Margaret
Houston,#2Consumer Suggestion
Thu, May 31, 2007
I was raised in Louisiana and have resided in Texas for the last 16 years. I attended college and Vo Tech Education in both states. although I am unfamiliar with the other 48 states educational systems, let me explain something about the difference in public Vo -Tech Education and a private career technical school. Louisiana is a notoriously poor state, and most work there consists of the blue collar type of employment. Louisiana has public Vocational and Technical schools there because community college was pretty much non exisitant there until the mid 90's Some examples of this are the following schools I am familiar with. TH HArris Vo Tech, Opelousas, Louisiana and Lafayette Regional Technical, in Lafayette, Louisiana. Lets say a person is interested in taking something like Medical/Nursing/Pharmacy Assistant, Aircraft Mechanic, NDT, Business Office/Secretarial they pay a small tuition, say 200.00 for a quarter and pay for all their own books, and supplies. Student aid is offered. All the instructors are definately cerfified. The schools are run by the state public education system so they know that they cannot charge a person 25,000 to become a Nurse Assistant whose average wages are 9.00 an hour. My ex husband attened the public vo tech school in LAfayette, Louisiana and took Electronics Technology. When all was said and done he had paid approx. total 3,000 in tuition and another 1000 in books and supplies, and places like ITT Tech are charging people 50,000. Its a BIG SCAM! MY ex got an excellent post secondary education and even the opportunity to work for NASA. I do not know if other states have public vo tech education, however if a person wants to major in Criminal Justice go to either a 2 or 4 year college because if one wants to become a police officer, they will need at least 60 credit hours from either a 2 0r 4 year state college, not a private career school. Now if a person wants to take something like Sound & Recording Engineer they can attend a specialty private career school because most 2 year colleges or public vo tech schools will not offer this. But even with that said, still investigate the school and do your homework and stay on top of things and then you won't get a big SCAM!! If people would just investigate their state's employment web pages, average wages are stated for various careers and those wages are not some uninformed sales recruiter making a bogus sales pitch saying someone can earn 15.00 an hour as a nurse assistant. I have attended community college (Texas) 4 year college (Louisiana) and a for profit career school on line, however those studies were more about personal enrichment and additional knowledgement more than transferring credit courses. When I transferred my college credit from Louisiana I had 25 credit hours, Texas only accepted 15 and I had to take a CLEP test to test out of the rest of my English courses. If every future student in the US would accept this advice, they would all be much better off and for profit careeer schools with heavy handed sales tactics would be curbed down to very specialty schools and education for more comman careers would shift exclusively to community colleges and public vo tech schools if offered in their state.