Education is important. Everyone knows this, and it’s been a cornerstone of social policy for a century as educational opportunities have grown and expanded over time. However, there has been a longstanding debate in the educational community about how best to balance technical education with humanities education and which will benefit students more in the long run. In recent years, however, there has been a strong push to emphasize STEM and technical education and to reduce the footprint of the humanities in order to provide student with practical skills that will benefit them in the job market—and reduce the burden on companies in terms of what they need to train new recruits to do when they hire graduates for STEM positions.
In this article, we’ll take a look at the importance of technical education and how it can benefit students throughout their lives, even if they do not pursue a STEM career.
Why Choose Technical Education?
Because education is so important, most students believe that the money they invest in a college or university education needs to pay off. That means that they expect the degree they earn to open doors to better employment opportunities. Studies and surveys routinely find that technical education is a superior return on investment and yields better job opportunities than most degrees in the humanities. Graduates from technical colleges are much less likely to struggle to find jobs because of the rapid growth in technical fields and the high demand for high-quality, trained workers to fill them. Graduates of technical programs tend to have higher starting salaries, a greater range of employment options and opportunities, and shorter job searches than students in other fields.
It’s widely believed that over the next decade there will continue to be a shortage of skilled technical workers to fill the growing number of positions available. As a result, graduates will be in a great negotiating position to get more for their labor because of the low supply and high demand for workers with their skills and knowledge. In many cases, students can begin working professionally with as little as two semesters of training, and your earning potential will only rise if you complete your certificate or degree program in a technical field.
Technical vs. Liberal Education
Traditionally, liberal arts education has been the key to advancement because it was a path to graduate school, white collar jobs, and the type of broadly applicable general knowledge employers valued. However, in recent years, employers have deemphasized the importance of general knowledge and liberal arts education as they have sought increasingly specific technical skills from their employees. As a result, fields like literature, English, philosophy, and the arts have lost some of their luster. Often, students pursuing one of these fields are asked what they intend to do with their degree, and for many, the answer is that they plan to enter academia and use their degree to teach the next generation of students seeking the same degree. As a result, students who are looking to apply their education are turning toward STEM fields and technical education to make a difference in the world.
Advantages of Technical Education
One of the major advantages of a technical education is that you can complete technical training and begin earning money faster than by pursuing a traditional four-year college degree. Many technical programs offer certificates after a year or associates degrees after two years that can open the door to higher pay and better job opportunities. If you choose a four-year program in a technical field or in STEM field, the extra education will further enhance your earning potential. Many technical programs, being shorter, are also more affordable, allowing students to enter the workplace with less debt and a faster path to paying back the cost of their education.
A Warning about Technical Schools
However, it’s important to choose the right technical school for your education. The technical education field has been long dominated by for-profit schools that make big promises and deliver few results. Many of these schools traditionally employed a predatory model of enrolling students who were likely to fail out of a program in order to take advantage of government payment programs, utilizing their student loans to fund operations and saddling students with debt they could not repay. While several of these predatory institutions have now closed, it is still essential to look for a school that is right four your situation and your needs. In many cases, a not-for-profit technical school will be the better choice. These schools often have a better track record of student success because they have less incentive to encourage student debt in order to profit from their loans.
Seeking Help with STEM Education
Students pursuing technical and STEM education sometimes find the academic side of their education more challenging, which is why they increasingly turn to online experts for help with STEM assignments. When you pay someone to do homework for you, you can free yourself from the challenges of the academic side of your education so you can focus on building skills and knowledge rather than merely completing busywork for a grade. Homework assistance from a service like MyAssignmentLab.com can connect you with an educated and experienced helper who can show you exactly how an expert would approach your homework so you can skip ahead to a complete homework assignment.