The availability of alternative pathways to post-secondary education is limited to student loans, a variety of financial aid programs, partial scholarships, or possibly settling for correspondence courses or trade schools. Securing the financial capacity to support four or more years of college may be impossible and for some families it’s simply an extreme hardship with many struggles.
Cooperative Education programs are becoming more easily accessible and widely available and provide immeasurable value to all college bound students. In addition to helping students pay tuition costs, students learn responsibility, work ethic and may gain a competitive edge in the workforce. Real-world, on-the-job work experience just might be the one thing that makes you stand out among the 2 million unemployed college graduates, under the age of 25.
2010 unemployment statistics identify the value of a college degree by comparing unemployment rates of individuals without a high school diploma (15%), with a high school diploma (11%), some level of post-secondary education (9% average) and college graduates with a Bachelor’s degree or higher (slightly below 5%), indicating that having a college degree is advantageous and is still preferred by employers, even in a recession followed by an economic downturn.
Information available from the Bureau of Labor Statistics identifies a large discrepancy between the national unemployment rates of 9.8% compared to the unemployment rate of nearly 19% for young adults under the age of 25.
Cooperative Education programs are designed to combine classroom based education with work experience opportunities in which students can earn academic credit while learning valuable work skills. Labor statistics show that having a college degree helps people find a job and keep a job longer compared to those who do not have a college education or any form of post-secondary training.
Cooperative education programs are quickly being adopted by more and more schools because colleges have found that it is a great way to maintain enrollment numbers, while giving their students a competitive academic and professional edge. Participating in a cooperative education program has many advantages and students can earn an average of $2000 to $2500 a month toward tuition and the expenses of room and board if living on campus.
For more information contact your State and US Department of Education Offices to find out what programs are currently available. Additionally, an internet search for cooperative college education programs yields both state, local and federal programs that are available to support students who what to attend college.
