More firefighters seek college degrees

Strength, courage and a high school diploma used to be enough for firefighters, but increasingly firefighters are earning college degrees to advance in their jobs, reports Inside Higher Ed. Community colleges and for-profit institutions are creating fire safety programs, usually leading to an associate degree.  Chiefs typically have a bachelor’s degree, sometimes with a master’s or even a doctorate.

Fire departments, it seems, are on board with the Obama administration-led completion agenda. Yet some high-profile critics of those goals argue that many professions don’t require degrees, and that police officers, medical assistants or firefighters might be better off not taking on college debt.

While some firefighters earn college degrees, others earn a series of technical certifications.

More firefighters are professionals, rather than volunteers, these days.

The professionalization of the industry has increased specialized education needs. So has an increased reliance on fire departments for emergency medical services and the recent need for firefighters to be trained in anti-terrorism and homeland security practices. As a result, more firefighters hold related credentials, like EMS certificates or paramedic degrees.

Online education makes it possible for firefighters to earn degrees while working irregular shifts.

Chicago plans six-year high schools

Chicago will open as many as five high-school, community-college hybrids next fall, reports the Chicago Tribune. Students could enroll for up to six years to earn a high school diploma and associate degree in technical fields.

IBM is giving Chicago a $400,000 grant and helping develop the schools,which will be modeled on New York City’s newly opened Pathways in Technology Early College High School. P-Tech is a partnership between IBM, the New York City College of Technology and the City University of New York.

IBM will recruit Chicago Public Schools teachers who want to be trained to work in the new schools.

“If we’re going to really meet our commitment to young people to say, ‘You’re going to be prepared for entry-level jobs in a good-paying career, not just a job that leads to a dead end,’ they’re going to need an associate’s degree,” said Robin Willner, an IBM executive who’s overseeing the Chicago initiative. “This is not about narrowing a student’s opportunity. It’s saying not only will you be first in line for a job at IBM, but also prepared for an IT career (elsewhere).”

The P-Tech model assumes that some students will go on to earn a bachelor’s degree, while others will be able to start a career immediately.

High-paying jobs for two-year grads

Registered nurse leads Monster’s list of high-paying jobs with an associate’s degree.

Also on the list:  dental hygienist (hygienist salaries), respiratory therapist (respiratory therapist salaries), programmer  (programmer salaries), telecom installer (telecom installer salaries), industrial engineering technician (salaries for engineering techs), police officer (police officer salaries), HVAC mechanic (HVAC mechanic salaries) and paralegal (paralegal salaries).

Heating/air-conditioning techs may qualify via apprenticeship without a degree. Paralegals may find jobs with a certificate.

Community college graduates with associate degrees in health fields are finding good jobs, but other associate degree graduates are struggling, writes Community College Dean.

Louisiana: CC grads earn more, work more

Louisiana’s associate-degree graduates are more likely to find jobs — at higher pay — than graduates with four-year degrees, according to a state report.

Eighteen months after graduation, 72.5 percent of associate-degree graduates were employed in Louisiana, compared to 59.5 percent of graduates with bachelor’s degrees, 60.5 percent with master’s degrees, 38.3 percent with doctorates and 50.4 percent with professional degrees.

New associate degree holders — many with degrees in medical and technical fields — earned $3,000 a year more than new four-year graduates.

Engineering graduates with bachelor’s degrees were the top earners, starting at almost $57,000.

“In 1970, you could be middle class with a high school diploma or less and the sweat of your brow,” (Commissioner of Higher Education Jim Purcell) said. In 2007, the study shows, only 39 percent of the “middle class” in Louisiana had only a high school education.

. . . “We see the need for a strong community college system,” he said. “Ideally, we’d have 60 percent of our students enrolled in community colleges and 40 percent enrolled in four-year institutions.”

Military tech degree designed for vets

Veterans and active-duty military personnel will be able to use their military training and academic credits to earn an associate of applied science degree in military technology at a Mississippi community college.

Copiah-Lincoln Community College is “very military friendly,”  public relations director Natalie Davis told The Daily Leader.

Co-Lin will reach out to Guard members serving in the college’s seven-county area, said Dr. Gail Baldwin, dean of career/technical and workforce education. “Some of the courses are online, so it should not matter where that service member is, even if they are overseas.”

The degree is designed to help students advance in the military, but could also help veterans qualify for civilian jobs.

Dual enrollment isn’t fast track in Florida

Florida’s dual enrollment program — high schools students study tuition-free at nearby community colleges — is producing 18-year-olds with associate degrees. But very few complete a bachelor’s degree in two years, a state analysis finds. That means there are few cost savings.

Despite her associate degree from Gainesville’s Santa Fe College, Deina Bossa plans four years at the University of Florida, funded by a Lombardi and Stamps scholarship, reports the Gainesville Sun.

“I want to get the full college experience,” she said. “I feel like I missed out on a little bit in high school, so I don’t want to miss out in college.”

At the University of Florida, dual-enrollment students with associate degrees had an above-average 85 percent retention rate. But less than 6 percent graduate in two years and less than half within three years. One third take four years or more to complete a degree.

Dual enrollment is  “essentially like getting a two-year scholarship,” said Linda Lanza-Kaduce, director of Santa Fe College’s program.

The program is meant to save state money in Bright Futures scholarships and open more university spots. However, dual-enrollment students can qualify for Bright Futures, which funds four years of study, and other scholarships.

While some want to enjoy campus social life, others find they lack prerequisites needed for college majors, especially if they didn’t select a major while still in high school. Dual-enrollment students admitted as freshmen may plan double majors or retake classes they believe will be more rigorous at the university level.

Sally Blum, 17, earned her associate degree as a dual-enrollment student at Brevard Community College and is attending UF in the fall. She said she needs two more general-education classes at UF and also plans to retake a calculus class because she believes it will be harder at UF.

She wants to major in mathematics with three minors. She said a major appeal of dual enrollment was saving in college costs, although she still plans to stay three or four years at UF.

Dual-enrollment students in 2009-10 were exempted from more than $48 million in tuition. Those in public school even get free college textbooks. Taking another four years of scholarship money is “double dipping,” some say.

Worried about the rising cost of Bright Futures scholarships, state legislators are considering cutting the award by the number of college credits already earned to push dual-enrollment graduates to complete a degree in two years. Another proposal would encourage speedy graduation by letting former dual-enrollment students use some of the scholarship in graduate school.

College shouldn’t be the only K-12 goal

Higher education shouldn’t be the be-all and end-all of K-12 education, writes “edu-traitor” Cathy Davidson, an English professor, in an Inside Higher Ed commentary.

Higher education is incredibly valuable, even precious, for many. But it is bad for individuals and society to be retrofitting learning all the way back to preschool, as if the only skills valuable, vital, necessary in the world are the ones that earn you a B.S., BA, or a graduate and professional degree.

Many jobs require specialized knowledge, intelligence and skills, but not a college education, Davidson notes. Yet our educational system “defines learning so narrowly that whole swaths of human intelligence, skill, talent, creativity, imagination, and accomplishment do not count.”

Schools are cutting art, music, P.E. and shop to focus on college prep, Davidson complains. (I’d say schools are cutting electives — especially shop — to focus on basic reading and math skills.)

. . . many brilliant, talented young people are dropping out of high school because they see high school as implicitly “college prep” and they cannot imagine anything more dreary than spending four more years bored in a classroom when they could be out actually experiencing and perfecting their skills in the trades and the careers that inspire them.

We need value “the full range of intellectual possibility and potential for everyone,” Davidson writes.

The brilliant, talented kid who drops out to pursue a passion for art, carpentry or cosmetology is a rare bird, I think. But Davidson is right about the college-or-bust mentality in K-12 education. Many students who are bored by academics could be motivated — maybe even inspired — by a chance to develop marketable skills.

Some 80 percent of new community college students say they want to earn a bachelor’s degree. They sign up for remedial or general education courses. Few succeed. Students who pursue vocational goals — a welding certificate, an associate degree in medical technology — are far more likely to graduate.

College pays — but more isn’t always better

A “college degree is key to economic opportunity,” concludes a new report by Georgetown’s Center on Education and the Workforce. Four-year college graduates earn 84 percent more over a lifetime than those with only a high school diploma, a rise from 75 percent in 1999, the study found.

However, earnings depend not just on education but on the occupational field.  The registered nurse with an associate degree is likely to earn more than the social worker with a bachelor’s.

This graphic shows the earnings overlap relative to the median lifetime earnings of $2,868,000 for workers with a bachelor’s degree. It shows 28.2 percent of workers with an associate degree match the earnings of the median four-year graduate.

Women earn about 25 percent less than men at each educational level. As a result, the average man with “some college” earns as much as the average woman with a bachelor’s degree.

Whites earn more than other races with the same educational attainment until the postgraduate level, where Asian-Americans earn the most.

“Postsecondary education has become the new gateway to the middle class and one of the most important economic issues of our time,” the report concludes.

Maine eyes 5-year high school, early college

Maine will consider expanding early-college options, including a proposed five-year high school that will let students graduate with college credits, reports the Bangor Daily News.

Gov. Paul LePage will create a task force to recommend an early-college plan for the state.

During last year’s campaign for governor, LePage floated the idea of having high school students take introductory-level college courses so that in five years of high school, they could graduate with a high school diploma and an associate degree, or two years of transferable college credits, all for free.

The proposal was part of LePage’s campaign report “Turning the Page: New Ideas to Get Maine Working.” The report said the proposal for an extra year of high school was borrowed from a similar program in North Carolina. The nonprofit Early College High School Initiative, which promotes systems that blend high school and college, says it has helped bring such offerings to nearly 30 states.

Sen. Brian Langley, R-Ellsworth, who co-chairs the Education Committee, also is a vocational teacher. Many good-paying jobs require a year of training, not a degree, he says. “We have to do more training that is tailored to the jobs that are out there and not just college or two-year degree programs.”

In the next 10 years, nearly 60 percent of jobs in Maine will require at least some amount of college education, the governor says.

‘Reverse transfers’ earn associate degrees

“Reverse-transfer programs” help students earn associate degrees and boost graduation rates for community colleges, write Donna Ekal of the University of Texas at El Paso, and Paula M. Krebs of the University of Massachusetts at Boston in a Chronicle of Higher Education commentary.

When students transfer from community colleges before completing an associate degree, they’re counted as drop-outs. UTEP, U Mass-Boston and others “ensure that transfer students with significant credits from two-year colleges are awarded associate degrees once they have completed the necessary coursework at their new institutions.”

UTEP works with El Paso Community College to track students who qualify for an associate degree. Manual counting missed many eligible students. In 2009-10, an automated credit-transfer system identified 1,166 students eligible for associate degrees. Almost all were working-class Mexican-Americans earning the first college degrees in their families.

Up go the graduation rates at the community college, up goes the self-esteem of the newly credentialed student, and up goes the retention rate at the university: It’s the ultimate win-win situation.

Retention rates for transfer students have increased steadily since 2003-04, when UTEP set up a transfer-student center at the community college, joint training for academic advisers at both institutions and improved orientation for transfer students.

Most students at the University of Massachusetts at Boston transfer from local community colleges without associate degrees. The university is piloting a reverse-transfer program with Massasoit Community College.

The associate is a valuable credential in the job market, write Ekal and Krebs. “Many students who are employed full time while pursuing a bachelor’s would benefit from being able to demonstrate—and, indeed, to understand—that they have completed a course of study that has improved their writing, quantitative and critical-thinking skills.”