Back to School Time has Many College Grads Considering Trade Schools for Viable Career Paths

In today’s strained job market, many college graduates face an economy with high unemployment rates, increasing competition for jobs, and mounting debt from their college expenses. This has led an increasing number of graduates to take a look at trade schools for more viable career paths. As fall approaches each year, more and more of these students are making the move to trade schools in NJ as an effective way to quickly enter the job market.

There is little doubt that the Great Recession had a profound effect on employment prospects for many college graduates. In addition, most of these graduates are saddled with college debt that makes it imperative to find work to begin paying down this debt. Many are finding that the comparatively minimal investment of time and money in trade schools in New Jersey as well as around the country can yield career-level work opportunities that their original choice cannot provide.

The labor market and its needs are constantly changing in the U.S. Some fields are experiencing a deep contraction while others like healthcare are experiencing burgeoning career opportunities. Many recent graduates are realizing that in a year or two, they can be ready to enter the job market in careers that earn anywhere from $28,000 to more than $60,000 per year over time.

It’s certainly not just the recent graduates that are facing changing prospects in the current job market. Many established members of the workforce that are in their late 20’s or older members of the baby boom generation were victims of downsizing and shrinking prospects across a variety of fields. Many of these people are degreed professionals.

They too are realizing that trade schools in NJ and around the country can improve their marketability in their current careers, or provide the necessary retraining to enter a new career path where career-level jobs are growing. These trade school programs also provide a much higher level of flexibility, which is ideal for those adults that have family as well as a need to work while going to school.

Every fall, more and more high school graduates as well as displaced career level workers are weighing the benefits of going to trade school verses going to a four-year college, if that is even a viable option financially. What many are finding in comparison is that by attending trade schools in New Jersey or elsewhere in the country, they can be earning a good living in half the time and a fraction of the expense invested in longer degreed programs.

The benefits are clear to both college graduates in unstable career sectors as well as those that do not or cannot obtain a four year degree—a willingness to do some advanced training, such as attending a trade school in NJ or elsewhere can earn you an annual salary of around $25,000-$30,000 a year as a beginner. Over the course of four years, that can total as much as 20,000 in earnings while comparatively, a college student is earning little or nothing and will likely be faced with that amount in debt upon graduation with few job prospects.