Why College Isn't for Everyone, Especially Those Pursuing Vocational and Technical Jobs

High school counselors often advise students to attend college, after high school, encouraging them to believe it’s the only way to land a good job and start a career. Parents usually repeat the counselors advice and encourage their kids to pursue a college degree.

40 percent of students who attend college, dropout and never graduate, yet, there are a whole list of jobs out there where they can still be successful. BenchPrep partners with organizations like ACT WorkKeys® to help folks looking to build essential career-relevant skills, without necessarily obtaining a college degree in that field.

"By placing our WorkKeys Curriculum on BenchPrep's modernized user interface, we can offer more dynamic content to help improve the experience for job seekers and employers using the WorkKeys Assessments," said Chief Commercial Officer, Suzana Delanghe.

It's problematic that high schools are trying to prepare students for college when that might not be their best option. Additionally, many schools are reducing vocational classes as a Chicago Sun-Times article highlights:

In Chicago schools, vocational classes have been severely reduced, and schools and programs entirely dismantled over the past two decades. This is bad news for students, and bad news for the city as it competes for Amazon’s new headquarters, which comes with 50,000 jobs, many requiring not college degrees, but vocational education.

According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, 68 percent of high school graduates go to college. This means that absent vocational training,  32 percent of our young people are unqualified for a job with which they can lift themselves out of poverty.

Continue reading to learn how this problem can be resolved.