DISTANCE LEARNING | CONTINUING EDUCATION | ONLINE DEGREES

Do you like to show up at crime scenes with a fake badge and pretend you’re CSI’s Grissom? Do you have a closetful of Columbo-style trenchcoats just waiting for their day in the sun? If so, the Department of Labor has great news!

Careers in criminal investigation are looking better than ever, even with a recession looming. In fact, security careers, which include criminal investigators, were listed recently in Yahoo!’s list of “recession-proof” careers. It makes sense. Criminals don’t take a break when the economy slumps; and neither do criminal investigators.

Fortunately, if you’re willing to get rid of your fake badge and go back to school, criminal investigation careers are easier to get into than ever.

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Criminal investigators gather the facts, collect the evidence, and build the cases to put criminals behind bars. Vital to law enforcement, investigators use advanced surveillance techniques and computer databases to stop illegal activity, provide evidence for prosecution or defense teams, protect assets, and help find missing people. They conduct interviews, examine records, observe suspects, and participate in raids and arrests. Criminal investigators tend to specialize in areas such as computer crime, forensic psychology, crime analysis, crime scene investigation, and fraud examination.

Fortunately, the criminal investigations industry is expected to increase in size, despite the economic downturn. As drug- and computer-related crimes rise and our society becomes more security-conscious, job opportunities for criminal investigators will continue to increase. Individuals with Criminal Investigation degrees can choose from various jobs, from police detective to corporate investigator to loss prevention agent. They can expect to make, on average, between $45,000 and $80,000 with great benefits, stability, and plentiful opportunities for advancement.

Best of all, criminal investigation degrees can be obtained in relatively little time and with minimal investment. New online degree programs are allowing more future criminal investigators to get their careers in less time and on their own schedule, most in two to four years.

The American public has spent the last nine years bombarding Britney with criticism and ridicule. Then, recently, as she was carted away in an ambulance, we did an about face, and now everyone is offering to help. Dr. Phil tried to help, albeit clumsily. Heidi Klum offered to let her crash at her house. Justin and Timbaland are offering to help Brit rebuild her career. Everybody, it seems, wants in on the action. So why not you?

Do you want a piece of the save-Britney-from-herself pie? If so, you have two options: 1) get really famous and/or rich so the media cares about what you say (even though you really have no credibility) or 2) become a true expert in the following fields, charge onto the scene, and take care of business. Chances of achieving the first are minimal. So I recommend pursuing the latter. Brit will need help from the following types of professionals in the next few years:

1. Lawyer – Clients like Britney are a dream come true for lawyers: she’s always in trouble with the law and she has plenty of money to keep a lawyer working on her cases. In the last year alone, Britney has accumulated more than her fair share of legal woes.

Would you like to be the next in line to keep Britney out of the slammer? Consider a career in the law. Besides, if Britney ever straightens out her life, there will always be other screw-up celebrities to keep you employed. Classes and Careers can help you get off on the right foot with Legal and Paralegal Studies Degrees.

2. Psychiatrist – Having been groomed, enhanced, and told she wasn’t good enough and, simultaneously, she was the center of the universe since she was eleven years old, Britney has some deep-seated issues to work out. After the dust has settled from custody cases and drug rehab, Britney will still likely need psychiatric help.

Help lift Britney out of that deep, dark hole and become a psychiatrist. Exercise caution, however. Don’t, for instance, visit her at the emergency room and then, against all rules of patient confidentiality, relate to the press the graveness of Britney’s mental state. Find out more about how to become a Doctor in Psychology.

3. Rehab counselor – First things first, Britney needs to learn to just say no. You can be there for her by starting a career in rehab counseling. Teach Britney to pass on grass and all the other crazy stuff she’s been using and you will be a hero of the “Save Britney” community. Then we can all go back to mocking her without feeling guilty. All thanks to you! Find out what it takes to become a rehab counselor with a Master’s in Community Counseling.

4. Social worker – No, social workers don’t just take people’s kids away from them. They also take struggling parents under their wing and teach them how to be better moms and dads. As a social worker, you could teach Britney how to boil spaghetti noodles or make Mickey Mouse-shaped pancakes- all the things she missed while she was being pushed to be a global superstar. How do you become a social worker? Social Sciences Degrees.

5. Parenting specialist – Social workers can only do so much. Parenting specialists teach parents how to teach, nurture, and discipline their kids appropriately. If you want to get those kids back from that lousy K-Fed, help Britney learn to be Mom of the Year. Find out how to become Britney’s parenting specialist by acquiring a Master’s in Marriage and Family Counseling.

We can all do our part to help Britney put her life back together. If you’ve got the desire, Classes and Careers can help.

A few weeks ago, I responded to a provocative blog entitled, “Wise Up! Skip College. Buy a Franchise!” The primary thrust of the blog was, essentially, that college is “a waste of time, money, and brain cells,” and that high school graduates would be better served investing in a business franchise rather than a degree. At the time, I thought the blog was amusing — if a bit disingenuous — and I used it to debunk certain false premises that are often employed to undercut that value of a college education. Imagine my surprise when the author of “Wise Up!” immediately posted a vehement defense of his position in "Is College a Scam?" in which he called my own conclusions “well-crafted, but misguided.”

In other words, he threw down the gauntlet. As such, it became necessary to make another foray into the topic of “College Degree vs. Franchise” — a match-up that seems to me to be the equivalent of the New York Yankees battling a local softball team. Not exactly a "Subway series," if you ask me — but we’ll get to franchises later.

To the matter at hand: in my earlier post, "College Degrees: What’s Their Real Value?" I argued that articles such as “Wise Up!” tend to base their conclusions on false premises. One of those premises was that financial success can be had easily without a college degree. In my rebuttal, I pointed out that while financial success without a college degree is possible, it is hardly probable, and those that achieve success through other means — such as franchises — tend to occupy a small minority. The author of “Wise Up!” countered by pointing out that 33% of the Forbes 400 members had no college degree. The author then posed this rather cheeky question: “a small minority of successful people lack college degrees? Who’s been ‘smoking doobies down by the river,’ Ben?”

Am I still in reality here or did we just take a hard drop down the rabbit hole?

Remember my initial point? (Promises of financial success without a college education are often made on scant or inconclusive evidence.) Well, here it is. Note that the author of “Wise Up!” grounds his point on the Forbes 400 list — a list of the 400 richest people in America. Now I don’t know about you, but the Forbes 400 list seems hardly indicative of Americans generally. After all, proffering any conclusion about 300 million people based on a sample of 400 people seems to be a hasty generalization at best (if not thoroughly irresponsible). It also proves my point about the nature of such claims. My argument, by contrast, which demonstrated that college graduates make significantly more than non-graduates was based on the U.S. Census Report. Granted, the U.S. Census Report isn’t as sexy as Forbes, but it does account for all Americans, not just .00013% of its very wealthiest.

Smoking doobies indeed.

To be fair, I’m sure Warren Buffett, Ralph Lauren, Steven Spielberg, Donald Trump, Martha Stewart, and other extraordinary people would have achieved their success with or without a college degree. But these people are the exceptions — that’s the point. So anyone that tells you to skip college and follow Oprah’s footsteps is either delusional or they have an ulterior motive.

Which brings us to franchises. Now I won’t pretend to be an expert on franchises. Whatever facts or statistics I present here will be based solely on cursory research of websites devoted to the topic, such as Entrepreneur.com, AllBusiness.com, and Franchise.com. From what I can see, franchises vary in cost, ranging from $5,000 for a low-end, home-based franchise to $500,000 for a fast-food joint. Some franchises — such as full-service restaurants and hotels — can even exceed $5,000,000. Franchise costs include an initial franchise fee as well as working capital to purchase real estate or meet expenses. In short, the cost of a franchise can be slightly less or ten times the amount of even the most expensive college education, in which case it’s hardly an either/or scenario.

Now I’m not prepared to argue the merits of owning a franchise, but I suspect the success of a franchise — like that of any business venture — must be grounded on sound business principles, a well-conceived marketing strategy, and local interest. (In other words, it is anything but guaranteed.) I’m certain that franchises can be good investments — at least for some. But when what’s good for some people under some circumstances is extended to be good for all people under all circumstances — such as all high school graduates, for instance — we are treading on dangerous ground.

And the slope only gets more slippery.

As mentioned earlier, the main contention of “Wise Up! Skip College. Buy a Franchise!” is that a high school graduate would be better off spending their money on a franchise rather than a college education. The problem here is that this is not an either/or decision, as the author would have us believe. His assertion is a variation on what’s called “false dilemma” or “false choice.” False choice is a logical fallacy that purports only two options when more are available. In this variation, the author of “Wise Up!” puts forward a false choice that isn’t really a choice at all.

Consider this: how many high school graduates have $50,000 lying around to pay for college, much less to invest in a franchise? Most prospective students (between 65-75%) require financial aid to pay for college, typically in the form of student loans. Student loans are unique because they require no form of security other than the student’s education. In other words, lenders are so convinced of the long-term value of a college degree that they are willing to invest thousands of dollars and defer payments for years, content in the knowledge that the earning potential of the college graduate will provide them with a handsome return — which, more often than not, it does.

Can franchises boast the same? Think about it: how many banks would be willing to invest a similar amount of money so that an eighteen-year-old kid with little education, minimal work experience, and nothing to borrow against can start a franchise? Not many — if any. Furthermore, how many franchises would forego the initial fee and provide the working capital with the hope of recouping their investment several years down the road? None. They want their money up front. That fact alone is irrefutable evidence that these companies still regard their franchises as risks — just not their risk.

The fact is that most high school graduates simply don’t have the option — much less the capacity and necessary experience — to start a franchise. The real choice is whether they should go to college, in which case the statistics show that for the majority of Americans, not just a handful of exceptions, a college degree is a wise investment. Admittedly, a college degree cannot guarantee financial success. Then again, nothing can. That being said, statistical surveys of large cross-sections of Americans from a variety of classes and ethnicities have shown, if not cause and effect, at least a very strong correlation between education and earnings. In short, a college degree isn’t absolutely necessary for success, but it is a strong predictor.

So unless you’re a high school graduate with an unusually large nest egg and a penchant for risk, the choice of whether a franchise is a better investment than a college education really isn’t a choice at all. Anyone who says otherwise is either misinformed or spinning catchy-little sophistries. In which case, both of you need to wise up.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Benjamin Welch has been a college instructor in writing and composition for nearly six years. When he’s not teaching or playing golf, he offers advice for students seeking information about continuing education, online education and online degrees.

It used to be that if you wanted a six-figure salary, you needed a certain job. But the fact is that there are other ways to earn six figures. As the old saying goes, “there are many paths to the top of Mt. Fuji,” and not all those paths need go through medical school, law school, or business school. Recently, Forbes.com published a list of several occupations that were off the beaten path but which were potentially as lucrative as the traditional stand-bys. Included on their list were the following:

Court reporters Professional (life or career) coaches Mine managers Truck drivers Pressmen Technical writers Restaurant managers Air traffic controllers Elementary school principals Post-secondary school teachers Market research analysts Real estate salespersons Insurance salespersons Loan officers Film editors

Several other news services, including CNN/Money, have listed additional jobs that have the potential for six-figure salaries, including:

Casino manager Hotel managers Make-up artists Cargo pilots Broadcast TV captioners Fitting models

Granted, many of these occupations offer six-figure salaries only to a portion of their professionals — say, the top 10 or 20 percent — or to professionals in certain markets or specialties. Some occupations are relatively small, such a mine managers or film editors, which means they don’t offer a lot of jobs to begin with, and those they do offer are extremely competitive. Other occupations, such as loan officers and real estate salespersons, are contingent on market conditions and therefore fluctuate year to year.

The point is that there is at least the potential for six-figure compensation across a range of industries. I don’t know about you, but for me that’s a terribly comforting thought. What this means is that gifted and motivated professionals in industries other than law, business, and medicine can make a handsome living — and do so doing something they love.

Too often we’re prone to make career decisions based on desires for prestige or money rather than on our own interests or talents. But those factors don’t have to be mutually exclusive — not anymore. Recent studies from the Bureau of Labor indicate that ceilings for many industries, including those listed above, are now exceeding the six-figure benchmark. As such, more and more professionals in non-traditional careers are enjoying a level of compensation they might never have obtained a decade ago.

So before you make a decision based on traditional — and perhaps out-dated — notions of what careers pay the best, remember the old Japanese proverb about the many paths to the top of Mt. Fuji and at least consider donning your hiking boots and looking for trails that are less well-known but equally prosperous.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Benjamin Welch has been a college instructor in writing and composition for nearly six years. When he’s not teaching or playing golf, he offers advice for students seeking information about continuing education, online education and online degrees.