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My Reflection Essay! Why I feel the way I do about College.

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Today's parents, counselors, and teachers typically support the concept that everyone should go to college and earn a baccalaureate degree in order to make a reasonable wage and be buffered from unemployment in the competitive and insecure 21st century. There is a large body of data, provided by the U.S. Department of Labor, which supports that view.
Unemployment Rates by Educational Attainment
The figure below, retrieved from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics website, shows the unemployment rate and the median weekly earnings in 2014 of the nation's workers by educational level.

In terms of unemployment rate, a steady increase from 2.0% (the average for those with doctoral and professional degrees) to 9.0% (for those who have not completed high school) is apparent from these data. Similarly, annual income is highly correlated with educational level.

Converting median weekly earnings into annual salary, income is consistently related to educational level, ranging from $83,980 (an average for those with doctoral and professional degrees) to $25,376 (for those who have not completed high school).

So, there is overwhelming evidence that the higher the level of education completed, the greater the probability of being employed and the higher the annual income.

But some students do not want to attend four-year college or university; do not have the academic skills to make them successful there; cannot afford to attend; and/or prefer to work with their manual, technical, or mechanical skills.
Many High-Demand Occupations Do Not Require a Four-Year Degree
There are many, many options for students that offer both job demand and salary equivalent to that of occupations that require a baccalaureate degree for entry. These occupations require education in the range between high school graduation and entry into four-year college or university. They are occupations that students can enter by obtaining specific certifications through specialized vocational-technical school, community college programs of study, or through completion of a associate degree.

Let's look at some of those occupations. I found them by browsing a U.S. Department of Labor website, which lists the mean annual salary earned by employees in approximately 1,000 occupations in the United States in 2014.

I was specifically looking for occupations in which the annual salary nearly equals, equals, or exceeds the mean ($57,590) for those holding a baccalaureate degree and that can be entered with an associate degree or a specific postsecondary certification.

The table below shows some of the occupations that I found and their mean annual salaries as well as the range of salary earned by those in the occupation contingent upon their years of experience, geographic location, and employer. (These are simply examples; review of the full list of occupations here.)

Using O*NET Online, entering the title of each of these occupations will provide a detailed description of the occupation and of the nature of the postsecondary education needed for entry.

These occupations are also noted as having a "bright outlook," meaning that there is a scarcity of trained workers in these fields. There is doubtless a relationship between the need for more workers and the level of salaries being offered.
Encourage Students to Consider All Options
So, how should we be advising our children, counselees, and students? If they are students who want to attend college, want a predominance of academic work, and can afford to attend without incurring long-term debt, encourage them in that direction. Especially encourage them to use a good career planning system like the Kuder Career Planning System® to identify their interests and related occupations, to find majors and programs of study that will prepare them for those occupations, and find cost-feasible colleges and universities that offer those majors.

In order to control the cost of a baccalaureate degree, students and their parents should consider starting with community college, enrolling in the associate degree program, which is designed to provide the academic background to effect a smooth transition to a four-year college or university at the junior year level.

For students who do not want to attend college; cannot afford to, do not want to focus heavily on academic work; and/or prefer using their manual, mechanical, and technical skills; suggest that they browse the website cited above to find in-demand occupations that only require one to two years of postsecondary education and that pay a satisfactory annual wage competitive with that which they could earn after completion of a baccalaureate degree.

A baccalaureate degree is not for everyone, and there is no reason why it should be!

This article originally appeared in the Kuder Blog November 19, 2015

college and career readiness

About The Author

Dr. JoAnn Harris-Bowlsbey has worked extensively with state departments of education and labor in the conceptualization and implementation of education and career planning websites that serve as a virtual center for students and adults. In her long and distinguished career in the field of career

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Today's parents, counselors, and teachers typically support the concept that everyone should go to college and earn a baccalaureate degree in order to make a reasonable wage and be buffered from unemployment in the competitive and insecure 21st century. There is a large body of data, provided by the U.S.

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Do You Have to Go to College to Be Successful? | UoPeople

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High school graduates’ biggest question answered: Do you have to go to college to be successful? Find out why or why not.

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Should You Go To College To Be Successful?

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For many students, the push to pursue higher education in the form of a four-year university or college is drilled into them by parents, teachers and political figures from a young age.

From a young age, kids are told that obtaining a college degree is the pathway to success.

70 percent of American students will study at a four-year college, but less than two-thirds will graduate.

With a four-year graduation rate of over 45 percent in 2015at ASU and increasing every year, more and more students are pursuing college degrees.

While obtaining a college degree in a specific topic can increase the chances of students finding jobs and earning higher salaries, there are some drawbacks associated with pursuing a college education.

The average student will spend around four years obtaining an undergraduate degree which involves taking a full course-load of difficult classes. Many students have to work during their time in college to pay bills and other expenses, so that leaves very little room for internships or job experience.

It is a widely known fact that job experience is the number one thing employers look for when hiring new employees, so sometimes, college degrees don't ensure job security.

However, different fields of study require different levels of education. For example, pursuing a career in the healthcare field requires years of schooling. For students pursuing medical school, four years of undergrad are followed by four years of medical school and then a number of years for residency. However, for someone going into business, this level of education is not required.

Stanley Zucker, a professor at the Mary Lou Fulton Teachers College at ASU believes that pursuing a fouryear university is not for everyone.

"With the expenses of college rising every year, it's important for students to explore their options and realize that attending a four year university isn't absolutely necessary - there are plenty of great paying jobs out there that involve less time, less money and less stress," Zucker said.

For some people, college is also a bad investment.

The cost of college has risen more than 1,100 percent since 1978 and as the prices continue to go up, it becomes more and more difficult to afford the cost.

Even when adjusted for inflation, this represents a drastic spike in cost. As a result, many individuals struggle to afford college.

Some college degrees don't guarantee job security, and when you graduate and find yourself struggling to find work, you also have the burden of a boatload of student debt to pay off.

Not everyone is college material as well. Over 54 percent of Americans who enroll in college eventually drop out. College is hard enough as it is for those are motivated and excited to be there, so for people who don't really want to be there, it is almost impossible.

It's important to realize that following the strict path from high school to college to the work force is not a viable option for everyone. The time spent in college earning a degree can often be put to better use getting job experience.

There are plenty of jobs out there that do not require a college degree. There are various technical and trade schools that provide training in areas such as automotive care, beauty and cosmetology and travel and hospitality.

For example, Arizona is home to a number trade schools such as the Arizona Culinary Institute, Steiner Institute of Esthetics and Arizona School of Massage Therapy. All schools provide training in specific areas of study that allow students to learn skills and enter the work force immediately.

A four-year college degree is not necessary for many jobs. Plumbers, electricians and wholesale sales representatives make great money and require just a high school diploma.

It's time to stop looking down upon individuals who choose to pursue vocational and technical education rather than a traditional four year university.

Rising high school seniors should be given the option to enter a program following their graduation that allows them to learn valuable technical skills which will prepare them for particular fields of work.

It's time relinquish the idea that every young person has to go to college and start offering alternative routes to those who are not interested in pursuing higher education.

Reach the columnist at ymian@asu.edu or follow @yasminemian on Twitter.
Editor's note: The opinions presented in this column are the author's and do not imply any endorsement from The State Press or its editors.
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College is not for everyone - The Arizona State Press

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For many students, the push to pursue higher education in the form of a four-year university or college is drilled into them by parents, teachers and political figures from a young age. From a young age, kids are told that obtaining a college degree is the pathway to success.

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We feel the stress everywhere. Our teens and college kids seem to be bombarded by impossibly high standards of educational, physical and social attainment. They are expected to be academic, athletic and social stars, all while making is seem so easy. Effortless perfection has become the goal.

But, it is an unattainable goal and as we look on we know we never felt pressured like this when we were their age. Are our perceptions rooted in reality or are they merely the impressions of sympathetic parents? Does the data bear out our painful observations that society or self imposed standards on our kids are just too high?
The news is not good.
A new study out this week by two UK psychologists, published in the American Psychological Association, bears out our fears. The study's authors, Thomas Curran and Andrew Hill, looked at more than 40,000 college students, and discovered that most of them showed signs of what they call, "multidimensional perfectionism" which is defined as perfectionism driven by unrealistically high expectations.

The drive toward perfection, and the frustration and failure it brings has risen steadily since 1989. The area of the greatest increase and, thus, concern has been socially prescribed perfection, ie standards set not by the individuals themselves but by changing cultural norms in the society at large.
Why do our kids feel this stress?
Social media is not surprisingly a major culprit. Once upon a time, you could go on vacation, and it just wasn't possible for others to see how perfect your vacation was. Now, we are all capable of not only splashing our vacation photos across Instagram, Facebook and Snapchat but we can edit our lives until they appear to be flawless.

The study explains that,

Not only more dissatisfied with what they have, young people are also seemingly more dissatisfied with who they are. Platforms such as Facebook, Instagram, and Snapchat have become ubiquitous, occupying 2 out of every 5 min spent online. The popularity of these platforms is, in part, explained by how they allow users to curate a perfect public image. Yet rather than alleviate presentational and interpersonal anxieties, studies indicate that exposure to others' perfect self-representations within social media can intensify one's own body image concerns and sense of social alienation.

At every stage of our kids' development they are rewarded ( grades, scores, college admissions, popularity, attention) for striving for perfection with little regard to the psychological cost it might incur. As the study's authors explain, our kids have come to believe that, "The perfect life and lifestyle-encapsulated by achievement, wealth, and social status-are available to anyone provided you try hard enough."

But the pressure is not just on our kids, we as adults are both subject to the pressure and perpetrators of it. The authors explain that

For parents, this new culture confers an additional burden. On top of their own duty to succeed, they are also responsible for the successes and failures of their children. Should a young person be unable to navigate an increasingly competitive social milieu, then it is not just their failure, it is also the parents' failure too.

Thus, the cult of perfection is even more of a burden on parents than it is on their kids.

The pressure we parents feel to ensure our kids academic achievements, make us overly involved, controlling and anxious. We transmit this anxiety to them, perpetuating a vicious cycle of perfectionism and disappointment.

By setting high expectations for our kids we feel we are preparing them for an increasingly competitive world, but, as the study shows, we may be doing more harm than good.

Controlling behaviors include a combination of high expectations and high criticism and encourage children to adopt extremely high standards and strive for perfection, so to avoid criticism and gain the approval of their parents. In short, when reflecting on changes in parental practices and the likely influence on perfectionism, increases in both anxious and controlling parenting are likely to help explain why perfectionism may have increased among young people.

But, at what cost to both parent and child?

Along with this rise in striving for perfection, we have seen a rise in all forms of mental illness in young people. Is this perhaps the result of being faced with almost unattainable goals? While parents often look to the world in which their kids function for causes of their stress and anxiety, perhaps the first place we should be looking is at ourselves and at the culture we have created both in the home and in society.
Related: "Undercover High:" What Parents Need to Know About Cyberbullying Is Your College Student Stressed Out? 20 Things They Can Do Valentine's Day Gift Guide: For Teens and College Kids You Love

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In the Push for Perfection are We Wounding our Kids?

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While parents often look to the world in which their kids function for causes of their stress and anxiety, perhaps the first place we should be looking is at ourselves and at the culture of perfection we have created both in the home and in society.

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Are we hurting our kids by pressuring them to go to College?