Your professor has a vested interest in convincing you that pharm tech school is helpful. Yes, being certified will usually get your more pay (but not that much more, usually between 50cents to $2/hr more) and many states do require certification......however 99% of technician have been certified through employer training/on-the-job experience/on their own. Anyone capable enough to pass the certification test will be capable enough to get certified without going to pharm tech school. Granted COL or income varies in areas, but I have never heard of a non-experience technician starting out at $16.00/hour. Your professor may not be out and out lying to you (although she may be), but I would wager she is not telling you the whole story either. Extremely few technicians make $16.00/hr, and those that are, are invariably speciality technicians (ie a technician who is overseeing a chemo department.) or technicians who have worked for the same place 25 years or so.) In my area, for both retail and hospital, the going rate is $1.00/hr more for being certified, and all employers will pay for the certification testing & training after hiring someone (in IL, technicians by law, must be certified by 2 years after they first get their technician license.) All else being equal, employers will pretty much always hire the non-certified technician with experience, over the certified, non-experienced technician.
I know you have probably already signed on to the loans and don't have much of a choice, but I write this for others considering going to pharm tech school. The $15,000-$20,000 charged by these schools is not worth it. Whatever your situation, taking on $15,000-$20,000 debt is not the answer. It seems real easy when the federal government pays for this upfront, but you will be paying off this non-dischargeable-in-a-bankrupty loan for years, and most likely at just a few dollars above minimum wage salary.