At just 22 years old, Christian Couric is already an experienced professional welder. A specialist in pipeline welding, Couric has worked in paper mills, commercial refrigeration facilities, as well as petrochemical plants in Kentucky, Texas and Louisiana. Currently, he’s in Reno, Nevada, helping to build a biofuel plant that will process the city’s garbage into jet fuel. He says he earns between $35 and $50 an hour, often working 60 to 70 hours a week. Industry magazines say skilled pipeline welders like Couric can clear as much as $5,000 weekly.
Couric doesn’t have a four-year degree or even an associate’s degree. What got him his start were three eight-week classes in welding from Blue Ridge Community College (BRCC) in Virginia’s Shenandoah Valley, where Couric grew up. It was enough to earn him a welding certificate and his first job at a local fabrication shop. “This is absolutely way more viable than any college degree I could have gotten for sure,” says Couric. “The guidance counselors and career coaches would always say, ‘Go to college, go to college, you have to go to college, you’re not going to amount to anything if you don’t go to college,’ but they were wrong.”
Couric is living proof that short-term, career-focused educational programs—provided they are high-quality courses for in-demand fields—can put workers on track to high-paying jobs. Most of these programs don’t, however, qualify for federal financial aid through the Pell Grant program, putting them out of reach for workers who are low-income or unemployed.
Read more at Washington Monthly….