Page 78 - 914INC - July/August 2022

“The tide is definitely turning in favor of young people
who are choosing skills development and technical training,” says Mascetta, a CIC Board of Directors member. “As an organization, 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.”
Mary Jane Bertram, regional director of the Workforce Development Institute, says apprenticeships are increasingly being discussed in workforce development circles. “I see a tidal shift in both thinking and actions. Right now, the buzzword is apprenticeship; it’s the gold standard that the building trades have created. Thinking among parents and administrators that apprenticeship in the building trades leads to middle-class life and family-sustaining wages is definitely on the rise.”
“Parents are realizing their kids can become part of a paid apprenticeship training program and make $80,000 a year versus coming out
of college without a job and
“Student loan debt today is as shocking as it is staggering — it is now the second-highest consumer debt category in the U.S., behind home mortgage debt. ... It’s personal debt,
which takes a lot of oxygen of opportunity out of the family household budget, month after month, year after year.”
—John Cooney, Jr., CIC Executive Director
watched students and their families sign on to obligations that now exceed $1.6 trillion.”
Cooney adds, “And think about where that debt is located — it is not corporate or institutional debt. It’s personal debt, which takes a lot of oxygen of opportunity out of the family household budget, month after month, year after year.”
Sadly, the level of student debt is expected to grow dramatically unless something is done to reimagine how we as a nation fund education and skills development, and how we measure achievement and success, Cooney notes.
Besides putting off the opportunity to start earning money instead of taking on the financial obligations of college tuition, those heading to college lose valuable time building career networks and associations — what we call “contacts” — whom you can call on for mentoring or job opportunities later on.
Let’s start fresh and recognize that career and technical education develops a well-educated and skilled workforce that meets the present-day job market. The level of skills needed today, coupled with never-ending innovations in business and industry, requires constant learning.
Employment in the construction industry was busy before and during the pandemic, and the ongoing training and skills development needed in the future just to build “clean” and green buildings and retrofit older ones is enormous.
TOMORROW’S WORKFORCE IS HERE
“I’m excited to see dramatic success stories of skills and technical knowledge acquisition that can be found here in the lower Hudson Valley,” Mascetta says. “These young adults
are headed for the hundreds of technical careers with good salaries that beckon today, without the financial encumbrances of four-year college tuition costs. Here’s where ongoing training and education meet opportunity — where a head
start in a good-paying career can prove to be priceless for the eager and ambitious.”
CONTACTS:
Mary Jane Bertram: mjbertram@wdiny.org John Cooney, Jr.: john@cicnys.org
William Mascetta: wmascetta@transitcorp.com
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being $150,000 in debt.”
—Mary Jane Bertram,
Workforce Development Institute
Bertram is critical of parents who claim “bragging rights” about the cost of college tuition and the size of education
debt they incur for their children. “There’s this misguided one- upmanship about how expensive their tuition bills are that has become a sort of status symbol. We have to reach the kids and the parents and change that thinking. The school guidance counselors must start to embrace different metrics for what success is. College is not the only measure of success.
“The lBEW [International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers] has college credits. Parents are realizing their kids can become part of a paid apprenticeship training program and make $80,000 a year versus coming out of college without a job and being $150,000 in debt.”
A pre-apprenticeship program that concluded in Rock Tavern in Orange County this May graduated 14 students to bona fide union apprenticeships in the building trades, and six of the graduates were female. “This program is a perfect example of a pathway to a productive and meaningful career through on-the job training,” Bertram notes.
CIC Executive Director John Cooney, Jr. says, “Student loan debt today is as shocking as it is staggering — it is now the second-highest consumer debt category in the U.S., behind home mortgage debt.” He notes that as a nation, “We’ve