How To Choose a College That’s Right For You: The Ultimate Guide

This new article will show you everything you need to know about how to choose a university. There are few decisions as important as choosing the proper school after highschool. When it comes to Ivy League colleges, it can be easy; You choose the best school where you are accepted.

But in the current economic climate, more and more students are turning to trade schools rather than traditional four-year colleges. These can be great choices, and often lead to more solid job choices after graduation. The hard part is selecting which school is the most suitable option for you.

From community colleges to technical trade schools, each option has its advantages. Community colleges can often be the cheapest option but that doesn’t suggest they’re the best. Overcrowded schools, long waiting lists, and low funding can mean that a more specialised trade school is occasionally better. In this article we will discuss some common job options and further training options for studying.

How To Choose The Right College For You:

Union expertise (Electrician, Carpentry, Plumbing, HVAC, etc.)

If your dream is to become a plumber or electrician, you might be in luck! These trades often require no formal schooling at all. They are highly involved trades but take years to master effectively. Many unions will accept apprentices and will pay for all the mandatory training and classes to obtain the mandatory skills.

Electricians specifically will undertake this apprenticeship for up to 5 or 6 years to learn the ins and outs of the trade, but the great benefit of this kind of work is that one will be paid for the entirety of this training with raises that occur regularly as a skill. mastered. In certain competitive markets, union waiting lists can take years. Areas like California are densely populated, and unions often wait 5-7 years for those with no experience.

In these cases, trades technical schools can be very useful and lots of of them will provide advice to the union to significantly reduce the waiting period. Another additional benefit of a technical trade school is that one can work for a non-union company, avoiding union dues and allowing more control over your professional progress.

These schools are often connected to community colleges or are separate community trade schools, and are generally very affordable. Many of them are part time and will help you with placements in your field. Be wary of schools that guarantee jobs or pay very high fees.

These schools normally cater to veterans who have GI bills to help with payments, and will be a really high fee for others, increasing your student loan balance to $40,000 or more! Technical trade schools are an excellent option if you want to get into technical trades, get a union job or if you want to pay cash for school.

Community College

One of the lowest cost options for school is, obviously, your local community college. Community college benefits include a low standard fee per unit of college credit, a broad range of majors and concentration offerings, and a wide range of certificates and career training programs. With federal Pell grants of up to $5920 a year available, many students can even attend for free.

Programs available often include Culinary Arts, Cosmetology, Welding, Automotive Technology and more. Check your local college or college as all schools offer different programs, and the college in the next town may offer the program you are trying to find.

While the fees are very low, there are some challenges with community colleges. If you live in a densely populated area, likelihood is you are not the only one dreaming of a certain program. Waiting lists for programs such as cosmetology and nursing can be years long and only admit a handful of students a year.

Also, even with financial aid, application fees are generally required to be paid up front and will be reimbursed upon disbursement of the federal grant. These facts may not dissuade you much if you have already found your dream program. Go ahead and be confident in your choice to enroll in a community college, you have found the best education for the price.

You can often even accept your Associate Degree and transfer to University, paying a penny from someone who goes straight to a four-year college. Sometimes the waiting list is worth it.

Four Year College or University

While once considered the norm for post-secondary education, four-year University has all the time been the gold standard. A Bachelor’s degree is what most people think of when they think of further education, and society instills from an early age that the only way to have a decent life in the future is to attain it.

This is not true anymore, particularly in the post 9/11 economy. We’re moving back to the Industrial Revolution, creating new things in-house and exporting less. This requires people with technical skills; Skills are achieved by doing, not learning.

There will all the time be a need for the educated in society to take on roles such as engineers, teachers and scientists. People with such aspirations will be best served to obtain their degree from a conventional four-year college. Immediate benefits to University include an increased sense of community at your college, involvement in associations such as fraternities that can help build connections for the future, and lots of other social opportunities such as living in a hostel.

This is at the expense of your budget and if money is the biggest concern, consider starting at a community college and transferring. This is excellent advice if you do not know what to take. After graduation, you can then move on to a Master’s degree, or even a doctorate. If graduate school is in your future, so is four-year University.

Special Trade School

The final option to discuss is specialised trade schools. These are schools that normally focus on one or two specific career paths and pour all their energy and resources into them. Examples include Salon Success’s School of Cosmetology, Platt School which focuses on medical careers, and ITT Tech which focuses on, you guessed it, technology.

ITT Tech had to be used in the past and that’s because it has been shut down as a result of an absence of a strong curriculum and misuse of federal loan funds. This is extremely important to consider and see before enrolling in ANY school. ITT graduates have degrees that many have deemed useless because their schools closed, and now they’ve mounting student debt to get out of the bottom.

If you choose a technical trading school that specialises in your chosen trade, watch out. Ensure good records of graduation and job accomplishments. This is part of the school’s disclosure and should be made available to you upon request. Also, be sure that the school fits within your budget. Don’t go to a school you cannot afford because it appears to be the simplest way.

Finally, be sure that the degree you get from the exact trade school is suitable to the job you want and that the accreditation is at the level essential to find significant work after graduation.

Thank you for reading this article on how to choose a university and I actually hope you take my advice into action. I wish you good luck and that I hope that its content has been a good help to you.