Future Ready best left to the experts

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CHUCK
VANDENBERG
In my generation, a four-year degree was the path often taken. "Get your degree" my mom would say. It took me a while to get my crap together, but I got it done. I graduated in 1993, and I honestly don't remember how much I paid for my school. I got some grant money and had to take out some loans. I think I finished paying them off about 10 years ago. I took journalism classes from actual journalists. I think about that a lot. These guys left the field to teach...and get paid probably more than they made in the field. One such teacher did a stint with the Boston Globe, one had a career at smaller Midwestern newspapers. My photography teacher was an older Asian man who taught me how to roll film in a dark room, and mix Dektol. I'm not sure that I couldn't or wouldn't have learned the same thing just going into the field. Or interning...or taking an apprenticeship. I did that to some degree. I was a stringer at the Burlington Hawk-Eye for years learning to cover high school sports. I think I could have kept doing that, seriously, and maybe have turned it into something full-time. The journalism law stuff was learned in school. For sure I've used that many times, but I think a solid editor would have coached me through that. What's the point of all this garbage? I'm disenfranchised with a college degree. I think that doctors and lawyers need to go to college, biophysicists, oh..and the people that create medicines that save our loved one's lives. They need to go to college, too. We count on them. I count on them. They made insulin and they made Letaris, both drugs that keep my youngest daughter alive. She's in college today, too. A college that I grew up wanting to go to and hoping some day my children would go to. The same college, that on Tuesday, had a group of guys get in the elevator with my daughter and scare her by jumping up and down in the elevator. And then saying, "Scoot to the back bitch." Seriously.... I just want to patrol the elevator for Monster-drinking egomaniacs with my 3-wood. I hit that better. So yeah, I'm a little disenfranchised with colleges. Short of parents being in a position to squirrel away savings and pay out of pocket for college (which now exceeds more than $100,000 for a four-year degree all in) or scholarships. Parents through the Federal Parent Plus loan buy a new home every time a child goes to college. That's what it costs. But local and state officials are putting together programming that reaches out to high school students at a younger age to showcase the value of a two-year degree, certificate program, or vocational program. Trisha Hopper teaches a great program at SCC that awards Associates of Applied Sciences degrees in just two years. Those folks are in the workforce with those degrees making money. The junior college is stepping up with other programs for vocations like welding, maintenance, etc. At a fraction of the cost of four-year schools. I spent a couple hours Tuesday listening to area economic development officials wrack their brains on how to fill skilled labor positions in southeast Iowa as part of Governor Kim Reynolds' Future Ready Iowa initiative. In a nutshell, Reynolds wants to add 130,000 Iowans to the list of those with some form of post-secondary certificate or degree by 2025. That's in six years. The state started the initiative at 58.3% so as Reynolds said, "We were in a pretty place to start." I don't know how many high school or junior high students for that matter, read Beside the Point, but I know some parents do. Have that conversation with your child. There are great jobs right here in southeast Iowa...good paying jobs, and how great would it be to have no college debt, or at least a greatly reduced amount of debt, and then go into the workforce and earn money rather than spending it. FMHS Principal Greg Smith has been building and rebuilding vocational programs at the high school since he took over as principal. He spoke Tuesday at the Future Ready summit in Burlington. Huffman Welding & Manufacturing's Jason Huffman and Brian Langerud of Pinnacle also spoke. Clearly these folks are way smarter than I am at looking at those synergies and how we help employers and students at the same time. They are expending energy and time trying to work together with industries who, right now, have good paying jobs they can't fill. Educators are working with industry leaders to create programs, and industries are helping educators create curriculums. They're the smart and effective players here. I'm just the one that gets to write to our readership and inform them of the good things going on. And encourage you to have those conversations with your children. And wasn't it great to see area artists sitting around our town on Sunday drawing and painting....and chalking, our buildings and landscapes as part of the Art-in-Central Park's Plein Air art competition. I had a chance to talk to a few of them and they were really excited about the competition being added in Lee County. But that's Beside the Point.
Chuck Vandenberg, Column, Editor, editorial, Future Ready Iowa, Greg Smith, HUffman, opinion, Pen City Current, Pinnacle

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