Imagine this: Someone offers to pay your way through school, and they also pay you a salary with benefits while you’re in school, and guarantee you a job upon graduation.
“Uh, I was like, ‘So, what’s the catch?’ " said a skeptical; Judith Ramirez. "It’s too good to be true.”
Yet, there Ramirez sat Tuesday in an emergency medical services classroom at Southwestern College in Otay Mesa as a new cadet in a training academy called Earn While You Learn, a new partnership with American Medical Response.
Ramirez, a 28-year-old single mother from Chula Vista, didn’t think she’d be able to fulfill a lifelong dream of becoming an EMT.
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“Now I will be able to accomplish that dream that I had,” said a beaming Ramirez.
“Right now, there’s a dire need for EMTs and paramedics in our area,” said Jason Hums, Southwestern’s director for the EMT and paramedic programs.
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In order to fill that need, Southwestern partnered with AMR to clear the path for 11 dedicated students, including Ramirez.
“They’re not going to have the tuition expense, they’re not going to have student loans,” explained Hums.
AMR is covering the bills for all 11 cadets and will pay them a salary with benefits while they’re in school.
“They get full-time benefits even though they’re just part-time students,” said a smiling Claudia Rempel, an AMR operations manager.
“They don’t have to worry: ‘Do I buy my textbook or feed myself or my family?’ ” Hums added.
“It lifts a weight off my shoulders,” Ramirez said with a sigh.
Ultimately, at the end of the 250-credit hour program, all 11 candidates will have jobs with AMR, an ambulance company serving National City and parts of northern and eastern San Diego County.
“We’re offering everything they need to be successful,” Rempel said.
Part of that success also adds more women to a profession dominated by men. Seven of the 11 cadets are young women. Ramirez couldn’t wait to tell her daughter.
“She was so happy," said Ramirez. “She was so excited. I’m ecstatic to be that role model for her.”
This is the first time AMR and Southwestern College have partnered on the Earn While You Learn program. They said they hope it benefits at least one recruit class a year.
