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[tvoivozhd <tvoivozd AT infionline.net>]

It doesn't remain unchanged across several generations. Today, 
hardheaded self-interest, and assessment of relative opportunities ought 
to downgrade college and upgrade vocational school in the career plans 
of most high school graduates---accomplish your income objectives in two 
years without having a massive $100,000 scholastic debt laid on your 
shoulders, and giving you the option of working for an established 
company, or starting up your low-risk new one, for which an annual 
income of $100,000 or more is a reasonable expectation..

Pick your field of work, auto repair, plumbing and heating, electricial 
wiring---all are face-to-face with customers and requiring your hands 
and your tools to do the job---a conference call with an Indian 
"advisor" won't hack it.

Now, if you have Asperger's, with enormous power of undivided 
concentration, you will do well to go the college route to a research 
job with a drug company---you will still have a relatively high income, 
but be prepared to use a substantial part of it for several years to 
repay academic loans.





A smart path — that isn't 'college'
By Ben Brown
If we're so big on measuring results in education, isn't it time to get 
serious about an approach that links knowledge and training with 
good-paying jobs?

The time is ripe. Hardly a week goes by without another warning from a 
business or education-reform group that too many of our students 
graduate without the skills to compete in a global marketplace. And when 
the nation's governors meet in February for a National Education Summit, 
high on the agenda is a discussion of new strategies for helping 
students "build bridges between high school, college and work."

The trouble is, if you try to bring vocational education into the 
discussion, the first thing that enters many folks' minds are the guys 
in last-period shop class, the ones who seemto know their way around an 
engine block, but not algebra II. Fonzie in Happy Days, the 1970s sitcom 
set in the 1950s, was a voc-ed guy — cool, but not what parents hold up 
as a career role model. Everybody knew Fonzie wasn't headed to college. 
And college is the one sure path to the good life, right?

A skewed view of college

Well, yes and no. Yes, if you're willing to morph your concept of 
college to include other post-secondary educational opportunities, from 
community colleges to tech schools to professional- certification and 
workplace-training programs. Occupational certification has increased by 
50% during the past decade, according to a recent study by the National 
Center for Public Policy and Higher Education.

No, if you're talking about only four-year institutions, where a third 
of students don't qualify for degrees in six years.

"The last thing we need is another college dropout, saddled with student 
loans and looking for a job without a marketable skill," says Gerry 
Hogan, a volunteer advocate for vocational education and the chairman of 
Endurance Business Media.

Clide Cassity, director of Pinellas Technical Education Centers in 
Florida, adds, "Yet somehow we've gotten ourselves in the situation 
where we believe that college is all that counts, that nothing else 
matters."

Even though good jobs increasingly require what used to be college-level 
training, most still don't demand four-year degrees. Of the U.S. Bureau 
of Labor Statistics' estimates of the fastest-growing occupations 
between 2002 and 2012, the top 10 don't require bachelor's degrees. And 
many non-degree occupations crying out for workers are career fields 
with salaries that can support healthy families — provided employees 
have higher level skills.

Kay Martin, CEO of the Francis Tuttle Oklahoma Technology Center in 
Oklahoma City, says students who graduate in Tuttle's automotive program 
"after a few years can earn $100,000." And there are similar career 
opportunities in health technology, the construction trades and public 
safety.

In an era of outsourcing, here's more good news: These high-skill jobs 
aren't going anywhere. You're not going to call someone in India to fix 
your car or your plumbing. And if your house is on fire in Ohio, help is 
not coming from Mexico.

A' real-world' advantage

Career and technical education — the term voc-ed pros have adopted to 
avoid the Fonzie factor — has the advantage of relevance. For many 
students, "academics suddenly make sense," says Robin White, president 
of the Great Oaks Institute of Technology and Career Development in 
Cincinnati. "Geometry makes more sense in construction technology than 
just drawing circles and squares on paper." And the best programs can 
tout real-world accountability.

Tom Applegate, executive dean of Austin Community College, says, "All 
our programs are labor-market driven. If employers don't want our grads, 
we don't want the program."

In Florida, Cassity has lines at both ends of some Pinellas Tech 
programs: Students wait for class slots, and companies wait to hire 
them. Two-thirds of Pinellas Tech students complete requirements for 
professional certification or state licensing, and 82% end up employed 
in their field of study.

So what's not to like about voc-ed? "It's the high schools that have run 
amok," says Phyllis Hudecki, executive director of the Oklahoma Business 
and Education Council, a non-profit education advocacy group. Even its 
defenders acknowledge that, in the past, voc-ed has been used "as an 
avoidance mechanism for kids who couldn't do academic work," Hudecki 
says. "And that's still out there. I want to make sure students are 
really learning, and then turn them loose" in voc-ed tracks.

Approaches such as the Southern Regional Education Board's "High Schools 
That Work" project have proved that integrating vocational education 
with academic courses can accelerate achievement at the high school 
level. The trick is combining a no-compromise academic program with 
vocational education that matches students with business mentors and 
that guarantees them career and academic counseling. That may be tough 
for stressed-out high schools, but it's doable.

Easier to model are proven post-secondary programs such as Cassity's in 
Florida and Applegate's in Texas. They fight for funding, yet they have 
track records business leaders and legislators should admire. So why not 
reward them for delivering what the market needs?

The demand for trained — and retrained — workers is only going to 
increase, perhaps in unexpected ways.

"Our fastest-growing group of students by percentage," Applegate says, 
"is those with master's degrees."

Ben Brown writes for Southern Living and its sister magazines, and he is 
a member of USA TODAY's board of contributors.