Not going to college? No problem. No plan for alternatives? NC schools want to talk.
Olympic High senior Nick Reeves has a 3.9 grade-point average, a history of competitive robotics, strong computer coding skills and the creativity to design his own card game. In short, he’s the kind of student you might assume would head straight for college.
But Reeves, 19, is daunted by the costs — a year at N.C. State University, his most likely prospect, costs about $24,000 — and he dreads being asked what he wants to do with the rest of his life.
“If I had to pick now ... that’s the hardest question, because I’m juggling so much,” he said recently.
When Olympic counselor Laura Lewin held an “Undecided Night” in December, Reeves was among some 400 seniors and family members who turned out to hear pitches from the military, community colleges and companies offering jobs right out of high school. He recently took a competitive exam that he hopes will land him an apprenticeship that provides a salary, community college tuition and the path to a lucrative job.
Lewin is among educators across Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools and North Carolina who are pushing the message that it’s OK not to go to college — but not OK to leave high school without a plan.
The number of CMS students earning industry certifications, a sign that they’ve taken courses to prepare for a skilled trade, has quadrupled from 2016 to 2018. The district has also launched a website, https://discovercte.com, to encourage students and families to check out options and start exploring them as early as middle school.
For Lewin the importance of having a career plan was driven home when she encountered three recent grads working low-wage jobs at a movie theater, a coffee shop and a fast-food restaurant.
“It’s really hard to make a living having a minimum-wage job,” Lewin said. “You can’t end up truly being happy in the long run if you can’t afford to pay rent and have children and do whatever your goals are.”
For many years, educators focused on making four-year college an option for all students. But while schools across North Carolina have celebrated rising graduation rates, critics have noted that many of those grads lack the academic skills for college and the career skills to get a good job.
With employers clamoring for high school graduates ready to step into skilled trades — and crippling college debt gobbling up the higher earnings that can come with a degree — the pendulum is swinging toward college as a path to prosperity, but not the path.
“It’s not about being pigeonholed on this or that track,” said state Superintendent Mark Johnson. “We want you to know all the tracks and choose what’s best for you.”
The menu is growing
Statewide and in Charlotte, educators are emphasizing an array of career classes, industry credentials, apprenticeships and intern programs that fall under the heading of career-technical education, or CTE.
Participation is rising dramatically, as districts add career options. Career credentials or industry certifications are increasingly seen as a sign of a meaningful high school diploma.
Last year North Carolina students earned 276,561 career credentials, a marker that shows they’ve mastered skills ranging from Microsoft PowerPoint and Word to firefighting and health-care skills. That’s up from 104,375 credentials five years earlier (students can earn multiple credentials).
In Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools the number of students earning industry certifications has risen from 655 in 2015-16 to 2,681 in 2017-18, the district reports.
CMS currently offers 19 career pathways — including architecture, carpentry, food science, landscaping, public safety, game design and computer engineering.
Not for everyone
Johnson says his interest in career training began when he spent two years teaching ninth-graders at West Charlotte High through Teach For America. Some of those freshmen were 16 or 17, he said, and struggling to earn enough credits to advance to 10th grade, let alone graduate. You could talk to them about college, he said, but “they knew themselves that that was not in their future.”
Meanwhile, Johnson said he knew a CEO of a steel fabricating company who talked about his desperate need for welders, who could earn $60,000 a year or more. “The careers were there for the taking and it wasn’t happening,” he said.
Johnson recently posted a comparison of mid-career salaries for different career paths to drive the point home. It shows that a teacher with a four-year degree, a respiratory therapist with a two-year degree and an Army medic could all expect to earn about $54,000 a year.
Options listed for students with only a high school diploma range from about $45,000 for auto-body repairers to $58,000 for electrical line workers. While those jobs don’t require college, they require training. That’s why the pay is so much higher than a minimum-wage job; someone earning $7.25 an hour for full-time work would bring in about $15,000 a year.
For obvious reasons, employers have proven enthusiastic partners in career training.
For instance, Johnson recently brought students from across the state to the Auto Expo at the state fairgrounds in Raleigh to check out cars, then hear about careers in the automotive industry.
Junior Achievement of Central Carolinas recently launched a “Job Connect” pilot for seniors in five high-poverty CMS high schools who have a GPA between 1.5 and 2.5 — below the level needed for admission to most colleges — to provide skills training and internships in such industries as construction, manufacturing and hospitality.
Olympic High has long been a pioneer in working with nearby industry, including European companies where apprenticeships are more prevalent than in the United States.
Tough to decide
For Reeves, the challenge is too many interests and options.
He got into computer coding early, but lost interest midway through high school. He’s intrigued by mechatronics, which combines robotics, engineering, coding and electronics, but also loves graphic art.
And while getting into college probably wouldn’t be hard for him, he suspects paying for it would be.
The choice doesn’t necessarily come down to either college or a career path. Reeves, for instance, can imagine himself getting a bachelor’s degree after he has worked, saved and chosen a career path.
Other classmates share his struggle. Ginna Olaya and Malik Byrd, both Olympic seniors with high grades, said they’re stressed over making life choices. Byrd says his interests include music (he plays cello), science and culinary arts.
Olaya says she just wishes someone would tell her what to do: “I’m a very complicated and indecisive person.”
Lewin, the counselor, and Johnson, the superintendent, both say a university can be a bad place for students to sort out their future, especially if they end up leaving without a degree or landing in a low-paying job.
“Research has shown that a lot of students come out with a lot of debt, and they’re paying off their student debt into their 50s,” Lewin said. “Our goal is to help students figure out what they can do to be happy and have good lives. Since we have found that it’s not always going to college, we need to rethink what we’re telling students.”
This story was originally published February 27, 2019 at 10:53 AM.
