Opening up a “food for the mind” thread. I would enjoy to hear all of your opinions on this.
For what?
For being an RN, sure.
For being a doctor, not so much.
There are lots of successful people in my town who have Associates Degrees. One thing they have in common is they are all hard workers. They don’t have the book smarts, but they have plain common sense. I know one or two who might have been better off never getting the degree as it went to their heads.
I don’t think the data for earnings indicates that it is enough although it heads in the right direction. I’m sure there are lots of outliers, however. See:
http://www.pewsocialtrends.org/2014/02/11/the-rising-cost-of-not-going-to-college/
In our CC, even folks who start out in certificate programs in the medical firled are STRONGLY being encouraged to get a BS from college as well, so they will have more promotion and other options in their professions. An AA is definitely better than a HS or GED, especially if you get a certificate in a field you want to pursue and there are jobs in that field.
Many urban hospitals are not hiring RNs without BSNs or at least BSN in progress.
A two yr program, is a good start, particularly if you have a transfer agreement with an instate university to allow you to enter as a junior. But generally those courses are not enough to allow you to major in anything.
Some employers, will pay for you to get a two yr technical certificate, which may be enough for a career, or you may need to eventually start over and get a degree to advance.
My niece has an LPN, and has a great job, although she has also been working online on her BSN.
I teach at a cc (not in nursing) and our area is experiencing the same thing, @mominva. It used to be the hospitals had no preference between ASN and BSN, but the shift in hiring has led our state to adjust the nursing curriculum. Previously, ASN students could take Applied Math, but they now must take College Algebra so they can go on to a BSN program. As someone who is aging, I personally like that there are more barriers to entry so I will have a quality nurse at my bedside someday:)
Our Physical Therapy Assistant graduates make $70,000+ upon graduation and some of our IT grads are recruited for strong salaries as well. While that won’t put you in the top 1%, it is more than all but a rare few faculty members make.
That’s amazing, 2VU0609.
The average income of physical therapists is $82,000 and most have had to earn a Ph.d, although my favorite PT squeaked by, when just a graduate degree was required.
I have gone to several PTs in the last twenty years and none have used a PT asst. Do they mainly work in hospitals?
http://www.bls.gov/ooh/healthcare/physical-therapists.htm
ek, I believe that locally a PT makes 6 figures, so our faculty members teaching in that program take a serious salary cut when they begin teaching. Of course, they get more flexibility and summers off. The PTA program takes a limited number of students per year. It’s either 12 or 16 - can’t remember for sure. I’m not sure where all the graduates land employment wise. Our small city is a central point between larger cities 2-3 hours away - Nashville, Memphis, St. Louis, Louisville. Our health care employment is very strong. Perhaps every grad doesn’t bring in that salary, but many do from what I hear on campus.
Sorry, I didn’t mean to derail the thread with the RN thing. It was just the first thing that popped into my head 
ive seen where my PT lives, I really doubt that she makes six figures and this is a very affluent area.
From checking sites like salary.com & monster, for that area, the pay is below six figures even for those on the upper end of scale, not saying that the returning students don’t say they are making six figures. Perhaps they are adding the worth of benefits.
However, it sounds very interesting. I’m looking to change fields myself, maybe I should consider it!
Health care is a good field to enter, especially if you are not planning to become a physician. I was just talking earlier this week with a woman who is one of the first PAs after a physicians organization got together and asked Duke to start a program. ( she already had a BA however) you’ve probably noticed that even Drs offices now have more PAs than nurses.
I know quite a few people who have gotten a two yr degree to enable them to change careers, but that was after they had at least a BA. ( the H of a friend, was an English prof who didn’t get tenure, and he got his RN from a community college, and is now much happier than he ever was in the English dept) Some schools like Antioch, are flexible about granting credit for life experience, and The Evergreen State College used to grant " upside down" degrees, although I am not sure if they still do. They would allow students who had a specialized two yr program from an accredited college, to recieve a BA from Evergreen after taking two years of liberal arts courses. Otherwise technical credits from a community college are usually not transferable.
Some fields, like that of my H, did not originally require college credit, but now they do. He was able to learn on the job as the field evolved, but now they want workers who can hit the ground running, so to speak, even if the classroom environment isn’t anything like the factory floor.
As the high schools in our area have all but eliminated vocational training, in lieu of adding AP courses, graduates who aren’t planning to attend a 4 yr school do not have much choice but to enter a one or two yr program. I just hope that they enter an accredited community college or vocational school, rather than one of the for profit schools, which charge a lot, but graduates have difficulty paying back loans.
http://www.nacacnet.org/issues-action/LegislativeNews/Pages/For-Profit-Colleges.aspx
Back to the broader original premise, I believe that the role of a cc (or a 4 year college that grants AA/AS degrees) is to either cool out or warm up most of their students. While many students have aspirational career dreams, cc experiences provide the opportunity to match their individual realities with an academic plan that optimizes their abilities. Others use the experience to gain confidence and build some steam as they move forward to a bachelors or other advanced degree.
I agree with the President’s argument that everyone needs at least two years beyond a high school education. By that, I mean two real years that don’t include remediation of high school deficiencies. Some of us are cut out to be trained for a specific career and associates degrees evidence mastery of such training. For those who are going on to engage in careers that require higher level critical thinking, I would argue that a more advanced degree is the appropriate choice. Entry level gen ed courses and technical courses focus more on memorization than application and don’t foster that critical thinking piece in the way that upper level university courses do.
Yes a two year degree can be enough for certain professions. A paramedic, for example.
Associates degrees have a place, depending upon field and region of the country. One thing to be aware of is that for some jobs that could be done with an associates degree, you are competing with candidates with a BA or BS degree.
In this case, the resume could wind up in a different pile, based on absence of a 4 year degree.
We know someone with 20 years of experience, culminating at a VP level, who is finding their associates degree a stumbling block in a current job search. Particularly likely to be an issue in areas where most applicants have higher degrees. Years ago, that degree was enough to get a highly successful career launched.
OP made some posts a while back showing an interest in computer science and other STEM fields. For the physical sciences and engineering, the answer is pretty much NO. You need a BS today just to be a lab tech.
If you still have an interest in computers, there are some places who will hire you with an AAS (not an AS) to do the lowest kind of scut work, like running cables and updating software on, say, 200 desktop computers in an office somewhere. Most people want to get out of those jobs quickly. They get promoted after they finish their BS online or in the evenings.
A former student of mine earned an associates in [something] about 5 years ago. I see him every couple months when he services the copy machines in my building. Maybe he likes it.
My daughter who is a COTA has a full-time job (benefits/3 weeks PTO, etc) with a base income close to double what the Pew article quoted for 2 yr degrees (no quite what @2VU0609 stated for PTAs in her/his area.) She makes 1 1/2x for overtime and willingly works about 10hrs over per week.
PTAs in our area make less than COTAs (according to my daughter who works with a large combo of therapists) b/c there is a surplus of PTAs. Similar to @2VU0609 's description, there is only 1 Allied Health OTA program in our state and they only accept 35 students/yr.
It depends on your field. My son always struggled a bit academically. High IQ but had a learning disability (dysgraphia) & it really affected his confidence (later in High School some teachers said they could test him verbally on a subject and he’d ace it, in writing he’d flunk the same test). Anyway he tried college, dropped out, got tired of living paycheck to paycheck and went back and got an associate degree in process technology (a teacher friend of ours suggested the program to him). 4 years later he is making over $100k a year. (He is an extremely hard worker).
I always think of my friend who had a PhD in some detailed intersection of Botany and Geography. After searching for an academic position he went to the community college and got training as a computer programmer, which gave him a career. But this was 20 years ago now, not sure if the field is still in need of 2 year grads.
As an Associate Degree holder myself, I’d say it is inadequate. I have made a fine livelihood as a hospital RN, but have longed for the out of hospital opportunities made possible by a BSN or higher. These days the ADN grads are not typically hired by the hospital, and are required to work on the BSN within a certain time frame, if they do get hired due to being employed previously in the hospital.
Getting education at the start of adult life tends to be easier than later, when busy with kids and mortgages. However, the will and sometimes financing for the education is another question.
And…there are tech niches filled by Associate Degree programs that provide easier employment and a better living for less cost than 4 year degrees. Given an option, yes, 4 year. For some others, the ability to make a living is enough, as it felt when I was entering my program with no funds for education.