920: LIVE From the 2024 ⁠Career Education Convention⁠ - with Aaron Schenk, Executive Director, The Mid-Atlantic Association of Career Schools (MAACS)

Welcome back, everybody. It's your time to EdUp on the EdUp Experience podcast where we make education your business. We're here at the Career Education College and University annual education convention in Indianapolis, Indiana, as we celebrate the amazing work that our colleagues in career education do to serve students. 

Always with me by my side for these three days is Douglas Carlson, the head of partnerships at Lead Squared. Douglas, welcome back again. I'm so happy to be here. Douglas, I again want to thank Lead Squared for bringing us here and sponsoring this podcast. We've been both intentional with the guests we've had and also a little bit lucky as we've had a couple of high-powered, very connected individuals in the space swing by. So we've been both lucky and good.

I'll take both. You know, good planning leads to good luck. We'll take that. I feel like that's a good way to end our day. We've got a great guest in front of us today. By the way, ladies and gentlemen, as you're listening to this, we recorded at least 10 podcasts today. So I think I deserve a little bit of grace on the mistake front. Douglas, you've yet to make any mistakes, so I feel like we're going to need to let you take over so you can mess up and I can make fun of you.

Ladies and gentlemen, let's get our guest in right now. He is Aaron Schenk, the executive director of the Mid-Atlantic Association of Career Schools, or MAX. What's going on Aaron? How are you?

Aaron: Great, great. How are you guys doing today? Thanks for having me.

Joe Sallustio: Mistakes and all, we're here for you my friend. Tell us about MAX. Tell us all about your organization, association. What do you do? How do you do it?

Aaron: Sure, we're a trade association that represents over 100 career schools. We started out about 75 years ago in Pennsylvania, representing Pennsylvania-only schools. About five to ten years ago, we kind of organically grew into a regional association. Some neighboring state associations were either folding or, for various other reasons, some of their member schools decided to join us. So we now have members predominantly still in Pennsylvania, but a lot in Maryland. We also have many New Jersey beauty school members. And we have some schools from Delaware, West Virginia, and a few other states as well. So it's kind of an organic regional association.

Joe Sallustio: Amazing. So do each of those individual schools, are they members of CQ or are you representing MAX because they're members of MAX and then you're here as a member of CQ? Tell me about it.

Aaron: A little bit of both. Many of our members are members of CQ as well. And then also a lot of our cosmetology schools are members of a different organization that's cosmetology-specific. But I'm here kind of representing both. I come every year for many different reasons: some of the programming, meeting different folks, networking. So it's a great annual convention I try to get to every year.

Joe Sallustio: How's your conference been going? Has it met your expectations? Have you learned a lot?

Aaron: Absolutely. 

Joe Sallustio: Tell me, what's the biggest takeaway so far that you've learned from your colleagues?

Aaron: A couple of big takeaways, but one big one I just had about an hour ago: we had some time with US Department of Education staff and got to ask some very technical questions on regulations that would probably bore a lot of people, but they're very important for our schools.

Joe Sallustio: Not if you operate a school. So as I understand it, you're telling me that representatives from the Department of Education answered your questions to satisfactory levels.

Aaron: They answered my questions.

Joe Sallustio: Yikes! Well, tell us a little bit about your constituency base. You told me a leading question that I have to dig in on before we jumped on was that you have some pretty unique schools. So tell me about that. Well, tell me first about your entire school base. Who does that consist of? And maybe give us some interesting highlights.

Aaron: Sure. We've got your common more traditional ones like some of your hard trades like welding, HVAC construction, things a lot of people think of. We have automotive aviation repair, CDL. We have a lot of cosmetology beauty, a lot of allied health medical and many other different programs you'd see at a lot of schools. But we've got a couple of unique members. Two that I'll just mention. One is we have the Pennsylvania Gunsmithing School. It's one of the only gunsmithing schools in the world, and it actually brings students from all over the world to Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. So that's a very unique member. Another one we have is Douglas Education Center. They have a movie special effects makeup program. And that brings students from all over the world as well that come there and then go off to different careers in Hollywood or elsewhere. So those are just two very unique programs you don't find anywhere else. But we have other ones as well.

Joe Sallustio: What is it called? The Douglas Education Center?

Aaron: Not the Douglas Carlson School of Movie Making. 

Joe Sallustio: I thought that you were... It was there for you to comment on, but it didn't work. I am not the owner, just so we're clear. Well, I'm actually really surprised. I think about all of the military hardware that exists in the US and maybe as private pieces, but that shocks me there's not more gunsmithing schools in the US and in the world just generally.

Aaron: Correct. There's just a very small number in the US and just a slightly larger number in the entire world.

Joe Sallustio: Huh, that's wild. So what do you do on behalf of your schools? What's your mission as your organization?

Aaron: Sure, many different things. I wear a lot of different hats, but I'd say probably the first thing is government relations and advocacy. So in other words, lobbying or whatever you want to call it. We do a large amount of work with state and federal legislators, regulators, etc. I'd say that's probably the biggest piece. 

Probably the next biggest piece I'd say is professional development and training for schools. We do our annual conference every year in July, and in between the annual conference, we do other events, webinars, we provide different sets of information out to members. We also have an online training center that they can use at any time, 24 hours. So we do a lot of professional development for schools.

Then probably the next piece I'd say is just a lot of one-off things that pop up that schools need help with, working with different vendors, working on certain issues that may impact one or two schools. So it really ranges. 

But then the other thing is I think we provide a kind of a forum or network for members. A lot of times just being a member of an association, they get to know a lot of other peers at other schools. And not even going through us, they'll just have the ability to know people at different schools, maybe email them, call them, ask them questions, and kind of just ping stuff off each other. Use them as resources, just mutual resources.

Joe Sallustio: As you mentioned, you're involved in both state and federal affairs. Are you in all of the state houses from time to time of the different constituencies you represent? How does that work?

Aaron: Great question. The short answer is yes, I've been in them all. Depending on the state, depending on what's going on. My original background and roots are in the Pennsylvania Capitol. Prior to this job about 10 years ago, my entire career was working in government in Pennsylvania for the state house, state senate, and the governor. So I've got deep roots in the Pennsylvania capital. For the other ones we work with, I've gotten to them all and I've started to learn and get to know a few people. But then we also have people, boots on the ground in those states as well that will go into those capitals and advocate for us when needed.

Joe Sallustio: What's on your mind? You're really talking about government affairs. You're having conversations, you're advocating for the impact of career colleges in the states that you represent. What's on your radar right now that you're advocating for?

Aaron: The biggest thing right now are federal issues, predominantly regulatory. We work with Congress and the various federal departments. There are certainly issues in Congress, but candidly with Congress having kind of split control, not much is getting done. Plus, with it being an election year, not much is getting done. 

So right now most of the things are going on on the regulatory side, predominantly through the U.S. Department of Education, but also with some other regulatory agencies. And those are the things that, you know, probably if you walked around this conference hallway and asked most schools what's impacting them most right now, I bet that would be one of the top answers.

Joe Sallustio: You know, one of the things that has come up a couple of times, I've asked this question to Dr. Jason Altmeyer and Congresswoman Loretta Sanchez. If you look at what's happening in the sector, and it's always been this way, you have a group of political detractors, right? And the people who represent states in Congress and even at the federal level that say career education is intentionally hurting students or these are not viable business models. It's been that way. And there's some that are positive about it, but let's just take those that are not positive about it for a minute.

On the other side of this, by and large, you have happy students. You have students who are getting jobs. They see an ROI. They're the ones that are in your house fixing your electricity and fixing your car and doing all these things that you don't think about. And in the middle, somehow we can't connect those students to those detractors. Or maybe they don't want to be connected with the happy students because it might change somebody's opinion. That's where you live in the middle. How do we get that connection to take place?

Aaron: Sure. So yes, you're right. We do have a lot of proponents, a lot of people that truly appreciate and love the sector. Quite candidly, given the outcomes of these schools, the jobs that they create or employ, the great graduation outcomes, placement outcomes, you go through the numbers and these schools produce phenomenal outcomes by and large. 

But there are detractors. And I would say to your question of do they want to be turned or not turned... I think it's a little bit of both. We've definitely turned some. We've had some members of Congress or other policymakers that maybe were a little apprehensive for whatever reasons, and we brought them into schools, had them meet with students, meet with employers, and they've grown a new perspective. 

Candidly, there's also some of the detractors that just don't want to see the other side. It's just a political issue for them and they're going to remain where they are. I don't want to speak for them, but for whatever reason, they've just dug in their position and they've not wanted to see the other side.

Joe Sallustio: Can you tell us a little bit about the, we've talked a lot about kind of the flip in student demand. So I don't want to talk necessarily as much about that side of things, but it does seem like the trades are back, man. Like they're cool, people are interested, and there's lots of reasons behind that. On the flip side though, there's this push into career schools and there's also the pull out, which are the jobs and the employers. So can you talk a little bit about how, if at all, either your organization or the schools you represent are engaging the job market? Because students are getting hired right out of school.

Aaron: Absolutely. Great question, and I agree 100% with the comment. There is no question that trades are definitely more in demand right now. We're seeing it on many different levels. I can just give you an example. My own son's high school, he graduated this year. And we were at a meeting there about two weeks ago. They were talking about the dip they see in the number of graduates going to college, traditional four-year. And those going either directly into a career school or into a trade directly, etc. So just at my own local level, I've seen it firsthand and we know nationally that that's the trend. 

Now to your second point, that's a point that I think schools need to be very aware of, and I think they are. Even though there's more demand for the trades, there's also a lot more diversity in who's offering or who's filling that demand. And a lot of employers are realizing they can do it directly. So one of my messages to schools is to start partnering directly with employers to be those trainers. If they don't be more proactive in that sense, then some players may just bypass some of the schools and just start offering the training directly.

Joe Sallustio: Who's the bigger threat to the career college sector? The employer who starts offering their own training or the community college that thinks they can offer this kind of training? Because both are...

Aaron: So I would probably say, I would say the employer is just my personal guess to that question. But I also think it depends on the community college. I've seen some very good community colleges that produce very good trade programs that have positive outcomes. And quite frankly, I've seen some with dismal outcomes too. So I think it may depend on that specific community college you're dealing with.

Joe Sallustio: I think it's a very real point and I'm glad, this is why I'm glad we have such diversity of voices, because this is the first time we've heard it today about employers actually doing more of the training, but it's a really important point because if they're not, if we're not as schools providing what is needed, they're gonna step in and do it because the demand is so much. 

And this is a very real example, at least from my world as well, is I won't name the hospital system, but we work with a hospital system in the state of Florida that's building its own college because there's so much demand, but it's also a quality issue too. They want to make sure that people are up to their quality. So it's an interesting position to be in because your students have a place to go, but you also need to make sure you're working with employers as well.

What do you think about program-wise? You get to look at these hundred institutions. You probably know what some of them offer. What's like where you go, hey, this program is pretty interesting. Maybe this has legs for the future to help redefine an industry.

Aaron: Good question. I don't know if you want to answer that. I would certainly say I'm not seeing many programs yet on it, but I'm interested to see what programs get created either as a result of or to fill the need for AI in the future. And it's still really on the cusp of it. But I'm interested to see how that really transforms the schools in many different ways. It could just be the actual programs, the jobs that they're actually trying to fill, the marketing, enrollment, admissions, I mean there's so many different ways that's going to change these schools and really all of higher ed. And I don't have the answer how that's going to look because not only anyone does but it's going to be interesting to see really how that's going to take shape over the next five years or so, maybe ten.

Joe Sallustio: Douglas?

Douglas: And I think you've already partially answered the question but I think kind of zooming out even further is what do you think higher education is going to look like in the next two to five years? And AI is certainly going to influence it, but are there any other dramatic changes in the landscape, especially for the schools you represent?

Aaron: I think certainly the AI piece. The other piece that we'll see, and we've already started to see it, is the, I don't want to say collapse, but the closure of many longstanding traditional liberal arts colleges. Everyone has seen that the career sector over the last 10 years have had closures. But I think we're gonna start to see more and more of the traditional liberal arts, particularly old institutions that are small and have been around for many years and just are not driving enrollment like they used to. So I think that's gonna be the, and then who fills those gaps in terms of education needs.

Joe Sallustio: Yeah. You know, that's such a good point. We've talked about that a bunch today and you wonder somebody sitting somewhere goes, man, nonprofit liberal arts institutions that are 200 years old are closing too. And not just the career colleges. Maybe we ought to rethink how we're looking at these things. You know, you wonder if there is a level playing field or a single definition that starts to be adopted on school operating, right? 

Because it's not just the closures for nonprofits. It's also these gigantic and I mean gigantic budget cuts that these schools are starting to realize because they relied on HEERF funds that got them through their budget season and all of a sudden you go, okay, wait a minute, we don't have as much enrollment as we need to pay our expenses off. So we have approved budgets. If you have that for too many years, your endowment, which a lot of career colleges do not have or don't have, goes away, which is basically your savings account where your profit goes or your surplus, depending on how you want to look at it. 

So it'll be interesting to see if anybody steps up to say, wait a minute, this is unacceptable for nonprofits to just start closing like this. We need to do something. Bail out maybe. You wonder if the government's going to come in and save a bunch of schools in the nonprofit sector and boy what a bias that would be because nothing happened for the for-profit. It's gonna be interesting to see don't you think?

Aaron: Absolutely and you're right too it might not just be closures it might just be those large cuts which we're seeing in many, many institutions.

Joe Sallustio: Well there you have it. Is there anything else you want to say about MAX that we haven't asked you? Anything you want to plug? Your conference again one more time?

Aaron: I'd love to do that. So anyone who's listening, our conference will be July 23rd-25th in beautiful Annapolis, Maryland. We have plenty of content and networking and everything else there for you. So if you're a career school and interested in coming, please feel free to email me at AARON@MAACS.US.

Joe Sallustio: Douglas, this is our final podcast of the day. One, how do you feel? And two, how do you feel about this conversation?

Douglas: Man. So this has been an absolute great overview of a day of the sector in space. And I don't think any better way to finish it on up with someone that has a little bit of a higher level viewpoint. We've talked to a lot of people who are like, we're the micro, they know their school or they know their area. But thank you for getting with the perspective of, you know, 100 plus schools for the mid Atlantic. Great. I appreciate your time.

Joe Sallustio: Ladies and gentlemen, my guest co-host, I'm kicking him out now since we have no more podcasts. He's Douglas Carlson. He's head of partnerships at Lead Squared. And thank you to Lead Squared for bringing us here so that we can have these conversations with our great colleagues across the career education sector, including this gentleman. I don't remember what music I gave him coming in, but this is the one going out. He's Aaron Schenk. He's executive director at the Mid-Atlantic Association for Career Schools. I got it right. MAACS. There you have it, everybody. You've just ed up.