Medical Assisting: Don't Be Tricked into Trade School Instead of College

The Bait

Are you considering trade school instead of college? Does it seem easier? More convenient to your work schedule? Well think again! Read on before you decide to throw your opportunities out the window.

Single moms seemed to be the biggest targets. They are desperate to get their lives together for the sake of their young one’s future. Here you are working full time, raising a baby, maybe you’re only eighteen or nineteen years old. What are you to do with your life? Go back to college and spend the next 5 years attending part-time just to get an associates degree? After all, you have a baby to provide for today.

We’ve all seen the lame ads on tv of trade school programs. If your anything like me, then you’ve even made fun of a couple. But even if you aren’t suckered in by the ads, you may know someone who attended. She seems happy with her education, happy with her new job and the money she’s making. You wanted to be a nurse, why not a Medical Assistant?

You check around at different trade schools that offer Medical Assisting. There are over a dozen in my area (must be a good business). So you tour the schools and meet with recruiters (the recruiters are paid commissions for new enrollments, by the way). Everything seems professional and above board. 

$$$ The Deal Clencher $$$

Financial aid- the deal clencher. You have no way of funding your education except for whatever you can earn in your spare time. Before you can change your mind about the next step, you’re presented with forms that are said to take all the pressure out of tuition funding.

You apply for a Pell Grant, but don’t qualify for enough. The remainder of the tuition is somewhere around $6,000 (tuition costs have risen sharply in recent years reaching as much as $12,000). You can’t come up with that kind of money, right?