IT Certificates VS College Degrees? Best Way To Land IT Remote Jobs

so I've talked a lot on this channel about it certificates and I've also talked a lot on this channel about college degrees but the question is which one is actually better in order to land an it related job and by the end of this video you're going to know exactly which one is better for your particular situation and we're going to go over topics like who each one is for different jobs that you can land the benefits the barrier to entry the cost different anecdotes about them the dedication needed the pros and cons and the recommended courses so if you appreciate us doing this type of video let me know by gently tapping that like button and let's jump into it right away with who this is for well it professional certificates are basically going to be for people who are high school graduates but they haven't gotten a college degree yet necessarily or people who did get a college degree but they kind of got a useless degree that isn't helping them to get a job also for individuals who want to break into the IT industry quickly and cost effectively and they're also really good for individuals who value flexibility and they need to balance learning with other commitments so for instance somebody who already has a family they're also good for career switchers so people who got into a different career they don't like it anymore they want to switch into it but they don't want to have to spend years and a fortune on getting a new college degree and they're for people who are already in the tech field but they're looking to upskill or validate their experience with industry recognized credentials and these certificates can definitely help you to do that so basically people who are already working in Tech who want a promotion or a raise now who are college degrees for for individuals that seek a comprehensive education and long-term Career Development and by comprehensive education I mean you're going to learn a lot of stuff that has absolutely nothing to do with it and you're going to learn a lot of stuff that's kind of hypothetical and theoretical but it's not that practical and you're going to learn a little bit of practical stuff as well but you might learn practical stuff that was good 5 10 or 20 years ago but isn't good now ubu I'm going to learn Ubuntu and they're also suitable for people who value a broad academic foundation so there is something to be said for having a little bit of knowledge in a lot of different areas and that is something that college does for you they make you take classes that have absolutely nothing to do with it where you learn about history or Linguistics or anthropology Etc and there is something to be said for a society of people that have a broad base of education but I don't think that they should make you pay a ridiculous amount of money over $100,000 in order to learn that it's also for those who prefer a structured learning environment so if you are someone who really enjoyed going through middle school and high school college is going to be kind of a little bit more of the same I mean the classes are bigger so you get less one-on-one with the professor so in many ways it's actually worse but College is very similar to Middle School and High School in terms of how they actually present the information and it's for high school graduates who are aiming to pursue a traditional path and one of the advantages of a college degree is there are some companies out there that are stuck in the Stone Age and they absolutely require you to have a college degree no matter what so there are going to be some companies out there that do literally require you to have a college degree even though especially for a career like it you definitely don't need one now let's move on to the next section and talk about some of the remote jobs or just jobs in general that you can land first of all you can land a role as an IT support specialist they make about $49 to $72,000 a year you can land a roll as a help desk technician they make about $44 to $64,000 a year and this is one of the easiest roles to land you can also land a roll as a technical support specialist and make about 47 to7 $1,000 a year Network support specialist is another one they make about $50 to $79,000 a year and systems administrator is another one they make about $59 to $94,000 a year now some of the online certificates that I have talked about on my channel that are really good is going to be the Google It support professional certificate I made an entire video about it and it's an excellent certificate that millions of people have taken and it's helped countless people secure jobs in it another one that just came out is the Microsoft it support specialist professional certificate as well and it's also hosted on corsera and by the way both of these are going to be linked down in the description and the pin comment below so you can check them out and this will help you to gain Hands-On skills and Industry recognized credentials in order to jump start your career so this is one that just came out but so many companies out there use the Microsoft Suite I mean think about it you use Microsoft if you've ever used Excel or Microsoft Word so many companies out there use the Microsoft suite and so when they see this on your resume or on your LinkedIn profile it's going to look really good so definitely worth it to check it out link is in the description and the pin comment below now let's talk about the benefits so for the IT professional certificates let's get into the benefits of these and taking them on a platform like corsera so first of all here's one right here and you've seen that 174,000 people have reviewed it and has a 4.8 star rating which is absolutely nuts they say that it takes about 6 months to get through it at 10 hours a week that is far far longer than it actually takes to get through it in reality most people report they get through it in a month so it's actually quite quick and these certificates are actually very affordable so a traditional college degree is going to cost you over $100,000 on average and if you count opportunity cost or if you go to a nice school and you count the amount of money you're going to pay in student loan interest it can balloon all the way up to over $500,000 however certifications and certificates in general typically cost anywhere between $100 and $2,300 and if you take this on corsera it's going to cost you only about $49 cuz that's how much it costs per month and corsera has a 7-Day free trial again check it out down in the description in the pen comment below and by the way I am partnered with corsera as an affiliate so if you do end up clicking that link and then buying it I will get a small percentage of the sale just wanted to be completely forthright about that however I have been promoting corsera far before I partnered with them because I think that they're awesome so the shorter time commitment is an amazing perk and benefit to this another benefit is the access to up-to-date industry Knowledge and Skills colleges like I said before in many cases will actually teach you stuff that was good 5 10 or even 20 years ago but isn't necessarily very useful now companies on the other hand are are only going to teach you the skills that are in demand on the job market right now in fact that is literally why they started making these certificates because they noticed that colleges were not teaching people the skills that they actually needed and they were having a bunch of people flooded onto the job market that didn't have any in demand skills and another perk of taking the corsera certificates is you basically get to dip your toe in the water when it comes to the actual skills that you'll be doing on the job so in college you might spent the first two years learning stuff that you will literally never need to use on the job whereas with these certificates you're only going to learn job ready skills and because of that you basically get to dip your toe in what it would actually be like to do the job in a bunch of different careers so if for whatever reason you don't like it it just bores you after taking the certificate for a few weeks or even a few months well guess what you can just go ahead and take a different certificate and see what it's actually like to work in that career whereas most people will invest four to 5 years into college and then they finally figure out what it's like to actually work in the career and in many cases they hate it next let's talk about the benefits of a college degree first of all you get a comprehensive education this means you're going to know a little bit about a lot of different things Lous and I think that's actually pretty awesome the only problem with it is you pay an arm and a leg for it there also can be networking opportunities so one of the things that you absolutely cannot take away from college is the fact that you are going to network with other like-minded individuals you're probably going to make friends that end up being your your friends for life and you are going to have opportunities to network with professors and even companies that come to campus so that is a huge benefit of going to college you also have a recognized credential say what you want about college degrees they are losing their value more and more companies are dropping the need for you to have a college degree and it is becoming basically a norm where everybody has a degree and so therefore a degree isn't valuable anymore but with that being said there are still a lot of companies out there that do recognize that college degrees make you look better there's many companies that will only hire you if you have a college degree and there's many other companies that will give you preference if you have a college degree so there is still value to a college degree whether it's kind of a fake synthetic value or not you also have access to resources so often times colleges will give you access to resources such as the library or journals that cost a lot of money different research facilities Career Services extracurricular activities and of course the professors themselves now it is debatable how useful these career resources are and I think that most students don't actually make use of the resources because they're too busy doing other stuff but with that being said the resources are there now let's talk about the barrier to entry of certificates versus college degrees for certificates there are minimal prerequisites most online courses do not care if you have a specific academic background or any prior experience this means they're open to just about anyone looking to jump their career and this means that they're more inclusive to people from all different backgrounds whether you come from a very tough poor environment or you came from a rich environment for instance with the Google It support professional certificate it's beginner level there's no experience needed and it is extremely affordable at $49 a month so there's an extremely low barrier to entry now let's talk about the barrier to entry for college degrees on the other hand for academic prerequisites in many cases in some it courses they require you to have 61 credit hours of coursework and this typically corresponds to the coursework completed in the first years of college which is approximately an associates degree and in many cases they require that you have a high school diploma or something equivalent and on top of that there is an admissions process so admissions can be very competitive it requires application forms recommendation letters and sometimes interviews and in some cases you're even required to complete and pass a few courses before they let you into their program and of course the biggest barrier to entry for a college degree is the outrageous cost in the United States of America as I mentioned before the average college degree costs over100 ,000 and that doesn't count opportunity cost of the time that you could have been working if you went straight into the workforce or the average interest that a person is going to pay over the life of the loan so they are outrageously expensive and many people estimate that the true cost is over $500,000 so what are your thoughts on whether or not a college degree is worth it comment down below I'd like to hear and next let's talk about the cost we've kind of already gone over this before but yeah corsera $49 a month college degree over $100,000 but let's also compare it to something like a CompTIA certification so CompTIA certifications range all the way from about $130 all the way up to $466 and there are certifications that cost even more than that whereas a college degree the average cost of a 4-year tuition is $108,000 and if you go to a private college it's going to cost you about $42,000 a year and by the way Bachelors don't take four years they take 5.1 years on average so that' be $42,000 time 5.1 years which is well over $200,000 and that doesn't count the opportunity cost of the time that you could have been working in the workforce if you just went straight into the workforce and it also doesn't count the student loan interest that is going to build up so yeah college degrees outrageously expensive certificates very affordable and especially corsera certificates are extremely affordable next let's talk about anecdotes so what does the it Community say about certificates and certifications versus college degrees so this person asks I started my Google it supportt but looking at CompTIA A+ it seems a little bit more appealing should I focus on CompTIA A+ over Google it sear and basically the answer for most people here is get both and they say they actually learn more from the Google sech and that is kind of the general sentiment uh CompTIA is kind of the gold standard it's really well recognized but there's other certifications that are objectively better they're just maybe not as well recognized but over time the Google search is getting more and more well recognized so it's you know it's pretty good and generally speaking the sentiment about the Google It support certificates is very very good now let's talk about college degrees there are are many people of course who have gotten it jobs with a college degree and it so you can get a job with a degree or with cs it's pretty much that simple next let's talk about the dedication needed for IT professional certificates you could probably get them in you know a few weeks maybe a few months maybe you end up getting a few of them as well so let's say it takes you you know something like 6 months for college degrees it is going to take you 5.1 years on average for a bachelor's degree and it takes about 3.3 years to get an associates degree so it takes significantly longer to get a college degree now for it Sears you do need to have a lot of discipline right because there's not going to be a teacher there to tell you to do stuff there's not going to be someone there to say hey you're not doing very well so you need to have a lot of discipline because you're not going to have the structure of a traditional classroom so it's important to stay committed and manage your time effectively with college degrees on the other hand there is cour workor and study there's tests that you have to take there's exams there's professors to give you feedback there's people to hold you accountable so if you're the type of person who needs that then maybe a college degree would be a bit better for you we've talked a lot about the pros let's talk about the cons of each one so for it Sears there's less networking opportunities because you're just taking aert online and it's just generally harder to build professional connections and it's probably not going to be quite as comprehensive as a traditional degree however you're also not going to learn a bunch of stuff that you don't need to know for college there's the cost and student loan debt and you learn a bunch of stuff that you don't need to know and it takes much much longer which is going to cost you a lot when it comes to opportunity cost colleges also tend to be very rigid so it takes them a long time to adjust to new trends which is why often times you'll end up learning stuff that was good five 10 or even 20 years ago however it's not as useful now now let's talk about some recommended courses and Sears the Google IT professional certificate is phenomenal I've done a whole video on it it's excellent the Microsoft it support professional certificate is great too it just came out definitely check it out and there's some other it related certificates on corsera that are really good as well so my final decision if you are looking to start your it career quickly flexibly and without breaking the bank an it sht is going to be the way to go it's much cheaper you basically get to dip your toe in and if you don't like it you can do something else whereas with a college degree when you spend $100,000 on something you're kind of stuck I declare bankruptcy and the best thing is if you decide for whatever reason you want to get a college degree later on you can always go back and do it no problem whatsoever but with a college degree you're dedicating 5.1 years of your life on average significant student loan debt and during that time you're probably not going to be earning anything on the flip side with a professional certificate within maybe 3 to 6 months you'd probably have your first it job and after 5.1 years you're going to know a ton because you've been learning on the job the whole time if you do decide to get a college degree I do recommend checking out WGU I've made a lot of videos about them is that's a way to get it faster and cheaper than a normal it degree but overall I think the IT professional asserts are the way to go because they're super cheap there's not a huge barrier to entry you're not investing a bunch of your time effort and money and they're still really good and you can actually just land a job with just the ITT now by the way if you haven't done already check out the video that I did on the Google It support professional certificate and you can check that out by clicking right here