Winona Daily News: Trades key in building workforce, middle-class lives

Winona Daily News, May 14, 2014

In a new installment of the "Climbing Up, Sliding Down" series in the Winona Daily News, Nathan Hansen explored the value of trade and technical education.

He profiled three class of 2014 graduating students and their programs: Collin Hershey, welding technology; Cynthia Shepherd, truck driving; and Youa Xiong, medical laboratory technician.

The article stated, "Southeast Tech, which has long boasted a 90-percent job placement rate for graduates in their fields, had a number of trade programs with a 100 percent job placement in 2012. And a number of those programs also have high full-time to part-time employment ratios for graduates. That means that the college's graduates don't fall nearly as often into the gray area of employment that bolsters national jobs numbers while hiding a harsh truth of the recovering economy - the fact that many people remain underemployed or are working in jobs other than those they were educated for." 

Read the complete story at winonadailynews.com