Faye Bridge
writes on February 17, 2016
In recent years, the escalating state of student debt in the United States has become an increasing concern. But unfortunately, awareness hasn’t improved the situation. Here’s where we stand at the start of 2016: The number of young people taking out student loans is increasing; the cost of higher education is increasing; the amount individual students are borrowing is increasing; and the total amount of student debt in the US is increasing.
With those facts alone, it’s safe to say the student debt crisis is at it’s worst.
The Crisis
According to a recent report by Mark Kantrowitz (a nationally-recognized expert on student financial aid and student loans) 42 million Americans owe over $1.3 trillion for their student loans, and that number is steadily climbing. In fact, the graduating classes from US universities in 2015 are officially the most indebted in history. Unfortunately, to accompany this, the National Center for Education Statistics has highlighted that along with the increase in the number of students taking out loans, the average amount of money students borrow is increasing.
The reality of this is is an increase in the burden of debt for young Americans, which regretfully is happening at a time when wage growth in the US is moving at a much slower pace. According to Kantrowitz, for debt to be affordable, the total student loan debt at graduation should be less than the annual income of a student’s post-graduate job (ideally, a lot less). But with the average debt per student at $35k and rising, landing a high-paying job that makes debt manageable can be a significant challenge.
Unfortunately, student debt is also having further impacts on students’ lives. Studies now show the burden is holding many young people back from life decision like buying a home, getting married and starting a family.
The Alternative
Now that we’ve covered the bad news, it’s time for the good. Today, the majority of us spend a large part of everyday lives interacting and relying upon one industry in particular. One that is currently thriving and expanding rapidly. The Tech Industry.
Today, the Tech Industry boasts 545,000 well-paying jobs, waiting to be filled, and the demand will only continue. These positions are creative, innovative, and offer endless possibilities.
The value of tech literacy is becoming more prevalent, and now coding skills are essential in most industries: from medical to marketing; publishing to travel; from law to retail (and the list could go on). What’s more, the average web developer makes $63k per year.
But what’s the single most important aspect of these highly demanded positions? You don’t need to obtain a traditional 4-year college degree to learn the skills needed to fill them. The fact is, it doesn’t matter where you learn to code, provided you have the skills, you can get a job.
In other words, you don’t need to be heavily indebted to your education or your future career.
Likewise, employers (particularly in the tech industry) are starting to care less about degrees. Instead, if a candidate proves they have the skills for the job, they’ll hire them. We’re fortunate to live in an age where you don’t need a college education to excel. To prove that, thousands of people across the world are learning to code via online learning platforms and launching careers in technology.
Take Treehouse; for the small investment of a monthly subscription, in 6-12 months of learning to code you can go from zero coding experience to job-ready. We’ve seen students accomplish exactly that and today they’re working as web developers, designers, software engineers, mobile app developers and filling countless other roles.
Here are just a few examples: after 9 months of learning Malina became a web developer at a digital agency, Alex changed careers from sales rep to developer in less than a year, and Bryan went from hotel concierge to full-time UI/UX engineer.
So what’s stopping you from joining them, and the thousands of others who are changing their careers and lives with code and without debt?
Make this the year you learn to code and find your dream career. Sign up for a Free Trial with Treehouse today!
Thanks for the post! Is there any Group-on or other discounts floating around?
Hi Josh! Check out the pricing page for more info on the Treehouse free trial. 🙂
hi, Interested in studying but i have to ask the following questions-:
1. Will i get a certificate after the completion of all the courses?
2. Is there an exam after learning everything at tree house?
3. How long will it take to complete the courses?
4. Duration of payment is how long?
5. Tree house is a school certified by which body world wide?
Regards,
Tony
Tony I’m not from Treehouse but I can answer some of your questions:
1 – No.
2 – In the end of every “chapter” you have a quiz to answer but I can say that in the tech industry quizzes or exams are not the most important. You need to learn and apply. Learned something new? Use this knowledge in your own project, get a freelance job do whatever you need to use that new stuff you learned.
3 – The greater your effort faster you will finish. It depends on you and what you want to learn, there’s a lot of different things to learn in technology each one has a different difficult level.
4 – Whenever you want to stop you can. But Treehouse is always updating content with new courses or new ways to do things that you learned before. (Technolgy is always changing)
5 – I don’t know.
Just to let you know I’m not a Treehouse employee, I’m a student. Since I started learning with Treehouse my career is improving and I as a person too.
Go there and try out something you want to learn you will not regret. (They have a 7 day trial)
Sorry about any english mistake. My native language is portuguese.
Hi Tony! Thanks for your interest in learning with Treehouse. Here are answers to your questions:
1. We don’t offer a certificate. However as a Treehouse student, all of your progress is tracked on a public Treehouse profile, which can be shared with potential employers etc. to showcase your skills and accomplishments.
2. Throughout each of our courses you’ll complete a series of quizzes and code challenges to ensure you’re fully grasping the concepts you’re learning. We also have over 200 courses in our Library and add new content each week, so there’s always something new to learn.
3. The time taken to complete a course varies depending on the content. As you browse through the courses in the Library