Some college graduates, seeking jobs, head back to tech school

By Johnny Dickerson
Edited by Tiffany Melanis

Midlands Tech students David Rosansky and Bryant Roberts have bachelor's degrees, but they're headed back to technical school because like many recent college graduates, they haven't been able to find stable jobs.

Rosansky has a political science degree and was thinking about law school until he looked at the soft job market for lawyers. Now, he's pursuing nursing.

Roberts, who also is training to become a nurse after spending two months unemployed, has some advice for high school students: "Have a plan." And Rosansky says it might be worth taking some time off before heading to college.

Roberts graduated from Presbyterian College in 2003 with a history degree and worked for Wells Fargo in sales for seven years. But when that position was eliminated, he was out of work, and the prospects of finding employment seemed bleak.

Roberts said that after receiving some career counseling he discovered nursing. He said he had never thought about going into nursing before, but likes helping people and plans on doing that for a living by next fall.

Jana Ancone, Midlands Tech nursing department chairwoman, said that she doesn't think there has been a significant increase in students with bachelor's degrees coming into nursing. But, she said, there's always some going back to school for nursing, and there has never been much out there for some bachelor's degrees.

Seventy-one percent of those asked in a recent Associated Press poll think it's sometimes better for students to pursue a diploma or certificate from a two-year school than aim to enter a four-year college.

Roberts said he had a good time at Presbyterian and loved being a history major.

"I just went figuring I'd get a job when I got out," he said.

He now considers certain bachelor's degrees like his "dying breeds."

Roberts recommends looking at available jobs before choosing what to study.

Rosansky said students should consider taking a year off to work between high school and college and that they should consider a vocational education.

Daniel Sabia, University of South Carolina political science department chairman, said this kind of advice doesn't concern him.

"We need people with vocational degrees," he said.

But businesses are looking to hire people who can read, write and speak, and that's what political science teaches, Sabia said.

There's always a role for people with all sorts of degrees, said George Niebling, assistant director for the National Institute for the Study of Transfer Students.

"I don't think the demand level for any type of degree is declining," he said.

It is the supply of college-educated workers that we should be worrying about, according to a report by Georgetown University's Center on Education and the Workforce.

"Help Wanted: Projections of Jobs and Education Requirements Through 2018," said that in eight years, America's education system will have produced 3 million fewer college graduates than demanded by the labor market.

The report, released in June, estimated that it will take at least two more years for the economy to reach pre-recession employment levels and from there three more to make up for lost growth so that the job market is strong enough to employ both the casualties of the recession and millions of new workers.

But the U.S. is slowly coming out of the recession only to find itself on a collision course with the future and not enough Americans completing college, according to the report.

Allan Richard, spokesman for the Southern Regional Education Board, says Southern states need to drastically increase the number of students with all types of degrees, especially technical degrees.

But as America begins to recover from the recession, even some of those who do have college degrees are having trouble finding stable jobs.