Tribune Media Service
As a high school senior, Rebecca Gonzalez was surprised to find that everyone - friends, family, teachers and counselors - had her future planned out for her.
Everyone, that is, except her.
"In high school, they're always preaching college, college, college," said Gonzalez, who lives in Lewisville, Texas. "But I didn't want to sit in class for four more years."
Instead, the A student chose to build a career in construction.
Seven years later, as statistics indicate that most of her college-bound classmates have either dropped out or are working in low-paying jobs unrelated to their degrees, Gonzalez, 25, is earning about $40,000 a year as a plumbing forewoman for TD Industries in Dallas.
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Despite increasing pressure on high school graduates to earn four-year college degrees, educators and job market analysts say that some students would fare better with one or two years of technical training at a trade school.
On average, college graduates earn about 46 percent more annually than non-graduates, according to the federal Bureau of Labor Statistics. But a college degree is not a sure ticket to success that it once was, said Kenneth Gray, a professor of education at Penn State University. "The economy generates only about half as many college-level jobs for the number of people we graduate, and only about half who begin college graduate," he said. "So the actual four-year college success rate is one out of four. That's a pretty dismal return on the taxpayers' investment."
Still, society continues to push students into college, Gray said.
"There seems to be this mentality now that if a young person isn't enrolled in some university somewhere two months, 12 days and four hours after they graduate from high school, life is over," he said.
Educators recognize that pressure and try not to add to it, said Colleen Simmons, a high school guidance counselor in Texas.
"I always hear kids say, "I want to go to college. I want to go to college,"` she said. "I even hear special-education students who have difficulty in learning say it. We would love for every student to get a four-year degree, but there are many, many jobs out there that have to be filled that do not require that."
Interlink, a Dallas company that works with industry leaders to forecast the needs of the Metroplex job market, has identified 40 occupations that will have the greatest demand for workers by 2006.
Of those 40 jobs, most of which are in industrial trades such as construction and automotive maintenance, 31 require a minimum of one to two years of technical training. More than a quarter pay $15 to $25 an hour, or $600 to $1,000 for a 40-hour week. The average wage in Tarrant County is $727 a week.
"A lot of parents think the success of their child is based on how many years of college they go to, but the Bureau of Labor Statistics tells us that only 29 percent of the jobs in the future will require four years of college or more," said Candy Slocum, executive director of Interlink.
Carrie Leverenz, an associate professor of English at Texas Christian University, said some of her students do not understand that career preparation is not the sole purpose of a four-year college degree.
"Students come to me and say, "I don't want to take a writing class,' or, "I don't want to take a foreign language,"` she said. "I tell them that the idea of a liberal arts college is that you're being educated liberally, in a broad base of subjects. If you don't want to do that, you probably should consider narrower training, whether that be a trade school or community college."
In conjunction with North Lake College, the Construction Education Foundation in Irving, Texas, is training skilled workers such as Gonzalez so they can advance in the construction field, said Jane Hanna, executive director of the foundation.
"The fallacy has been that the people coming into our industry would be those who could not succeed at anything else," she said. "But the student we're looking for is a very bright individual with a high math aptitude and the ability to problem-solve."
Once or twice a week, foundation students attend classes, which are usually paid for by their employers, Hanna said.
Meanwhile, they are on the job, earning money and gaining work experience as electricians, plumbers, carpenters, masons and heating and air-conditioning technicians.
"One of the things we've dealt with is, there is a stigma attached to people doing anything with their hands," said Paul Kellemen, dean of construction technology at North Lake College. "But the fact is, students who choose to go this direction have a great opportunity to further their education and find themselves with really good, marketable skills."
Manufacturing also faces a growing gap between available jobs and skilled workers, said Leo Reddy, chief executive officer of the National Coalition for Advanced Manufacturing in Washington, D.C.
Consequently, jobs making things such as shoes, ball bearings, computers and airplanes are among those with the highest pay, he said.
"Manufacturing is well above the services and wholesale and retail sectors in terms of wages," he said. "It is comparable to finance, insurance and real estate in terms of wage levels."
Much of the drive toward four-year degrees may be cultural, Reddy said.
Changes in the kinds of jobs most vital to the economy likely will make technical training augmented by continuing education more common, Slocum said.
Even a four-year degree may not be enough anymore, she said.
"The shelf life of education is changing," she said. "These two-year degrees and certifications are a response to that."
