I was looking at the State of Michigan’s high-wage, high-demand jobs list today. The website is meant to offer some career guidance to people who want to make the most of a college education. The site provides wage ranges and degree requirements for jobs in high demand in the state.
I need to question why the state would publish such a document. If it’s out-of-date, someone should either update it or take it down. For high school graduates who have no post-secondary education, the “high demand” jobs have a low-end range of between $10 and $16 per hour. Annualized, that’s $20,800 – $33,300 per year. I’m sure employers have an enormous demand for workers at low pay rates, but there’s a simple reason why their jobs have gone unfilled. It’s not that “no one wants to work anymore.” Rather, it’s that no one wants to work for $10 per hour because no one can make ends meet on less than $21,000 per year.
Certainly, the point of publishing wage data for jobs that don’t require any post-secondary education might be to entice recent (or not-so-recent) high school graduates back into the classroom. But the jobs listed there don’t represent any real opportunity, and there are probably better ways to convince someone that returning to school will lead to better personal economics. The State shouldn’t promote work in those fields at all.
Most certificate programs suffer the same plight. Only 3 of about two dozen potential careers have high-wage salaries at $25/hour or above. These jobs don’t just require a certificate, though. They require certification, which is much different than earning a certificate. In addition, these jobs require significant on-the-job training (think thousands of hours) before the worker can earn the advertised high-wage salary.
Modifying high-wage programs to make the student more employable
The “associate degree” column has a mixture of high-wage jobs, but only four of the two-dozen potential occupations would allow a person to live and work in Washtenaw County. If anything, the list underscores the need for places like WCC to be exceptionally cognizant that it operates in a high-cost county. It’s academic programs and career counseling needs to be attuned to the fact that a worker will need to earn 20%-25% more than the state average to remain in Washtenaw County.
To achieve that, WCC should pair its high-wage programs with certifications or advanced certificates that will enable graduates to bring more marketable skills to the workplace. Academic counseling should be a requirement for students in the first semesters of their enrollment. Creating a completion plan that takes into account the need to earn a higher salary if they intend to remain in Washtenaw County will help students remain on track to complete an academic program.
The same approach could apply to students who intend to transfer to a four-year university. Knowing immediately which classes transfer and how to get universities to evaluate prospective transfer credits when no agreement is in place will save transfer students time and money. It’s also likely to increase the graduation rate and may also improve the 4-year completion rate once they transfer to a university.
Improving its academic programs, its graduation rate, and its transfer outcomes are the only ways that WCC will remain competitive in the coming years. Failing to address these three indicators will ensure that WCC doesn’t survive.
Photo Credit: Churl, via Flickr
