An associate degree or a for-credit certificate from a community college is the route most people in this occupation actually took, and it is the one that survives a move or a layoff because the credits transfer. Pell covers a large share of the cost for most families and does not have to be repaid. File FAFSA before you talk to anyone about price.
For this occupation specifically
381,000 people do this work. 18.5% are women and 9.2% are Hispanic, so roughly 6,485 are Latina. BLS describes the usual way in as community college, certificate, apprenticeship.
Sources. Employment totals and the share of each
occupation that is women and that is Hispanic: US Bureau of Labor Statistics,
Current Population Survey annual
averages, reproduced as published. The Latina share is an estimate: BLS publishes the two shares
separately and not their intersection, so the two are multiplied and labelled as such everywhere it
appears. County economic type: USDA Economic Research Service County Typology Codes; labour markets:
2020 Commuting Zones. Funded training routes: WIOA through local workforce boards, registered
apprenticeships via apprenticeship.gov, and federal student aid via studentaid.gov. We publish the
source so the arithmetic can be checked rather than trusted.