He says the problem with those averages is that people who work at RadioShack or Target get lumped in with master carpenters and electricians. "Averages lie," says Anthony Carnevale, the director of the Georgetown University Center on Education and the Workforce. But there is plenty of nuance behind that truth. On average, it is certainly true that people with a four-year college degree make more money than those with a two-year degree or less. Starting base pay is about $58,000 a year. Not bad for $1,200 a semester.Īfter graduating, 90 percent of the students get jobs with the power utility NStar (which is in the process of changing its name to Eversource Energy). Then there are the classes directly related to power utility work: DC theory, AC theory, physics, engineering and business etiquette. Hughes is also getting a lot of on-the-job training and taking a wide range of courses at the community college: English, math, a computer science course and even a psychology group dynamics class. Hughes says she's been paying that herself, and so she expects to graduate with no debt. Hughes has some scholarships and NStar pays some of the cost, so for Hughes, the price tag works out to about $1,200 a semester. were like $40,000 a year." In the long run she thought that was just too much.īy comparison, NStar is partnering with nearby Bunker Hill Community College to offer students the opportunity to earn a two-year associate degree. "The student loans would be ridiculous," Hughes says during a break from class. Hughes says another thing that's great is that taking this path into the high-skilled trades is a lot cheaper than a four-year college would have been. On her apprenticeship, Hughes already has been down working in those underground substations. Allison tells the students that if they wear the wrong clothing and they get hit by an arc flash, their clothes can catch on fire and get seared into their skin. "An arc flash - that's the thing we worry the most about," Allison says.Īn arc flash is a highly energized bolt of electricity, an explosion of electricity in a sense, that jumps from an energy source to another spot that's grounded or that the energy can flow into. On a recent morning, she was teaching Hughes and the other utility worker apprentices how to protect themselves if something bad happens while they're down under a manhole cover in an underground electrical substation. needs more of in order to fill open trade jobs. The two are part of an apprenticeship program with the utility company, something economists say the U.S. Haley Hughes (right) and Kristen Sabino stand in the meter training room at an NStar learning facility. But she says, "I wasn't excited about it really, I guess." So she applied to a bunch of four-year colleges and got accepted to every one of them. When 18-year-old Haley Hughes graduated from high school this past summer, she had good grades she was on the honor roll every year. And some pay better than what the average college graduate makes. In fact, millions of good-paying jobs are opening up in the trades. The unemployment rate is nearly twice as high for Americans with a high school diploma as for those with a four-year college degree or more.īut economists say that doesn't mean everybody needs a four-year degree. This story is part of the New Boom series on millennials in America.Īs the economy continues to recover, economists are seeing stark differences between people with high school and college degrees. He says he's interested in working on switching systems that keep power flowing through the electrical grid. Jeffy Docteur is one of the students in the NStar electrician apprenticeship program outside Boston.
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