According to findings of a recent survey by the Career College Association, nearly 50 percent of those surveyed called career and technical colleges the best alternative to four-year universities, well ahead of community colleges. Only 17 percent of those surveyed favored community college.

Although community colleges (typically averaging 3200 a year in student loans required are usually much less expensive than career colleges. Both community college and career college numbers have risen in the last few years, with more than two million students currently enrolled in trade schools and career colleges. According to the survey, “Trade schools are also graduating students at a higher rate than community colleges: 64 percent of students enrolled in career colleges graduate within three years, compared to only 38 percent of community college students, who have a dropout rate of 45 percent.”

In addition, nearly 90 percent of students at for-profit institutions graduate with debt from student loans. Of these graduates, 10 percent finish school with student loan balances of $45,000 or more.

President of the CCA, Harris Miller, notes that trade schools have increased their edge by facilitating and also marketing workforce readiness over traditional academic higher education. Of 15 occupations projected by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics to grow the fastest over the next decade, only six require a university degree.

A report by statistics Canada  shows that young people are actually making less than their parents.

Among the interesting conclusions of the report:

“These days, young people are staying in school longer and men are less likely to find full-time work once they finish, unless they work in the trades [emphasis ours, of course].”

Read more here.

“For whatever reason, somewhere in our history, the trades have become devalued in comparison to other professions,” said Maureen Piercy, president of Loyalist College, near Toronto, Ontario, in an address to a local Chamber of Commerce. “And yet when it comes to skilled trades, we know that incomes are good and job demand is high.”

Piercy calls for a change in young people’s attitudes.

Read more in this article for the Belleville Intelligencer.

Read more about what you can do to help change attitudes toward skilled trades and trade schools.

The Detroit News is reporting that the higher than expected offers from GM will likely entice as many as 15,000 GM workers into early retirement. Read more here.

British Prime Minister Gordon Brown has issued a warning that Britain’s unskilled work force will suffer great job losses soon. Those with training in skilled trades will be better equipped to weather the coming changes.

Speaking on the BBC’s The Politics Show, Brown warned that in the next decade, British industry stands to lose 5.5. million jobs to outsourcing overseas. Workers with skilled trades training as well as those in high tech jobs would be less likely to lose jobs but Britain’s six million unskilled laborers will be reduced in number to “half a million.”

Brown will unveil a plan today to increase the number of apprenticeships available to young people that will give Britain “the most highly-skilled workforce in the world.”

Business leaders such as Manchester United Manager Sir Alex Ferguson and Sir Alan Sugar of Amstrad both agreed strongly with Brown’s assertions and his plan to increase apprenticeships. Brown added, “The biggest barrier to full employment is now not the shortage of jobs but the shortage of skills. If you don’t get the skills, you’ll not get a job.”

Maine’s battered skilled-trades work force is about to get a big break from CIANBRO. Where last year saw hundreds of layoffs after two mill closings and other widespread layoffs in that state, CIANBRO says it will hire 500 new employees in 2008. Representatives say they will be needing “journey level trades, pipe fitting, pipe welding, iron workers, electricians, all those different trades, and we’re looking for those people who are under employed, un-employed that have the qualities to be a CIANBRO team member.” They add that if they can’t find skilled workers in the employment market, they will train new employees. The company already has more than 200 employees taking part in skill training programs.

CIANBRO, Main’s largest construction firm, recently took over the Eastern Fine Paper mill site. It will begin a new project in March, building modules for a Texas oil refinery. That project alone is budgeted at $7 billion.

You can search Trade School World to find schools teaching welding, electrical and other trades mentioned in this article.

The Detroit Free Press is reporting that Ford is in the process of implementing richer buyouts for early retirement packages offered to skilled laborers and production workers. The news has a bad side, too, of course, in that it indicates that the company is intent on ‘asking’ more staff to leave the company.

This has been a tough year for auto manufacturers (and others) of course and if Ford announces lower-than-expected profits (as is predicted) severance package offers may be made within the next few weeks.

If they can lose some of their high-priced, late-career skilled laborers they can hire younger people at much lower wages, “a starting rate of $14.20 per hour, or about half the salary of outgoing UAW workers.” This lower rate was secured in the terms of Ford’s recent contract with the UAW. 

Previous buyouts were set around $35,000 but Ford plans to offer production workers an early-retirement lump sum of $50,000 and skilled workers as much as $70,000. If you want the full story, read it here.

The University of Saskatchewan is reporting – apparently at face value – a survey showing that “trade journeypersons” earn more than graduates of the university. (Now are they putting that in their enrolment brochures, we wonder). On top of that, skilled trades people have “some of the lowest education related debt.”