Rep. Barbara Lee:

More people with bachelor’s degrees go back to school to learn skilled trades

By Jon Marcus @ WashingtonPost.com, Nov. 20

[...] “I was part of that generation that was told to go to college, so that’s what I did,” Michael Kelly said with a shrug. “That’s what we were supposed to do.”

But after getting a bachelor’s degree in political science — for which he’s still paying off his student loans — Kelly realized that what he actually wanted to do was become a firefighter. After all, he said, unlike a politician, no one is ever angry to see a firefighter show up.

“I spent a lot of money to end up doing . . . this,” said Kelly, who is now 28, as his colleagues stowed the equipment before they filed back into a classroom.

A lot of other people also have invested time and money getting four-year degrees only to return for career and technical education in fields ranging from firefighting to automation to nursing, in which jobs are relatively plentiful and salaries and benefits comparatively good, but which require faster and far less costly certificates and associate degrees

One in 12 students now at community colleges — or more than 940,000 — previously earned a bachelor’s degree, according to the American Association of Community Colleges. And even as college and university enrollment overall declines, some career and technical education programs are reporting growth, and anticipating more of it.

“I thought I was the only one following this road, but apparently a lot of people are,” said Noor Al-Hamdani, 26, who is getting an associate degree in nursing at Fresno City College, a community college, after having already earned a bachelor’s degree in public health from California State University at Fresno.

In some cases, bachelor’s degree-holders are obtaining supplementary skills — computer science majors adding certificates in cloud technology, for example [....]