intensive programs which are Massage Therapy, Medical Billing and Coding, Physical Therapy Aide, and Personal Fitness Training. All five of these fields are rapidly growing and here at SOCHi we are providing graduates with the opportunities to get directly involved in the competitive field. Unlike a 4-year University, SOCHi provides students with the specific tools to climb the ladder to success in their field. After a 9 month program of various training blocks that include hands-on training and written exams, SOCHi provides students with the tools to get certified in their designated field. Even after that, we assist our students in different ways to find jobs in their career field all the way from resume workshops to interview tips.

Next time you or someone you know is being pushed to go to a 4-year University without weighing out their options, inform them of their various opportunities. It is important to understand that society is fluctuating and changing and the one thing that will always be the same is the idea that once you prove you know a specific skill set designated to a career you can always work in that field. 4-year universities have made that concept limited to just a few, but at SOCHi we understand the indescribable value of hard work no matter how it is presented. We at Southern California Health Institute make it our mission to provide the skills, resources, and confidence to our students to make the right decisions and start their fruitful career.

Source:

• LaBombard, Robert J. “'I Don't Know What to Do with My Major' and Other Reasons College Grads Can't Find Jobs.” CNBC, CNBC, 15 Dec. 2016, www.cnbc.com/2016/12/15/why-college-grads-cant-find-jobs-commentary.html.