Released September 29, 2009
RALEIGH, N.C. -- The question is whether this is possible, to have a good-paying job without a four-year college degree. Do these jobs exist?
Mike Walden, North Carolina Cooperative Extension economist in the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences at N.C. State University, responds:
"These are what economists call middle skill jobs, and they are jobs in the labor market that require more than a high school degree but less than four years of college. So usually you need something beyond high school.
You either need community college or you need some kind of post high school training program. It used to be that these jobs accounted for the majority of all jobs; 55 percent of jobs were these middle skill jobs. Now they're down to about 48 percent, but there are still 67 million of these jobs, so they're a lot of them.
One thing economists see is there are going to be a lot of openings as the baby boomers start to retire. So yes, I think the answer to the question is there are possibilities to get rather good-paying jobs without getting a four-year college degree.
What are some of these jobs? There are jobs such as nurses, technicians, electricians and mechanics, and they all pay reasonably well, and they've actually gotten good salary increases over the last few years. So, the answer to the question, do you need to get a four-year degree? No, but you do need to go beyond high school and get something. And if you do and you target the right occupation, you can do rather well in this economy."
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http://www.ncsu.edu/project/calscommblogs/news/archives/2009/09/economic_perspe_457.html
