Whether you’re a high school student contemplating college or an older adult considering a mid-life career change, there’s one profession you might not readily think about, but should consider choosing: National Court Reporters Association, or NCRA court reporters.

Court reporting services are not only a valuable and integral part of American society, the profession also has a lot of benefits that go along with it. More and more young people are realizing just how crippling paying for a traditional college education has become and are looking for another route. NCRA court reporters offer a permanent or temporary solution, depending on what you want to make of it.

Here are three awesome benefits that come with becoming a court report.

1. Little to No Student Debt: As touched upon earlier, student loans are the bane of most college student existence. They say it’s an investment, but with so many recent grads left out in the cold looking for work in their field it’s become more of a roll of a dice than secure investment. A typical four-year degree will easily cost at least $50,000 at most private institutions, even after partial scholarships and such. NCRA court reporters must only pay for the certification program, which is much less expensive and can be completed in as little as 18 months. On average, the court reporting education program and certification process takes 33.3 months.
2. Great Starting Pay: Instead of earning a degree and predictably being forced to look outside your field for a minimum wage type job, court reporters enjoy the luxury of starting off around $40,000 a year salary. This obviously varies depending on where you live and what specific job you have, but it’s certainly a better prospect than what you’ll find coming out of college with most degrees.
3. Options and Skill Building: Not all NCRA court reporters sit in a court room all day. In fact about 70% spend most of their time elsewhere doing things like closed captioning, recording on-site depositions, and various other types of work. In addition to this versatility, learning how to be a court reporter helps you build typing, communication, listening, and other valuable skills that you can use later in life if you ultimately decide to do something else.