Journal & Topics Media Group

Dist. 207 Career Program Aims To Help Students Avoid Student Loan Debt


Recent Maine South High School graduate Katherine Henning, left, completed an internship with Park Ridge interior design firm Drummond Advisors/BJB last spring. She worked with Stacy Purcell, right, to learn about the interior design process and assist with projects.

Maine Township High School Dist. 207 is on a mission to make sure its students are debt free whether they graduate college or enter the workforce right after high school. 

Since 2015, the district has been building its Return on Investment career pathways program. Through the program, each of the district’s approximately 6,400 students can develop a career plan, participate in hands-on learning experiences in their fields of interest, and receive consultation about the most financially responsible ways to explore their dreams after college.

With outstanding student loan debt in the U.S. estimated at $1.48 trillion, according to the most recent report from the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, dealing with college debt has become a crisis for graduates.

“The trends for this generation of American kids is not as good as their parents enjoyed,” Dist. 207 Supt. Ken Wallace said in an interview with the Journal & Topics on Oct. 1. He explained that, after the federal No Child Left Behind Act was passed in 2001, many districts — including Dist. 207 — started retiring trade programs and pushing all students to enroll in four-year universities and colleges.

“We have been designing our schools to do just one thing, and that’s everyone going to college,” Wallace said. “It’s really imprecise.”

According to data from the district, 43 percent of the top 100 jobs in Maine Township — with high demand and high wages — require only an associates degree, while only 35 percent require a four-year degree. Today, many who graduate with four-year degrees are not able to find jobs that pay a wage suitable for paying off their school debt.

“Wages have been artificially flattened in the economy for decades,” Wallace said.

Additionally, if students do not have a career path when they enroll in college, they could spend even more money switching majors and taking superfluous classes.

Wallace was inspired to change how Dist. 207 prepares students for life after high school by Project Lead The Way, a program established in 1997. Students in this program worked on real-world, problem-based science, technology, engineering and math projects while in high school. When they went to college, those students were more successful than most students (who did not have the same real-world experience) in engineering programs with high dropout rates.

“I wanted to try to take that and apply it to any career,” said Wallace.

In the Dist. 207 Return on Investment Program, Wallace said administrators led by Career Coordinator Laura Cook try to organize one to two internships or hands-on learning experiences for each student based on their skills and interests. If the student doesn’t think they would enjoy a career in the first field they experience, they have a chance to try something else. This way they can avoid a similar, more expensive search in college.

Last month, 29 students attended an interview session at Maine West High School in Des Plaines for positions at Brookdale Senior Living, according to Kayla Hansen, another career coordinator for the district. She said the positions would be part of the health and human services pathway offered to students.

“Students are being exposed to things that aren’t in their general knowledge,” said Hansen. While students can choose a specific pathway such as the health and human services track, they are not required to.

“We want to let them experience as many careers as possible,” she added.

Maine East High School student Riya Patel, right, learns from Elara Electrical Engineer Asima Nikhat, left, and college intern RW Reno as part of a job shadow with Elara Engineering.

Apart from interview sessions and hiring events, the district also offers job shadowing programs, career panels, field trips, workshops and information sessions about creating resumes and completing employment documents through the program.

When the Return on Investment project began four years ago, 230 career experiences were made available to students in Dist. 207 among 74 business partners. Last year, nearly 2,000 experiences were offered and over 580 community business partners. Among the partners is the IBEW electrical workers union, which offers apprenticeships for students directly after high school.

Danish Nawab, a student at Maine East High School in Park Ridge, became an intern at Chipman Design and Architecture through the program. At Chipman, he was able to work on projects for the firm and was named an equity analyst in his senior year of high school.

“It impacted me in a way no book or course can,” Nawab said of the experience.

Ken Chipman said the experience has also been positive for the company. “It’s been really exciting to watch him grow and mature,” said Chipman.

Nawab is just one example of many success stories in the program. In this way, the program also functions as a community revitalization initiative, according to Wallace.

“It’s a win-win. It’s good for our kids and also good for the business partnerships,” he told the Journal.

After students have found a career path they enjoy based on course work and practical experiences, administrators can help them develop a plan based on their finances, tuition costs, scholarships, financial aid, apprenticeships and job openings to determine how to minimize the amount of debt they may take on, said Wallace.

“We try to have reasonable debt based on starting salary,” he said. “We really need to start doing better by our kids.”

Support local news by subscribing to the Journal & Topics in print or online.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published.