Page 18 - Skills 2022

SPONSORED CONTENT
A PATHWAY TO PRODUCTIVE,
MEANINGFUL CAREERS
WITHOUT INCURRING DEBILITATING DEBT
There’s new hope in the fields of education and and is an adviser to Saunders Trades and Technical High
training — that apprenticeship programs and community colleges will provide a reliable pathway to middle-class financial security for graduating students
as well as a dependable pipeline of well-trained employees for companies. Apprenticeship programs are particularly valuable because they allow students to earn while they learn.
“Now is the time for some serious self-examination on the part of parents and students who are faced with the choice of pursing a college education or instead going the route of skills training that offers different opportunities for success,” says William Mascetta, president and co-founder of Transit Construction Corp. of Yonkers. “If we overlook the temporary disruption in job growth caused by the pandemic, since
the beginning of the decade only 30% of the 56 million job openings created at the start of the decade required a four- year degree. When New York City returned to work after the COVID pause, at least 44% of the jobs that returned did not require a four-year college degree.”
Mascetta volunteers as a chairman of the Yonkers Public Schools Career and Technical Education Advisory Council
School in his native Yonkers. (He also serves as chairman of the Louis G. Nappi Management & Labor Scholarship Program, which is administered by the Construction Industry Council of Westchester & Hudson Valley, Inc.)
“We are very supportive of policies that would allow, for example, students who want to become electricians to participate in qualified apprenticeship curriculums
that would earn them college credits. That’s
a game changer for a lot of people struggling to choose between going to work and going to college, when they can’t do both.”
—William Mascetta, Transit Construction Corp.
© Construction Industry Council