Trading on education

Students entering high school might not pay a lot of attention to lifetime earnings expectations or even their job possibilities upon leaving school. I figure they're pretty well occupied with classes, exams, and social activities.

I expect that an article in Saturday's Advocate (Teaching teachers) will far more likely grab the attention of parents, concerned as they are with the future success of their children.

News articles are easy to find questioning the so-called "million-dollar bonus" confered on the lifetime earnings of a university graduate, over someone who only has a high school diploma. Last year, a study reported in the Globe & Mail upped that ante to $1.3 million, but in the next sentences suggested the number crunchers were filtering results through rose-coloured glasses.

The high tuition costs, the high average debt load required to complete a degree, the years spent out of the workforce (especially for those seeking an advanced degree), and the declining employment prospects for careers related to the field of study should be enough to give a high school student pause before jumping into a university-track program. But they don't. Entrance numbers at universities continue to rise, while trades go begging for skilled workers.

A new program at Red Deer College looks like it might cause some students – and their parents – to pause a little longer.

RDC will complete its first year of a pilot project next June, wherein high school teachers get specialized training in teaching five different trades: hairstyling, cooking, welding, automotives and carpentry. You need an education degree to take the one-year course, and when you come out, you will be qualified to teach that trade to the point where a high school grad could have their first year apprenticeship already signed off.

Instead of graduating high school and entering a trade, the students of these teachers are already qualified to enter the workforce at a higher salary. What's bonus on that?

I looked up a federal government employment site, and the numbers look pretty impressive, especially in the first years.

The site put a first-year construction worker's pay in Calgary at up to $57,000. The top rate of pay – third level – came to $66,500. A starting electrician makes anywhere from $45,000 to $63,000 (don't ask me why the range is so large). A welder starts out at $57,000, according to the site, although that seems a little low, from what I'm hearing of the trade.

A graduating engineer can start out at $69,000, with pay at peak of career at around $140,000. Quite a premium over the trades, don't you think?

But you need a minimum four years of university, requiring an average $40,000 of student debt – and I've seen engineering grads take more than a year to find a job after graduating. In that space of time, a welder's pay can approach six figures, with a career head-start of earnings well over a quarter-million dollars, and no debt incurred to get it.

It would take a long time – a lifetime – for the engineer's million-dollar bonus to be realized.

Here's my point: high school students should be thinking more about how their education can help them achieve their goals in life, rather than believing the only career path that's worthy of them goes through university. 

In my time, high school was mostly aimed at preparing people for university, and the trades wing was definitely considered the "secondary" part of secondary education. Today, if we're using high school to prepare students for success, the trades route is looking a whole lot more attractive.

Good on those teachers involved in the RDC program. Their extra year of education can bump their pay by another $3,000 a year – which represents a pretty high rate of return on the investment.

The bonus for their students will be substantial. Enough to give their parents pause in any serious discussion held with high school-aged students about what they want to do after graduating.