915: LIVE From the 2024 ⁠Career Education Convention⁠ - with Dr. Jason Altmire, CEO, CECU

Dr. Joe Sallustio: Welcome back everybody. It's your time to EdUp on the EdUp Experience podcast where we make education your business. This is Dr. Joe Sallustio with another episode here from the Career Education College and University annual education convention in Indianapolis, Indiana, as we purposefully and intentionally celebrate the amazing work by our colleagues in and around career education today, a space that is much needed.

There are so many great operators and administrators serving students of all kinds across the country and outside of the country. Of course, by my side for every episode here, at least for today, you know him by now. I don't have his music ready, but here he is. He is the one and only Douglas Carlson.

He is the head of partnerships for LeadSquared. And of course, LeadSquared is our sponsor to bring us out here. Thanks, Douglas. Absolutely a pleasure. And I'm going to let you do all the introductions, but I'm excited about our guest.

Douglas Carlson: Yeah, I am too. 

Dr. Joe Sallustio: But it's not the first time he's been here on the EdUp Experience. In fact, it would be the second time he's been on the EdUp Experience. And he's co-hosted with me, which and now has his own podcast, which he's going to get to plug here in just a second. Let's bring him in this way. He's Jason Altmire. He is the president and CEO of Career Education Colleges and Universities. Jason, welcome back to EdUp. How are you?

Jason Altmire: Thank you, Dr. Joe. Douglas, good to see you both. I was wondering what my walk-up music was going to be. So I like it. How are you? How's it going?

Dr. Joe Sallustio: Really well. Really well. You know, these guys, we were joking before that these conferences are a lot like weddings. You have vendors, you have attendees, you have probably planning for a whole year in advance. You've got so many things going on behind the scenes, in front of the scenes. You've got speakers, you've got sessions, you've got a lot going on. How has the conference been so far for you? Talk about your expectations and where everything sits.

Jason Altmire: I love this event because it's the largest gathering of career education professionals anywhere during the course of the year. And it's like family. People come in, they're seeing each other sometimes for the first time, but also the business that can get done, the connections that can be made. Right before I came over here to you, we have some of our Canadian friends that are here because we have an alliance with the Canadian Association and was making some introductions with schools that want to do business with them in Canada. So it's just really gratifying to see everyone having a good time, but also professionally gaining from all of this.

Dr. Joe Sallustio: Now who's your Canadian counterpart?

Jason Altmire: They are called the National Association for Career Colleges. And it's run by Michael Sangster. Who of course you might know, hosts EdUp Canada.

Dr. Joe Sallustio: Yes, exactly. We were talking about our two podcasts just at lunch. So, yes. Is it OK for me to feel a little bit proud of all of this? I mean, I feel like I did some trailblazing me and Alvin for the podcast. We're like the children. You're the godfather of all the podcasts.

Jason Altmire: I hit two buttons at once. That's the way we are.

Dr. Joe Sallustio: Give us your state of the sector. You know, there's a lot going on. We'll talk about some of those things, but where do you see the sector itself for career college?

Jason Altmire: There's two ways to look at it. One is on the regulatory side. We are a highly regulated sector. The political battles are fierce because there is a difference of opinion in Washington on the role of for-profit higher education in career schools. So we fight those battles and we advocate for our schools.

But on the school side, I travel around the country as I know you both do as well and I visit schools and it's just exhilarating to see the look on the faces of the students, the life-changing opportunity that they've been given. Often people in transition, veterans returning from the workforce, single moms, people who've been downsized or laid off looking for a change and to see the path that they're on to a new career and we have huge workforce shortages in many of these programs. 

So from that perspective, we are filling a need for the country, the communities benefit from having the schools there, of course, the students and the schools and all of that is going very well. The outcomes are great, the job placement, the benefit to society, but we do still have the political battles to fight.

Dr. Joe Sallustio: Douglas, I'll pass it to you, but just one more quick one. You worked in Congress and you understand this better than anyone. The political side, the dichotomy you stated. We've got this political, divisive, fierce opinion on one side and student outcomes, happy students on the other. And the gap that exists is opinion between those two things is operations and schools and so on.

I don't know if there is an answer, but bridging that gap. It seems like it should be so simple. Like I should be able to say, here's a happy student. They're thrilled with their education. Allow these schools to serve these students who are thrilled with their education. But it isn't that easy. Why isn't it?

Jason Altmire: We have found that our fiercest critics are often people that have not visited schools. They haven't taken the time to learn about the sector, to learn about the work that we do. They're driven by media narratives about things that happened in the past and isolated incidences. And when you get, especially a critic, but you know, somebody who hasn't really thought about it before, when you get them to our school...

And as I said, they see the faces of the students, they get to ask questions. There's nothing better than a graduation ceremony when the family and friends are there. And you can see the look of gratitude on the students' face and achievement that they got there. It makes a huge difference. And that's how you win over our critics is you show them in person, this is what it's all about.

Dr. Joe Sallustio: Got to get them there.

Jason Altmire: Yes.

Douglas Carlson: And I think to build on that point a little bit, we have done a number of interviews over the last couple days and we'll do a number more. Two things that stand out, and I'd be really interested to see if you are hearing this in your conversations as well. One, there's been an interesting sea change the last five years with students. All of a sudden the trades are cool. There's a momentum there. There's those pieces. It's kind of thing one. And then thing two is it's not about placing people anymore. It's actually quite the opposite. It's about folks being pulled into the workforce that's so desperately needed and actually the workforce coming in a lot of cases to our proprietary schools. We've heard a lot of anecdotes about that today. Are you seeing that? Does any data support that? What's your perspective?

Jason Altmire: It used to be for many years that anything other than the four-year path in higher education was somehow the wrong choice. It was substandard. It was what you did if you couldn't get into college. That has all changed the perception of taking that career path. And we find that that starts with young people today at the high school level and thinking about their choices and the advice they're getting from guidance counselors. Because if you want to rebuild America, right? President Biden passed a $2 trillion infrastructure package. You're going to need welders. You're going to need truck drivers. You're going to need the underwater construction divers. You're going to need heavy equipment operators. We have a huge workforce shortage of allied health but especially nursing professionals and we're about to approach a cliff with people aging out and leaving the profession so I think society understands that there is a huge void of those professions so being able to give students that are interested in it and have an aptitude that career path is not viewed as negatively or negatively at all but it used to be viewed negatively because for some reason you had to have that four year degree.

Dr. Joe Sallustio: Sure, it was just the messaging. Tell them like it is. Now Jason, if you go back in the past, there were many for-profit colleges that closed and they closed for multiple reasons. There was GAO reports and there was compliance issues and right and back then when all those schools were closing, people looked at this sector and went, you know, good. You know what? Get those bad actors out of here. We don't want those schools anyway.

Then you take those that were left, the good operators, who literally to be able to operate a career college in the environment that they're in, not only do you have to really want it, you gotta want it, because you get incredible regulation. When you said there's high regulation, high would be like the least strong adjective you could use, right? You're being very kind. It's unbelievable. And then to be able to do it successfully with all that regulation is being an incredible operator.

Now fast forward, nonprofit universities are closing and colleges are closing. Is there a, maybe I told you so isn't the right way to say it because you'd never say something like that, but do you, do you, how do you look across and go, you know, we've got some really strong operators and if, if these schools had operated under those same guidelines, perhaps something would have been different for those students who are now left out in the cold. Like, you know what I mean? Is the, is the eye moving to nonprofits right now because of the closures?

Jason Altmire: When we talk about accountability measures. That's what I was going to say, but yeah. We encourage accountability, right? We support, we certainly do not oppose accountability measures as long as they are applied to all schools in all sectors because we think all students should benefit from that same accountability. And what we find is often these regulations that are proposed by people who are heavily critical of the for-profit sector, the nonprofit sector and especially the public two-year schools could not pass the same accountability measures they want to impose upon for-profits. If you look at graduation rates, job placement, outcomes financially after graduation, debt repayment. So we're not opposed to taking a look at that. And as you outlined, people talk about school closures. There's been an epidemic of school closures in the other sectors. 

And, you know, for those that's maybe a niche publication to some, but certainly not in higher education. The Chronicle of Higher Education has been doing a series about closures, especially in the nonprofit and the public sector. And I think you're going to see more of it because you're seeing consolidation. You're seeing, as we talked about with career training being more of a focus, you're seeing the student population decline.

And you're seeing people make different choices than they used to in the past. So it's going to be very difficult to continue to operate so many of those types of institutions across the country. And you see approved deficits all over the place or a found deficit. Just recently, the university says we have a $40 million deficit. We didn't know. Two weeks ago, we didn't know when you go. Did you really not know? I mean, was anybody looking at the balance sheet really? So there's a responsibility and accountability that isn't applied equally.

Dr. Joe Sallustio: It's just not, it's not. The single definition and all these things that we, and I worked in the for-profit, you know this, I worked in for-profit school, career college for 15 years. It was an unbelievable explanation to my colleagues in nonprofit, higher ed, where I would have to say, well I can't, a student who inquires, I actually can't say this word and call it what it is. I can't say lead. Then when I went to nonprofit, I could do whatever the heck I wanted.

I could do whatever I wanted. And I remember my first day, my first weeks in nonprofit and somebody would say, can we, we're going to do this and I go, you cannot do that. And they would go, yeah, we can do. What do you mean? What do you mean? We don't need to call, tell anybody. And so the equal application is non-existent. And you just wonder if the closures continue on the nonprofit side, if somebody's going to wake up and go, we need some baseline accountability for all schools.

Jason Altmire: Well, we will tweet every once in a while or use other social media when these closures happen because we have critics that pounce any time a for-profit school closes, it becomes a huge story and they pass it around and we'll tweet and we'll, you know, tag all of those folks and say, hey, you paying attention? What's going on over here? You've been pretty quiet about this.

Dr. Joe Sallustio: There's a little bit of reporting bias.

Jason Altmire: Why aren't you talking about it? Yeah. And I can tell you, similar to what you just said, I've served on the Board of Trustees at two different medium-sized nonprofit colleges. And I was also, I worked at a very large academic medical center affiliated with a public university. And I've been to those board meetings. And I can tell you when the finance committee comes in and does their report, there is every bit as much focus on profit and on the bottom line as there is in any other sector because you cannot stay in business You cannot continue to operate and carry out your mission unless you have the resources to do that.

Dr. Joe Sallustio: So this is a profit Jason. It's surplus.

Jason Altmire: Yes, exactly. Well, that's that's the thing You know this idea that somehow the business mentality skews the way you think about your mission You can't in any business nonprofit for profit or even a public university You can't carry out that mission unless you have the resources and you're managing money effectively.

Douglas Carlson: Well said. So given this landscape, I think we've hit on a couple things I think are really interesting and important. So it's not just for-profit schools closing, it's also not for-profits. A change in interest in coming into the vocational space, a demand for vocational skills. One of the things I've heard actually yesterday, which I have not heard before is, all of a sudden, this is not just Republicans that are really interested in supporting the space. We also now have some Democrats coming over. Is that a combination of really effective engagement of the process? Is that a combination of times are changing? Can you comment on that? Because that was actually really exciting to hear.

Jason Altmire: Hopefully, no longer a part of the decision here, or at least maybe going that direction. Generally speaking, and there are exceptions, but generally speaking, the most hostile critics of the sector, for-profit sector, have been from the Democratic political side of things. So one of the charges of my role when I started this was to go build bridges with Democrats. I was a Democratic congressman, as you're aware. I served on the higher education subcommittee. And we've made that a priority. And we have brought them to the schools. We've shown them the data and the facts. We have a research foundation that commissions credible research on outcomes compared to other sectors and most people have an open mind, Republican or Democrat. There are some that, you know, are ideologically driven and that's it, but when you show them the data, when you bring them to a school, you can turn them around and we've made huge progress with Democrats in Congress and there are some, you know, if I could...

Dr. Joe Sallustio: plug our podcast. I was going to ask you about it. Of course you could plug your podcast.

Jason Altmire: Yeah. One of our most recent episodes was with Congresswoman Jasmine Crockett from Dallas, Texas, who was in the news recently. She's very partisan. She's, she's a, you know, a believer in her issues and she's a fighter and she's, you know, very much a progressive and, and, you know, comes from that perspective and is very effective, but she's very supportive of our schools, which is a surprise to people who know her politics in other areas. And she's a champion for career college students because she has seen firsthand people who come from disadvantaged backgrounds, people in her family have gone through career schools. So that's how you can win is by showing them the benefit. And in this case, you know, the Democratic constituency, they generally care about people who come from disadvantaged backgrounds who need a hand up, not a handout. And when you have something to show them, the tangible evidence of success, people finding careers, finding work, it really starts to help their mindset on these things.

Dr. Joe Sallustio: You know, it's almost like you want to say to the detractors of this space, next time you have an electrician come to your house or somebody to fix your AC, ask where they went to school. Chances are they've probably attended a career college. So then refuse their help. If you're not gonna support, refuse their help and don't get your lights fixed and try to find somebody else to do it that graduated with a bachelor's of art history.

Jason Altmire: Anything gonna happen? We have a list that we put out of the percentage of various professions who the percentage of the workforce comes from for-profit schools. And at the top it starts cosmetology 85% come from a for-profit school. About a quarter of the nurses in the country come from a for-profit school. Welders, about 20% of welders. But truck drivers, more than half the truck drivers in the country come from a for-profit school. The medical assistants that you see, dental assistants, veterinary assistants, two-thirds or more come from for-profit schools. When you put it that way, people think, I never really thought about it that way.

Dr. Joe Sallustio: Where does the essential worker to you? Remember the essential workers that were working during COVID? That was one of the big positives I thought for the sector was these are people from career colleges doing this ground level work and you want their help or else you're not going to get the medical care you want. But to your point, we don't. It's hard to see that when you're blinded by rhetoric. And there is a lot of biased reporting out there about for-profit sector and career colleges in general that they're somehow doing something with bad intention to intentionally put a student in debt. It's like come on. I mean, give me a break. Nobody's doing that on purpose.

Jason Altmire: Well, I'll tell you a good one is the aviation technicians about 40% of aviation techs people who work on your airplane come from a for-profit school. So when you're sitting on the plane and you're watching these men and women working on your plane, you want two things. You want there to be a lot of them and you want them to be really good at what they do. And those are our schools. That's what we do. Auto techs, the same thing. You know, you want to get your car repaired and you know, especially now as we're moving into electric vehicles and the technician aspect is so important. Those are our schools that do that. And I think when people understand that distinction and the impact it has in all aspects of their life, it really makes a difference.

Douglas Carlson: You have anything else you want to add? Well, and the other to build on that a little bit, we actually had aviation school of maintenance on earlier and they had mentioned, you know, they're a large player in the space, but one in four technicians in the country comes from their school. So it's like, you know, if you want a plane to fly, you want the school, you know, producing students.

Jason Altmire: That's exactly right. I visited a number of their schools. I think they have 15 of them around the country, mostly based around airports. And so impressive to see those facilities and they have relationships with the airlines, so you're going to get a job after that program and you're going to make a difference. And that's the story we need to tell.

Dr. Joe Sallustio: I want to just, before we end this, tell you guys a quick story about the biases that we still have to overcome. Recently, and I will leave all the names out, I was discussing an institution that acquired a nonprofit four-year university that acquired a for-profit career school. And one of the goals for this college I was talking to was to look at the lifetime education for people and say, well, if you get your certificate here, you can come here for a bachelor's degree. You never need to leave the system, right? And when it came down to it, internally, people within the nonprofit didn't want to take the credit from the for-profit university that they owned.

Douglas Carlson: You've got to be kidding me.

Dr. Joe Sallustio: No, I'm not kidding you. And you think about how deep that bias goes and how unfair it is as we educate people. You know, as you mentioned that it was a senator you interviewed or the Congresswoman.

Jason Altmire: Congresswoman. Yeah.

Dr. Joe Sallustio: That when you understand the community impact, it's a lot clearer to see the forest through the trees and when you understand what the impact of the community is. So I just wanted to put that in there as a story to let everybody that listens to this podcast know. Take the credits. If you're in a four-year and take the credits from those career colleges because those people are going to go on to do great things. That's all I'm going to say. And if you're lucky enough for them to come to your college, if they don't get a job where they're going to be making more than anybody else with a bachelor's degree, where else do we go from here, Jason? What's next?

Jason Altmire: Well, we're glad you're at the convention here. This we've got about 700 people grateful that you've taken the time to come and add to the excitement through the podcast and the interviews. After this, in the fall, we have an executive summit, which is the C-suite executives from schools. We cap it at 125. And we come together usually in November and we talk about the issues. There's no trade show or breakout sessions. It's everybody in the same room. What's exciting this year is we're doing it in Puerto Rico the day after the election. So November 6th through the 8th, three days. And just picture the scenario, right? Where as we talked about highly regulated industry, the outcome of the elections really does matter a lot to our schools and having everybody there the day after to commiserate and talk about what happened and why it happened and most importantly where do we go from here. It's going to be a good opportunity. 

So anyone who wants to look into that can go to career.org which is our website. Also our news clips are free to the public and either the most comprehensive daily news clips talking about what's happening in the sector, workforce development, even politics and business news are in there. So anyone interested in learning more about what's happening in higher education generally, but also the career education sector. If you go to career.org, you can sign up for those clips for free.

Dr. Joe Sallustio: And you mentioned your podcast, but you didn't say the name for anybody who is wondering what it is right now.

Jason Altmire: Thank you. Career Education Report. And it is interesting. Every two weeks we come out, we have people from politics, from business and education, and we talk about the issues similar to what you do. And we would love to have anyone join us at any time.

Dr. Joe Sallustio: Check out Dr. Jason Altmire on his podcast available wherever you can get your ApplePods, Spotify, wherever else I encourage you to. He's a maestro on the microphone and he's getting better and better and better and the guests are getting better and better and better. So I applaud you for that. Douglas, anything else to add? Because this has been fascinating for me. I'm sorry, I just keep asking a ton of questions.

Douglas Carlson: No, this is fantastic. And forgive me, I want to ask a random question. A lot of us, we work behind desks and don't actually get, maybe much of an opportunity to get hands on. So I'll answer the question first, but if you were to go into one of the trades that we represent, or what trade would you want to do? And I think for myself, I would definitely want to be a large machine operator. Like there's just something about that that is so impressive, either trucking, bulldozers, those kind of pieces, it's just really a lot of fun.

Jason Altmire: Well, I visited schools all over the country, all types of schools. And I love them all. They're exciting. It's fun to see. But I think the one that is most intriguing to me are the underwater construction.

Douglas Carlson: Yeah, that's cool.

Jason Altmire: These are the guys and women that build bridges. They do offshore wind turbines. They're underwater welders. And when you see the training and the expertise that goes into that, it will blow your mind. It's incredible the work that they do.

Dr. Joe Sallustio: We'll leave you there, everybody, with our guest co-host. He's Douglas Carlson, he's head of partnerships at LeadSquared. Douglas, thanks for being here and our esteemed guest on his way to his next appointment. He's Dr. Jason Altmire. He is the CEO and president at CECU Career Education Colleges and Universities. It's been an honor. It's always an honor to see you and host you.

Jason Altmire: Thank you both. Douglas, Joe, great to see you.

Dr. Joe Sallustio: Sure, buddy. You've just ed-uped.