“Falcon Costilla had a bachelor’s degree in psychology. But after graduating, he found himself working instead as an IT recruiter. “I saw how much money they made,” he said of his recruits. “That’s when I wanted to change careers.” In 2019, he enrolled in a two-year job training degree program in web development at Seattle Central College with dreams of one day working for a big-name company like Amazon, Microsoft or Google. In June 2021, he finished that course and transferred to North Seattle College to earn a four-year degree in application development — a degree that didn’t exist a decade ago. He also began a paid internship as a software developer at Microsoft. From the start, Falcon Costilla said, his professors were teaching skills that were useful to the work he was doing for one of his dream employers. A dead-end model Four-year degrees were once the sole territory of universities, off-limits to community and technical colleges. But in 2000, there was growing demand for skilled laborers locally, while fewer than half of adults in Seattle had a four-year degree.” “From fall 2019 to 2021, enrollment in Washington community and technical colleges dropped by 24%. At the same time, enrollment in these four-year technical degree programs grew by 16%. Over 5,100 students were enrolled in one of these programs across the state last fall. Some, like 28-year-old Diego Falcon Costilla, returned to school for a career-focused degree, as opposed to one in the humanities.” https://www.seattletimes.com/education-lab/why-wa-has-seen-a-big-increase-in-these-community-college-degrees/
