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Trade Schools and For-Profit Schools

Do you have a gift of the gab or a knack for knitting? Do like to learn through hands-on work? Do your friends tell you that you would be a great chef, jewelry-maker, hair stylist, or mechanic? Maybe you are interested in a high-value career in IT, health care, engineering, or automotive technology? Or maybe you just want to know how to do something useful and do it well. If any of this sounds like you, going to a trade school to become certified in a targeted skill should be high on your list.

Trade schools are career-oriented and are open to everyone—not just high school or college students. They offer short-term training and certification in a wide array of fields, including animal care, computers and technology, design and graphic arts, cosmetology and aesthetics, cuisine, health care and physical therapy, travel and hospitality, legal services and criminal justice, business, and medical tech. Skilled trades, such as plumbing, automotive and electrical repair, aviation, and professional transport, also require special kinds of certification.

Depending on the requirements, you could be ready for work in as little as two weeks.

In today’s job-starved economy, getting a license or certificate from a reputable trade school can be good for your wallet, even if the skill you are getting licensed in is not ultimately part of your dream plan. Not all of us belong in a traditional college environment, but that doesn’t mean we can’t still learn how to do a lot of different valuable skills after high school graduation. By obtaining a trade school certificate, you prove to potential employers that you have the aptitude and ability to do a very specific kind of work that not just anyone can do. Depending on the trade you learn, there is a high likelihood of a job waiting for you when you get your license.

On the con side, private trade schools can often be, well, problematic at best. They offer zero academic instruction, unlike a community college. Plus, they are not usually cheap. The entry of big business into the trade school sphere has made it a cash cow for those corporations (more dirt on private, for-profit schools in a moment). The major chains may make grand claims about their educational standards and starting salary rates, but it’s not a good idea to rely on those assurances. And while it’s true you may graduate trade school with a job, you need to get real about what kind of job you will get. This is where talking to former students from the school is helpful.

Getting certified by a trade school can take anywhere from two weeks to two months to a year or two, depending on the skill you are training for. Skilled and hazardous trades often require an additional period of apprenticeship and on-the-job experience before you can obtain a journeyman’s license. Do your due diligence. If the best, fastest way to get a license is through a private trade school, make sure it is accredited by the Accrediting Commission of Career Schools and Colleges. You can do this easily by visiting their website at accsc.org.

Some trade schools operate brick-and-mortar campuses, and others are distance based and offer what used to be called “correspondence classes.” Be wary of any program that advertises pie-in-the-sky salary projections and job offerings, however. You’ll have to take a long, hard look at the tuition requirements and compare the cost with that of similar classes at your local community college. If a program is going to lure you with such bold claims, you should force it to make a convincing case. If the school has a campus, visit it and talk to currently enrolled students. Ask to speak with alums of a trade school you are interested in. If the school can’t provide contact information, it’s definitely time to move on.

image  Know the Requirements

Different states require different certifications to be considered licensed (that is, legally sanctioned for practicing the given trade or craft). If you want to work with people—as, for example, an aesthetician, massage therapist, yoga teacher, or hair stylist—you will need to research your state code, as well as any on-the-job or apprenticeship requirements. If you are interested in a skilled trade or craft, becoming a journeyman means that you have met the experience-hours (usually a minimum of four years or eight thousand hours) and are able to perform a specific trade without supervision. You must pass an exam in that trade in order to qualify for a journeyman’s license.

ARTISTIC TRADE SCHOOLS

Trade schools aren’t just for vocational students. If you want professional training in the performing arts or creative writing there are a lot of paid programs out there that you can enroll in with little to no experience. Here’s a short list of some good ones:

Dramatic Arts/Comedy

Creative Writing

FINDING THE RIGHT PROGRAM

Before you enroll in a trade school, be sure it actually is a school and can issue a real certification. Get a full understanding of what the school provides: how much instruction and what kind, the supplies needed, and the degree you’ll receive upon completion. Research the instructors, their job experience, and their qualifications. The Federal Trade Commission also suggests that you gauge the success of any trade school program by looking at the following criteria and asking the following questions:

Completion rate: How many students drop out of the program?
Why?
Job placement: How many graduates get jobs in their chosen
field?
Salary: What can you expect?
What are graduates actually paid?
Cost: What is total cost? Do they charge by the course?
Semester? Program? What if you drop out or add
courses? Are there other expenses, such as books
or supplies?
Debt: Of recent graduates, how many have debt?
How much? How easily are they paying it off?

As in all things, personal recommendations are the best source of information. If there are professionals in your town who are doing what you would like to do, ask them about their experience. Where did they train? Or go online and do research on businesses that hire in the field. Call and talk to the human resources person or the manager. Ask what the business is looking for in an employee and which trade schools do the best job.

If you come away with anything from this book, I hope it is an understanding that dreams are built one brick at a time, and you need to be able to take care of yourself as you build them. If this means you work by day as a licensed aesthetician at a spa while you write poetry at night, at least your license will provide you the income to get the tools you need to write the poetry (including food, shelter, and note-pads). We live in a complicated world, and your approach to it should be equally multifaceted. Having a variety of proven skills will only serve you. Just be careful about where you learn those skills, and how much they ask you to pay for the instruction.

FOR-PROFIT SCHOOLS

Proprietary, for-profit universities, such as the University of Phoenix, Everest, and Kaplan University, are operated by businesses and corporations and offer the ability to get a degree or trade certification either in person or online. To date, they enroll about 12 percent of all postsecondary school students. These colleges, like trade schools, design their curricula with specific job training in mind, and some of the more respected ones got their start as “college completion” schools, where students finished off their educations after already completing two years of study but failing to get the desired degree.

A lot has changed since the 1990s, when these schools were founded: They have turned almost exclusively to Wall Street for financing. This means they are run as businesses and must please stockholders and investors first—not students. On the plus side, for-profit colleges and universities feature flexible schedules and are geared toward students who have a lot of other things going on in their lives, such as full-time jobs or family obligations. These schools are easy to apply to and enroll in—basically, you just sign up, chat with the staff, and write a check (they really want that check). You don’t have to compete for a place. For this reason, enrollment in these schools has increased rapidly of late. But, be warned: These schools are not cheaper, even if you only take online courses, and they can often end up costing more than attending your local community college or in-state university. Best tuition-only estimates from the National Center for Education Statistics for these schools are $10,000 to $15,000 per year. Remember, that’s just tuition. For-profit schools also have the highest ratio of student debt versus tuition, the lowest return on investment (meaning it’s harder to find a good job with one of their degrees), and a higher dropout rate (it’s way easier to blow off class when your teacher is in your computer, not a classroom). Virtually all (96 percent) of the students at for-profit schools borrow money, whereas only 13 percent of students at community colleges, 48 percent at four-year public schools, and 57 percent at four-year private nonprofit colleges borrow to pay tuition.

Many of these for-profit schools target first-generation immigrant and low-income students, who may or may not be aware of the options offered by state and community colleges. Plus, even as they rake in earned income, these schools chow down on students’ federal aid and Pell grants (which come from taxpayer dollars!). This would be okay if a student could be ensured a good education, but the quality is really spotty at these places and chances are you won’t finish—eight out of ten students drop out. Whether you learn anything or finish doesn’t matter to the suits; either way, you are contracted to pay the full price.

Wow.

Going this route may seem, at the very least, like a more affordable way to get a degree, and the recruiters will hit you hard, but the degree may not be worth the money you spend to get it. A 2010 report by The Education Trust gives it to us straight: for-profit colleges and universities offer “little more than crippling debt.”

In general, this book is not intended to be a prescriptive guide. Instead, the intention is to provide you with the information you need to come up with your own plan and work things out in your own way. It’s here to help you get started in the business of living your own life. But this one case is an exception, and I want to make a basic fact plain: whatever your future plans may be, for-profit schools are not the way to go unless you are really, really, really stuck. Even then, check out all your other options first, including state and community colleges, before signing a contract with a for-profit, and if you do sign up, read the small print carefully. The moral of the story: buyer beware.