Graduation cap tossed, future shimmering, a question echoes in your mind: “Are trade schools worth it?” Fear not, young adventurer, for this isn’t a binary choice, but a thrilling expedition into the world of skilled trades! Let’s navigate this maze together, uncovering the treasures that await and clearing any doubts that linger.

The answer, like a perfectly crafted weld, depends on your unique goals and aspirations. Traditional college might not spark your fire, but trade schools offer a different path, paved with hands-on learning and in-demand skills. Think of it as choosing the right tool for the job – the one that empowers you to build your dream career, brick by skilled brick.

So, what makes trade schools shine? Buckle up, we’re diving into the benefits:

• Job-Ready Skills, Faster: Forget years of general studies, trade schools equip you with practical skills employers crave in months or a year. Imagine welding your way to a construction job, coding your way into tech, or mastering medical assisting skills, all with a swift entry into the workforce.
  
  
• Hands-On Learning: Theory is great, but practice is king! Trade schools prioritize hands-on training, immersing you in real-world projects and simulations. Picture yourself designing websites, practicing electrical repairs, or crafting culinary masterpieces – all while gaining experience that sets you apart.
  
  
• Flexible Options: Life is a juggling act, and trade schools understand. They offer flexible schedules, including evenings, weekends, and even online options, allowing you to pursue your dreams while balancing other commitments. Think of it as tailoring your education to fit your dynamic lifestyle.
  
  
• Cost-Effectiveness: Forget crippling debt! Trade schools can often be more affordable than traditional universities, with lower tuition fees and shorter program durations. Imagine launching your career without the burden of hefty loans, leaving you free to invest in your future.
  
  
• Industry Connections: Trade schools often have strong industry partnerships, opening doors to internships, job placement assistance, or even employer sponsorships. Picture your skills landing you directly in your dream job, bypassing the cold-calling and resume shuffle.

However, let’s be honest, trade schools aren’t a magic wand. Research thoroughly, prioritize accredited programs with experienced instructors and strong industry connections. Remember, quality matters, and the right school can set you on a path to success.

Moreover, trade schools might not be the perfect fit for everyone. Consider your learning style, career aspirations, and long-term goals. Do you thrive in hands-on environments? Do your dream jobs require advanced degrees? Weigh your options carefully, and choose the path that ignites your soul.

Ultimately, “are trade schools worth it?” is a question only you can answer. Explore the possibilities, weigh the benefits against your unique goals, and embrace the journey of discovery. Remember, the right path, whether academic or vocational, leads to a fulfilling and rewarding future. So, future maker, step into the world of trade schools, explore your passions, and build your dreams. The skills you forge, brick by brick, will pave the way for a successful and enriching career. Go forth, explore, and build your future, and remember, the answer lies within your own ambition and determination!

Don’t Wait for a New Career! Take Action Today!

Are you Career training ready? Take our Career Training Readiness Quiz!

Identify goals, personal strengths, and important facts about your potential career path so you can make an informed decision about your future. It takes just a few minutes! 

Which school is right for you? Find out! Take our School Matching Quiz!

Take a short quiz and get personalized recommendations to career training courses based on your interests, experience, and goals!

With an embedded lending platform, you can easily provide your students with seamless access to multiple lenders.

As more students seek post-pandemic career skilling and re-training, over 80% of students will need to  rely on financing to help cover their tuition costs. This challenges schools to handle the burden of managing multiple financing offers that meet the needs of their students across the financial spectrum and in different locations.

There’s an easier way to take care of your students’ financing needs. 
In this post, we’ll break down how you can seamlessly offer multiple lending options from the providers of your choice, through a standard application, and handle post-payment management, including disputes, reconciliations, and reports. This way you can focus your time and energy on providing a first-class education, while letting a platform take care of your student financing offer.

Providing Multiple Financing Options – Opportunities and Challenges

Consumers increasingly expect a choice of payment options at the moment of purchase. Lenders typically specialize in a specific lending product, and type of customer for example prime, near-prime, or subprime, and geography. This means that to meet the needs of all students, schools need to integrate more than one lender into their offer. However, this presents significant challenges:

• Integrating lenders is a complicated and time-consuming process. Integrating multiple lenders even more so.
• Schools face the headache of managing reconciliations, disputes, refunds, and other post-care processes for each individual lender.
• Schools are left without alternatives if a lender adjusts their terms or goes out of business.
• Students are required to make multiple applications, each with its own requirements, which is frustrating and can also affect credit scores.
• School administrators, admissions counselors, and financial aid staff have to learn how to use multiple lenders’ systems – everyone with its own processes.

Once these challenges are overcome, and students have quick and easy access to personalized financing that offers them flexibility and choice, schools benefit from improved approval rates, increased average tuition value, and more enrollments.

What Schools Need From a Multi-Lender Financing Platform

Schools require a consumer financing solution that frees them up to focus on the day-to-day running of their business and provide students with the best possible education. Their main concerns for a financing solution are that it:

• Offers a seamless and smooth experience that connects schools, lenders, and students.
• Includes a simple prequalification process that gives students peace of mind and provides an excellent customer experience.
• Generates high approval rates, resulting in higher conversion.
• Supports all lending activity, including reconciliation, disputes, customized reports, and communication with lenders.
• Is risk-free and eliminates balance sheet risk.

The most efficient way to overcome these challenges is through a multi-lender platform embedded within the student’s journey that offers a seamless financing experience for both the student and the school.

Why Meratas is the Leading Multi-Lender Financing Platform for Schools

Meratas is the only platform that connects schools, lenders, and students seamlessly, embedding a complete private financing solution into the student journey. Meratas’ network of over 80+ national lenders covers the entire student financial spectrum from prime to subprime and also educational and personal loan options.

Students simply need to complete a quick application and the platform will search for the best financing offers using a ‘waterfall’ method starting with prime lenders that offer the best terms, followed by near-prime, then subprime loans, or even school offered payment payments where students have even more choice. Within seconds, students are offered the best financing options based on their unique financial needs and preferences.

The Meratas platform offers the easiest and most efficient solution for schools too. It’s quick to integrate and easy to use as it enables end-to-end management of the entire financing process, including running multiple inhouse payment plan options built around flexibility towards your students’ unique needs.

How Meratas Can Benefit Career Schools

• Increased enrollment: By offering multiple financing options, schools can make it more affordable for students to attend. This can lead to increased enrollment and revenue.
• Improved retention: Students who are able to finance their education are more likely to stay enrolled and complete their degree. This can improve the school’s graduation rate and reputation.
• Enhanced student experience: Meratas can help schools provide a more seamless and personalized financing experience for students. This can make the process of applying for and receiving financing more convenient and less stressful for students.
• Reduced administrative burden: Meratas can help schools automate and streamline the financing process. This can free up staff time to focus on other priorities.
• Improved data insights: Meratas provides schools with insights into their financing data. This can help schools make better decisions about their financing programs.
• Scalable: Meratas’ platform is scalable, so it can grow with the school’s needs.
• Supportive team: Meratas has a team of experts who can help schools get started with the platform and answer any questions they may have.

Are you a school that’s looking to improve your enrollment, retention, and student experience? Meratas can be a valuable tool in your toolkit. Click here to get started! 

The latest student loan debt statistics show that student loan debt totals $1.75 trillion as of April 2022.

Higher education represents a path to financial prosperity and opportunity for millions of Americans. But, due to rising college costs, many students find it necessary to finance higher education with student loans. Unfortunately, some borrowers find it difficult to pay back their hefty debt upon graduation.

The cost of college has steadily increased over the last 30 years. In that timeframe, tuition costs at public four-year colleges grew from $4,160 to $10,740 and from $19,360 to $38,070 at private nonprofit institutions (adjusted for inflation). As costs have risen, so has the need for student loans and other financial aid forms.

When considering your options, it helps to look at the big picture and understand the full impact and scope of student loans. This is a snapshot of student loan debt in the United States in 2022.

Average Student Loan Debt

• $1.75 trillion in total student loan debt (including federal and private loans)
• $28,950 owed per borrower on average
• About 92% of all student debt are federal student loans; the remaining amount is private student loans
• 55% of students from public four-year institutions had student loans
• 57% of students from private nonprofit four-year institutions took on education debt

Here’s how that debt breaks down by loan type.

Federal Student Loan Portfolio

Federal student loans make up the vast majority of American education debt—about 92% of all outstanding student loans are federal debt. The federal student loan portfolio currently totals more than $1.6 trillion, owed by about 43 million borrowers

Federal Student Loans by Age

Unsurprisingly; younger people hold the majority of student loan debt. Borrowers between the ages of 25 and 34 carry about $500 billion in federal student loans—the majority of people in this age group owe between $10,000 and $40,000.

However, people carry their education debt well into middle age and beyond. Borrowers ages 35 to 49 owe more than $620 billion in student loans. This cohort has the highest number of borrowers who owe more than $100,000 in loans.

Even retirees feel the pressure from student loans; 2.4 million borrowers aged 62 or older owe $98 billion in student loans.

Student Loan Repayment Statistics

Here are the current repayment statuses of the federal Direct Loan program.

Individual student loan debt statistics

Here’s how student loan debt in the U.S. impacts individual borrowers:

• The age group with the most student loan borrowers is the 25 to 34 age bracket, while 7.4 million borrowers are 24 years old or younger.
• In the class of 2020, 55 percent of bachelor’s degree recipients graduated with student loan debt.
• In 19 states, the average student loan debt was over $30,000 for the class of 2020, and it was over $35,000 in six states.
• As of March 2021, 54 percent of borrowers owed less than $20,000 in student loans, and 10 percent owed $80,000 or more.
• The average estimated budget for undergraduates for the 2021-22 school year was $18,830 for public two-year in-district students, $27,330 for public four-year in-state students, $44,150 for public four-year out-of-state students, and $55,800 for private nonprofit four-year students.

Student debt and mental health

Student loan debt can significantly impact a borrower’s mental health. Feelings of anxiety and stress may coincide with any long-term debt, especially if the debt impedes the ability to meet critical financial milestones, like saving for a house or buying a car.

• Taking on too much student loan debt is the biggest financial regret of 10 percent of Americans.
• Forty-two percent of adults and 33 percent of Gen Z reported in 2018 that personal debt, including student loans, is a significant source of stress.
• The financial pressure of student loan payments can lead to stress, anxiety, and depression.

Student loan debt by degree

Advanced degrees are expensive, but the investment could pay off. Here’s what you need to know before taking out graduate student loans, according to the Brookings Institute and MeasureOne:

• Around 25 percent of all undergraduates graduate with less than $20,000 in student loan debt; borrowers who leave school with more than $57,500 have almost always borrowed for graduate school.
• About 25 percent of all student loan borrowers went to graduate school.
• Graduate students account for roughly half of the total outstanding student loan debt in the U.S.
• Those who earn an advanced degree may earn a larger annual income and have increased job security.
• Graduate students are less likely to fall into delinquency with private loans; 2.3 percent of undergraduate balances in repayment are at least 30 days delinquent, while 1.65 percent of graduate balances in repayment are at least 30 days delinquent.

Flexible Financing Could Be a Good Option For You

Under Flexible Financing Like Income Share Agreements; students have more options in higher education because they aren’t limited by finances.

 Because their future funding is dependent on graduates securing paid employment, many schools may offer job search assistance. This helps students feel secure when they are picking a school or program because they won’t have to make payments until they secure a job. 

Schools have little incentives to help graduates find a good-paying job post-graduation under traditional loans because their payments are not tied to the student’s income. A lender will likely have already paid them for your tuition. 

An alternative to traditional private student loans in America is long overdue. We believe flexible Financing is that change.

Sources

• Zippia
• MeasureOne
• Student Loan Hero
• Lendedu
• Student Loan Planner
• First Republic
• Federal Reserve
• The Institute for College Access and Success
•  College Board
• MeasureOne

Coding bootcamps range in price from around $7,500 for a part-time program to $13,500 for a full-time program, on average. While there are a variety of ways to cover the cost, scholarships are the first option you should pursue.

Why Scholarships?

Unlike other forms of financial aid — like loans — scholarships are free money, meaning you won’t have to pay them back. Loans, on the other hand, are borrowed money, meaning you’ll need to pay them back with interest. By maximizing the amount of free money you receive, you can limit the amount you borrow in loans.

8 Scholarships for Coding Bootcamp

Here’s 8 of the most compelling coding bootcamp scholarships we found:

Horatio Alger Career and Technical Scholarship

• Details: Awarded to students who have overcome great obstacles and wish to pursue a career or technical education at an accredited non-profit institution
• Amount: $2,500
• Application Deadline: Rolling

We Stand Together Scholarship

• Details: Awarded to Black or African-American students enrolled in the Hack Reactor 19-week Beginning Coding Bootcamp
• Amount: Full tuition
• Application Deadline: Varies based on the program start date

Women Who Code + Linux Foundation Scholarship

• Details: Women Who Code has partnered with The Linux Foundation, a non-profit hub for developers, to offer 50 full scholarships
• Amount: Access to any Linux Foundation eLearning course for one year
• Application Deadline: June 30th

Brainstation Scholarships

• Details: Brainstation offers a variety of scholarships for enrolled bootcamp students, specifically intended for different groups such as entrepreneurs, veterans, and women.
• Amount: Varies
• Application Deadline: Varies

Flatiron School Access Scholarship

• Details: The Flatiron School offers three scholarship opportunities for enrolled students — the Access Scholarship, the Women Take Tech Scholarship, and a Merit Scholarship.
• Amount: $1,000+
• Application Deadline: Ongoing

Code Platoon Veteran and Military Spouse Scholarship

• Details: Awarded to veterans and military spouses who plan to attend Code Platoon
• Amount: Up to $15,000
• Application Deadline: Ongoing

Lesbians Who Tech Edie Windsor Coding Scholarship

• Details: Awarded to queer and non-binary students that plan to attend a partner program
• Amount: Up to 50% of tuition
• Application Deadline: Varies

DevPoint Labs Learn to Code Scholarship

• Details: Offers two scholarships — Women in Tech and Diversity in Tech — awarded to students enrolled in the Salt Lake City Full-Time ProEd Web Development program or the Salt Lake City Part-Time Web Development classes
• Amount: 50% off tuition
• Application Deadline: October 8th

Where to Find Scholarships for Coding Bootcamp

Most scholarships are intended for college students, which can make finding coding bootcamp scholarships quite the hassle if you’re doing a simple Google search. Instead, use the list below to tailor your search.

Your Program

Your program itself likely offers scholarships. However, unlike a college education, you may not see these scholarships automatically awarded to you in your acceptance letter. You may need to contact the program directly to inquire about the opportunities.

For example, Coding Dojo offers the Coding Dojo Fresh Start Fund Scholarship for students enrolled full-time in their bootcamp. Codewise offers the Fellows Diversity Scholarship for students from underserved backgrounds, but you must be enrolled in a Code Fellows course to qualify.

Local Organizations

Local organizations — like your local Rotary group, nonprofits, and even the senior center — may offer scholarship opportunities. If you’re unsure where to look, don’t be afraid to contact the local high school for information. If they’re preparing their students for college, they may be willing to share the available scholarship opportunities with you.

Your Parents’ Employers

Some companies offer scholarships for employees and their families. Research your parents’ or guardians’ company to see what they offer, or contact them directly to inquire.

Do Service for Scholarships

Sites like DoSomething.org incentivize users to complete service by counting the hours completed as entries to scholarship opportunities. If you’re already doing service hours, it might be worthwhile to sign up for a DoSomething program to put those hours to use.

Contact Alumni Organizations

If your program has an alumni organization, consider reaching out to them. You may find these groups on Facebook, LinkedIn, or via a simple Google search. In some cases, they may offer scholarships, but you’ll likely need to seek them out.

Tip: Skip Scholarship Search Websites

Most scholarship search engines, like Scholarships.com, Niche, and Fastweb, won’t be worthwhile to explore. While they compile thousands of scholarships into one place, they often don’t have much for coding bootcamp students. Their focus is primarily on college scholarships, which won’t benefit you.

What to Do if You Don’t Get Enough Scholarships

If you don’t receive enough scholarships to cover the cost of the program, don’t panic. There are other ways to cover the bill.

Ask Your Employer

If you’re currently working, review your employee handbook and benefits package. Over half of employers offer tuition assistance for furthering your education, but just 2% of employees participate in the program. In some cases, your employer may cover the entire cost of the program, so it isn’t an opportunity you want to miss out on.

Look for Employers That Cover the Cost

If your employer doesn’t offer tuition assistance, it might be worthwhile to look for one that does. Companies like Amazon, Starbucks, and Apple offer reimbursement for qualified education expenses.

Borrow a Student Loan

Student loans should be your last resort. While it isn’t bad to borrow, you’ll need to pay the loan back with interest, so it’s best to explore all other options before taking out a loan.

If you do borrow, make sure to use a student loan search tool like Meratas to find the best loan option for you. Otherwise, you’ll need to search one-by-one via Google, and most results will show lenders that don’t work with bootcamp students. The Meratas Lender Marketplace, however, is designed specifically for trade, tech, and bootcamp students, so you won’t see loan offers you don’t qualify for.

Changing careers can be daunting — venturing into a new field, being a “beginner” all over again, and the overwhelming question of, “Will this even work?” To set yourself up for success, follow the 7 steps below to guide you through the process of a career change.

Determine Your Why

Before making the plunge, take a moment to think. It may sound silly or useless, but processing where you are and where you’d like to be is crucial. It will give you a stronger idea of where you’re headed, which can help you figure out the steps you need to take in between to get there.

Use this time to determine:

• Why you’re making a career change
• What you hope to achieve by making the change
• Where you are now
• Any gaps between the present and your goal

Scroll Through Job Postings

To further evaluate the gaps between where you are and where you’re headed, scroll through job postings on sites like LinkedIn, Indeed, and Monster.

Look closely at the requirements for roles you’re interested in to identify skills and competencies you’ll need to refine to be a competitive applicant. Make a list of the areas you want to improve — this will help you generate a concrete plan to improve them.

Note: If the job postings are boring you to death, this might be a sign that the field isn’t as exciting as you once thought. If that’s the case, but you’re still craving a career change, explore similar roles using O*NET Online. You’ll be able to explore a variety of careers within similar industries that may have more compelling tasks that excite you.

Conduct Informational Interviews With Employees in The Field

To better understand the reality of the field you hope to pursue, conduct an informational interview with an employee in the field. This could be someone you know, someone you contact through LinkedIn, or a friend of a friend.

The purpose of the interview is to gain a better understanding of what it’s truly like to work within the field. Ask the interviewee strong questions that can’t be answered through a simple Google search. For example:

• What did you do to make yourself a competitive applicant? Is there any particular experience you found useful to leverage in interviews?
• What are your favorite and least favorite aspects of the industry?
• What is one skill you’d love to see a new hire have?

Avoid questions like:

• What is the average salary for someone in this role?
• What degree do you need to get a role in this industry?
• Where should I look for jobs?

Informational interviews can help you further identify gaps in your skillset, while also gaining a better understanding of the true requirements of the role.

Find a Mentor

For additional guidance in making the transition, find a mentor. Mentors can offer support, valuable insights, constructive feedback, and encouragement — all incredibly helpful while making a career change.

To find a mentor:

• Tap into your network. Is there anyone you already know that would be a good mentor?
• Look on LinkedIn. Build genuine relationships with people on LinkedIn, then ask to set up a few calls with them.
• Use mentoring platforms. Paid mentoring platforms like MentorCruise are a great way to find mentors in a pinch.
• Join Slack, Discord, or Facebook communities. Some industries have virtual professional groups where you may find valuable mentors.

Consider Educational Options

Once you’ve got a clear path of where you’d headed, consider the education you may need to get there. Does your dream career require a Bachelor’s degree, or are trade, tech, or online bootcamp programs a better option?

For example, careers like lawyers and doctors require advanced degrees, but fields like nursing and software development can be trained for in low-cost trade and tech programs or traditional colleges. Explore your options to find the education that makes the most sense for you.

Rework Your Resume

After gaining experience, rework your resume to suit your new career. Craft your experience around transferable skills required for your new desired role. Highlight new education, certifications, and courses obtained that are related to your new field.

Revise Your LinkedIn

Lastly, revise your LinkedIn profile to make it searchable for terms that are relevant to your new field. Think to yourself: If a hiring manager was looking for a candidate to fill a role, what would they search for on LinkedIn?

Add those terms into your headline on LinkedIn. This will make it easier for hiring managers and recruiters to find your profile, connect with you, and ultimately get you into roles you desire.

Around 52% of students have “no idea” what they want to do with their career after graduation, according to one study. If you’re in the same boat, you’re not alone.

Here’s what you can do to find your calling and choose a career, step-by-step.

Take a Career Quiz

A random Buzzfeed quiz likely won’t generate accurate results, but a professionally built and tested career assessment might. Organizations like Career Explorer, Princeton Review, and CareerOneStop have created formal career assessments packed with questions designed to help find a profession that suits your skills and interests.

CareerExplorer’s quiz takes around 30 minutes to complete. The first 9 minutes are for the personality assessment and reviewing your career and degree matches. The remaining 21 minutes are for reviewing the final results and insights.

Princeton Review’s quiz consists of 24 “would you rather?” style questions. In the end, it’ll ask a few final questions about who you are, such as:

• Are you a student or working professional?
• What is your highest level of education?
• Which area of study interests you?

CareerOneStop’s Interest Assessment consists of 30 questions, although it’ll only take you around 5 minutes to complete. As a partner of the U.S. Department of Labor, the quiz is a dynamic assessment of your likes and dislikes. Once you’ve completed it, you’ll receive a list of career matches and can explore them based on information such as:

• Job outlook
• Average pay
• Typical education needed

And, if you’d prefer to complete it with pencil and paper, you can print the assessment.

Evaluate Them Based on Your Priorities

If you have a few fields that interest you, but you’re having trouble narrowing it down, try evaluating them based on your priorities. Create a list of what’s important to you in a career. This may include items like:

• Positive job outlook
• High-paying
• Ability to work remote
• Hands-on
• Good work-life balance
• Control over how you work
• Impactful on society

Then, rate each of the careers on a scale of 1-5 based on how well you think they match those priorities. This doesn’t have to be based on data; it can be strictly based on your personal opinion of the industry.

This will look something like this:

You may find that one career ranks significantly higher than the other, which could help you make an objective decision about which career to pursue.

Explore Career Clusters

If you’re interested in a specific industry but aren’t sure how to create a career from it, check out O*Net Online’s Career Clusters. Simply select the industry you’re interested in, then browse the list of occupations.

If one intrigues you, click on it and explore the list of tasks, skills, and experience the role requires to see if it’s a fit for you. You may find an occupation you’ve never heard of that is just the perfect fit.

Read Through Job Descriptions

Once you’ve found a job title that seems like a good fit, search for it on sites like LinkedIn, Indeed, and Monster. Read the job descriptions carefully, and ask yourself questions like:

• Does this job description excite me?
• Do the requirements look like skills I’m interested in developing?
• Do I have any background in this?

This will give you an idea of what the industry expectations truly are.

Network With People In Those Roles

To gain an even better understanding of what a field looks like, network with people currently working in it and ask for an informational interview. An informational interview allows you to go to the source to evaluate whether or not the career is a fit for you.

If you’re a student, utilize mentoring networks provided by your college or university. If that isn’t available, simply connect with people on LinkedIn and send them a message to request an interview.

In the interviews, ask meaningful questions you can’t find generic answers to online, like:

• What has been the greatest challenge for you working in this industry?
• Do you find that you and/or your colleagues have a good work-life balance?
• If you could start all over again, would you change careers? What would you do differently?
• What skills do you think would make an employee stand out in this role? Are there any skills you’d be excited to see a new hire have?

Remember, you’re asking for a chunk of their time in their schedule — make it a valuable, meaningful conversation.

Self-Reflect

Above all else, take time to self reflect. While online assessments are useful, they aren’t the end-all-be-all. Take time to reflect on what you love, what you’re passionate about, and why.  Only you know what feels fulfilling. 

The Next Step: Getting the EducationOnce you’ve found a career that suits you, it’s time to get the education necessary to land a job. Use sites like College Consensus to determine which degree is best for the career you’ve chosen. And when you’re ready to pay the bill, consider using Meratas to help cover it.

What are the most important skills that students need to prepare for the 21st Century workforce? More importantly, how can educators, boot camps, and programs help kids gain these competencies? How are universities responding to preparing their students for future employment?

We’re going to break down the top ways schools can help prepare their students for the professional world.

1. Encourage Teamwork

One of the biggest things that students today need to succeed at work is the ability to work as a team. They need to understand how to communicate, compromise and share credit so that they can be a valuable contributing member to projects. This can be taught in school by encouraging teamwork on some projects and assignments.

Students who want a position of leadership should know how to work in teams, manage projects, and meet deadlines. While students may learn these skills in the workplace, there are steps teachers can take to help prepare them for these challenges. Teachers need to dispel the idea that working together is cheating or somehow not what happens in the professional world. In many workplaces, working in teams is a requirement for success. Students must be taught how to work in teams while honoring individual accountability. Part of that will be learning how to give and receive feedback constructively. The other part is self-awareness: an ability to monitor their own progress and realize when they could use coaching or additional materials.

2. Think Towards The Future

In many ways, real-life begins at graduation for students — they begin to put their knowledge into use and manage their own finances and life plans. So schools should focus not just on whether students have learned material, but where it will take students later. Will they be a financial, career, and personal success because of what they learned? And when students ask, “Will I ever even use this in real life?” have an answer — and an example of why they will.

3. Teach Complex Thinking Skills

In the current workplace, it’s not just about getting to the right end, but getting there by the best path. This is something that can be reinforced in colleges or bootcamps by giving students context for decision-making and solving problems.

Jobs in the modern workplace require innovation, creativity, and the ability to look at a task and not only see the outcome, but also imagine different ways to achieve it.  Colleges and universities need to do a better job of teaching these skills. They need to teach students how to think, not what to think.

4. Involve more employers with your school

Adding workplace skills to academic study benefits students, but it also has advantages for universities. Being in touch with employers helps enhance the profile of a university with employers and make them more likely to recruit there. In addition, many national ranking systems use some measure of employment success in their calculations.

Because it involves the students who get involved in a live interview with a real employer, it means that many more recruiters know about the university. Again, this is bound to feed into job offers and help increase the school’s notability.

5. Offer Alternative Financing

The Student Borrower Protection Center reported that outstanding traditional private student loan debt grew 71% in the last decade, outpacing auto loans, credit card debt, and mortgage debt. For many families, the economic pinch is making it even more difficult to qualify for private financial aid.

The private student loan market is dependent on FICO scores and cosigners, so if you don’t have parents with great credit scores that are willing to cosign for your traditional private loan, you’re likely not going to get approved for a private student loan.

There are even students with 700 FICO scores (normally high enough for approval at a good interest rate) being quoted 18-19% interest rates on their loans for college or being rejected outright if they don’t have a cosigner.

In other words, amid uncertain economic times, the barrier to entry into higher education has gotten even higher. News of these trends has spread to universities. A recent survey of university presidents from Inside Higher Ed found that 90% of respondents are concerned about a long-term decline in overall future student enrollment. 

Using Income Share Agreements, we can open the doors to higher education to millions of Americans that either went to college and dropped out because of lack of availability of traditional loans, or that never went in the first place.

By utilizing ISAs, programs have seen higher enrollment, improved retention, and accelerated completion.

Income Share Agreements are making strong headway in the education finance world. Being a financing option that can withstand economic uncertainties such as a pandemic makes them a good option for students and schools alike. 

To be successful today, students need certain skills and key traits to perform well in real-world settings. Teaching students the skills they need in today’s work world in college and bootcamps is important!

Meratas

Meratas provides a full-service SaaS Platform for Schools and Skills-Training Courses to design, administer, and service custom ISA programs. We help institutions create impactful ISA programs designed to promote student accessibility and increase enrollment. 

Our programs are intended to incentivize students, schools, and capital providers to work together to promote and finance only the best educational programs that lead to more successful careers.

If you’re interested in offering an ISA option at your school or program that has been proven to increase student enrollment, there’s no better time to offer one than now! Click here to schedule a call with one of our ISA specialists and get your ISA program up and running today.

Although every effort has been made to provide complete and accurate information, Meratas Inc. makes no warranties, express or implied, or representations as to the accuracy of content contained herein. Meratas Inc

Bootcamps are an excellent way to get into a programming career if you are motivated but lack the skills to jump-start a career in coding. But, quitting your current job, possibly moving, and coming up with the cash to pay for tuition is no small commitment. 

(more…)