MAPP Career Minute

The Most Overlooked Way to Save on College Tuition

 

College tuition is running in the tens of thousands of dollars, and costs are only rising.

Smart parents started saving when their children were toddlers. But there’s another smart strategy that’s often overlooked: career testing before the student heads off for higher education.

Before the recession and for many years, young people enrolled in colleges and universities without having a clear sense of direction and the potential careers they were best suited for. Now, they're getting out of school and entering the worst job market since WWII.

Many parents who looked forward to having an empty nest now have the opposite: children who are coming back after graduating from college because they can’t land a job other than pushing papers or flipping burgers.

The problem is that the kids are heading off to college without a clear career strategy. When they finally graduate, they don’t have a clue what career they are best suited for.

These interesting facts about students demonstrate there’s a lot of uncertainty about their educational and career choices:

• One out of five students change their major between admission and first day of class.

• Nearly three out of four students change majors at least twice before they graduate.

• Students graduating from high school today will change jobs 10 to 15 times over the course of their working lives and change careers as many as three or four times.

 A career test can save literally thousands of dollars in educational and career missteps by helping students focus their studies on coursework that will help prepare them for a career that's right for them. 

Beware of Standing Still in your Career

Standing still is the old “going backwards.” You need to constantly upgrade your skills to keep your career on track.

Even those people who are lucky enough to have a steady, stable job in this economy have to stay on their toes. Resting on your “laurels” or standing still is about as dangerous as playing “Farmville” during your work hours.

Most people need to be constantly learning new skills in order to stay current in their career. It’s usually easy and often free to keep up in your field by reading the wealth of information that’s on the Web, attending seminars and Webinars and participating in industry and trade meetings.

Here are five obvious signs that it’s important to stay on the learning treadmill as long as you’re working:

1.     Today’s education will be obsolete tomorrow.  Just look at the TV ads for educational institutions that promise “degree programs to fit today’s marketplace.” The implication is that some programs – possibly the one you graduated from – are out of date.  For example, many top business schools are incorporating classes in social media in their coursework. Today’s courses look much different than the ones of only several years ago.

2.     Technology is evolving at warp speed.  As quickly as you learn new technology, it will change. Consider how often the technologies around music, gaming and all types of computing are evolving. Chances are good that you’ll have to learn several new technologies a year to do your job.

3.     Communications has changed. When was the last time you saw a pink message pad? Connectivity has not only changed how we communicate, it has changed how we conduct business, find customers, make purchasing decisions and even invite friends to a party.

4.     Entire career fields have vanished. No career is safe, really. Newspaper jobs, once a hot field, are disappearing. When venerable institutions such as big newspapers and newswires can be threatened, any career field is at risk.

5.     The players are constantly changing. Baby Boomers already know what it’s like to have to adapt to younger generations as they enter the workforce. Millennials beware! Newer generations, with fresh ideas, are right behind you.