Love it or leave it!  You’re either with me or a’gin me.  Either we walk or take a taxi!   Each of these examples is a blatant fallacy:  what critical skills people and rhetoricians label  “a classic false-choice” proposition. (Want more? Listen to politicians of all stripes talking in front of crowds….).  Another instance of a “false choice” is the faulty assumption that one has to choose between college OR a trade or skilled occupation.
The reality of an ever-challenging, internationally competitive job-market is very daunting, indeed, and young adults won’t possibly attain the standard of living for themselves and their families that many of us enjoy— or formerly enjoyed — with merely low-skilled jobs anymore.  Unfortunately, high-school students and 20-somethings often assume that because they have not been cast – and do not see themselves – as full-blown “college material,” that they have no business looking into college courses.  And well-meaning friends and family collude in this by pressuring the student to “learn a trade” through some union hall system, or expensive “career institutes” and “diploma mills” or solely through an apprenticeship arrangement.
While these possibilities exist, some are legitimate and some are not. The  Republican-controlled Congress and president recently allowed ever-looser regulations on all for-profit “educational institutes,” and we’ve already begun to see them sprout up in strip malls.  Beware – educational scams are alive and well, folks.  (See the bankrupt demise of the Corinthian for-profit schools recently, for example, including such established names as Heald Business School.)
On the bright side, President Trump recently signed an executive order last month that responds to business requests nationwide geared to better align training programs with the demands of industry.  The order creates a Council for the American Worker, with a special emphasis on expanding apprenticeship programs, and retraining older workers without college degrees, and expanding continuing education programs over the next five years. Companies such as FedEx pledged to tuition assistance programs, as has a company like Starbucks for most of its employees.
So don’t stay “under-informed.” Community colleges increasingly are the primary resources for this sort of skills-training, through what are now broadly called “workforce development” programs.  Three public community colleges (DVC, Solano and Los Medanos College) are within 13 miles of Benicia, and accredited training choices abound:   Students can choose to complete brief, specialized certificate programs, or more expansive certificate programs, apprenticeship training and/or an  Associate of Art or Science degree.      Transferring on to so-called four-year colleges is always an option, and a student can change their educational direction at any time with no penalty. Nowadays, many of the community college offerings pair up with labor unions or corporations, ROP or hospital training programs, and offer joint training.  For example, few colleges have the clinical resources of a hospital, nor the technology and machinery needed to adequately train health science workers or auto mechanics. But some ingenious partnerships are available, whereby students complete pre-requisite math, English and or science programs at the college, and then do their internships, clinical rotations or apprenticeships at the “real world” work-site itself. The Kaiser Permanente School of Allied Health Sciences comes to mind for DVC students.  (Incidentally, fall classes start there and at Los Medanos College on Monday, Aug. 27 a bit later than usual, owing to the new, compressed semester calendar. Classes end for the fall by Sat., Dec. 15.)
From careers in the performing and recording arts industry and hotel restaurant management, to nursing, construction, criminal justice, dental hygiene and the computer/digital media fields, options exist within an easy drive or bus ride.
The college instructors are certified, experienced, know their stuff, and the programs are fully-accredited.  And all of this workforce training still costs far less than most any other alternative around.

Rob Peters is a semi-retired counselor at Diablo Valley College in Pleasant Hill. He’s both taught and counseled students for more than 30 years.

Sharing is caring!