908: LIVE From the 2024 ⁠Career Education Convention⁠ - with Jim Bologa, Chief Executive Officer, Porter and Chester Institute

Joe Sallustio: Welcome back, everybody. It's your time to ed up on the EdUp Experience podcast where we make education your business. Here at day two at the CECU annual Career College Convention in Indianapolis, Indiana, where we purposefully and intentionally celebrate the great work that our career colleges are doing for students all across this country and internationally in many respects and give voice to those that have something to say. We're really honored to be here thanks to the great generosity and partnership of our sponsor, Lead Squared. And I've got somebody from Lead Squared with me as my co-host today. Let's get him in now. I'm not sure he's awake, but we're going to wake him up. He's Douglas Carlson. He's head of partnerships at Lead Squared. Wake up, Douglas. What's going on? How are you?

Douglas Carlson: Man, that was better than coffee. That was great. I'm also drinking coffee. It is 8 AM at day two of a conference. And I'm really impressed looking around. Everyone is bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, which is impressive. I was wondering who scheduled an 8 AM podcast? Like who is the scheduler on these? And give me his phone number so I can call and yell at him.

Joe Sallustio: Is this Douglas Carlson? This was my fault. And so thank you. Our guests, I will give a big thank you to being here. All right, Douglas, enough of that. Let's get him in right now. Our guest. Let's see. Let me tee something up for him here. Here we go.

He's Jim Bologa. He's president and CEO of Porter and Chester Institute. Jim, welcome to an EdUp Mic. How are you?

Jim Bologa: I'm doing awesome. Entrance music first thing 8 AM. How do you like that?

Joe Sallustio: I like it. I like the walk-on music. Although I like Doug's a little bit better. Mine was a little too soft.

Jim Bologa: Yeah, there you go.

Joe Sallustio: I told him he's the only one that gets that one. Anyway, welcome to the podcast. And, you know, we're honored to have you here as a president and CEO of a career college serving students that need to be served. This is a critical sector of higher education. Tell us about Porter and Chester Institute. Who do you serve? How do you serve them?

Jim Bologa: Yeah, no, thanks for the opportunity. Porter Chester Institute's been around since 1946. So we've been around for almost eight decades. And we started in Connecticut and have branched out to Massachusetts. And about 10 years ago, we bought another school called YTI Career Institute in Pennsylvania. In our programs, generally speaking, our programs are around skilled construction trades. So if you want to become a plumber, an electrician, an HVAC tech, an electronics technician, we also have an automotive program, and then we've got, we originally founded as an engineering design school for veterans coming back from the second world war. And that's how we first started in 1946. And so we've got a program that's still dedicated to that, which has got some 3D modeling in it. And so it's pretty cool, you know, we've tried to keep it obviously updated and up with the times. It's a pretty cool program. And then we've got a computer networking program and then we've got some healthcare programs. So we've got medical assisting, dental assisting, and a practical nurse program. And those vocations or those careers basically run our country every day. So no matter where your day takes you, you're gonna be involved in one of those aspects.

And we're very excited about that. Our student population generally ranges from right out of high school up into, I would say probably mid-50s, believe it or not. We have folks who are changing careers. You know, we recently, I recently met somebody who was 55 years old and was in the legal profession for a number of years and during COVID got let go and decided he wanted to become an electrician. So amazing.

On the YTI Career Institute side in Pennsylvania, we've got some cool programs there. So if you want to become a veterinary technician or vet nurse, we also have a radiology therapist program and also a respiratory therapy program. So we've got some really neat healthcare programs. And again, becoming a respiratory technician during COVID was really paramount. And then we do have a culinary school. And I think that's probably, you know, we have about 20 programs, again, all sort of themed around healthcare, construction trades, and a little bit of transportation.

Joe Sallustio: For anyone who's listening, I'm not sure if the mics are picking it up, but Van Halen is going to be playing, sounds like for the next three minutes of this episode, just perfect for Jim because he's just thrashing right now. He's killing it. This, you know, I talk about career colleges. You don't know that you need the students who graduate from your career college until you try to go do something. I remember when I was in California a couple years ago, you could not find an electrician. They were booking out three, four months in advance. It's like you can't just get somebody come over and fix my life. There's such a demand for these trade programs and these skills. And also at the same time, a lot of people that tell you how to run your business, how do you balance that? You've got to train these people, but at the same time, you've got to manage the external.

Jim Bologa: Yeah, I mean... For us, literally, there's not a week that doesn't go by that I don't get a phone call from an employer. And every one of them is really looking for entry-level talent to come into their organization. And I think the broader narrative for us, at least in our markets and I think across the country, is that these are very viable career paths. This isn't a consolation prize. It's really, if you've got some interest in learning a trade, you know in a matter of I would say three, I'd say five to seven to ten years, you could have your own business if you're really that motivated and we actually have, you know, a number of cases where we had prospective students come to us. They were actually at a public institution pursuing, you know, bachelor's degrees in engineering and one of their friends was in our electrical program and the two brothers both dropped out, sophomores in traditional education, came to our program. It's only one year in length.

And so it's relatively a low risk, in my opinion, it's a low risk proposition, one year versus four. And the opportunity cost being those three years in between. And they actually graduated from our program. They now have their own electrical contracting business and they're running, I think, eight trucks. And it's actually pretty impressive. And they were, you could tell when you met them. They were something. Yeah, they had a plan. And they weren't shy about sharing that with us. 

And one of the things that we are introducing right now is we have what we're calling our entrepreneurial program. And that's really catered towards anybody who has learned a skill who wants to come back to us and learn the basics of business.

Douglas Carlson: Interesting.

Jim Bologa: Yeah. And that's really sort of stemmed out of the conversations with students who've said, hey, I've just become a licensed electrician or licensed HVAC technician. I'm thinking about starting a business and it would be great if I could get some additional education. And I think that's one of the really attractive things about the higher ed market, at least with regards to our programs, is that it's something that you can buy along the way as you need it. And we're getting some additional insight from folks in healthcare who start as an individual contributor, you know, either in a medical office or a dental office or, you know, in some sort of long-term care facility and then they want to move up into management. And so, you know, they're asking for some, you know, additional administrative skills and managerial skills. And so we're constantly just looking to our alumni as a source of, you know, ideas and innovation. And by staying close to them, that's been helpful for us. You know, again, the employment base and the workforce in general really in dire need of folks who basically pursue our careers.

Douglas Carlson: That's really the career laddering is really interesting. And I love the two paths, right? Because it sounds like in that in that year program, you have to learn the basics of and make sure that you have the skill set for the practical trade. But the whole point, though, is if you want to then go on and start your own business, you need that extra step. So that's brilliant to build on. And then for folks who want to ladder up in their career, I think it's so smart what you're doing to listen to the market. And also, like anything else, it's always easier to sell to slash bring back a student rather than find a new student. I suspect that'd be the case.

Jim Bologa: Yeah, no, absolutely. And I think that our alumni appreciate the fact that we're constantly trying to find new ideas or new ways for them to maybe continue with their lifelong learning. Yeah, and I think and I think for most of us, you know, myself, you know, when I remember I mean I, I graduated college and you know, I sort of view myself as, you know, a brother or, you know, of electrician trade or HVAC trade. I mean, I'm a CPA by by education and training and, you know, I had, I had to basically go to school, learn, learn, learn a trade, learn a skill, learn a vocation. And then I had to be an apprentice for a couple of years. I had to take a national exam. And then here we are. And again, a lot of the skilled trades are very much like that. 

And so I think for the interesting thing for me is I have three kids. They all went to traditional college. They're, you know, thank goodness they're all very, very successful. They picked good majors and that led to employment. So I'm super excited about, you know, the dad checkbox. Yeah. Their career decisions have been, have been good so far. And, you know, and I talked to a lot of folks, you know, I think the biggest, the biggest hurdle I see is people don't know what they don't know. Yeah. And, and I would say that, you know, there's generations that have not been exposed to, I'll just say, career college or these vocations. And I think as these next couple generations come through, it's really up to all of us to try to get the message out there. And again, there's guys like Mike Rowe and other people talking about skilled trades and about these professions. And I talk to my friends and say, it's really, as a family, making a decision, it's really a low risk proposition. I mean, again, I know it's all relative, but you know, you come to our school for one year, spend, let's just say roughly, you know, 30 to $35,000. And that's on the high end if you're taking a skilled trade program. You know, you're risking one year and you come out a year later with actually tangible skills that you can apply immediately in the workforce.

Joe Sallustio: Sure, employable skills.

Jim Bologa: Employable skills. Yeah, it's kind of like the job, what do they call it, shovel ready for projects, it's job ready for students. Yeah, and you know, you compare that, and again, I'm not saying that there's anything wrong, but you compare that with, you know, a student who is gonna go to a four-year program and not really quite sure what they wanna do. It becomes a very expensive proposition. I mean, you know, you look at, you look at, you know, and even a state school, you know, a reasonably priced state school, you know, you're probably, you know, in the, you know, 40, you know, 40K a year range, you know, with housing and everything else. And, and I just don't know that families are willing to make that investment to help their son or daughter find themselves.

You know, I think a lot of families that we talk to are, you know, they've already done some research and they're asking a lot of really good questions. But I still think the challenge for us, you know, as an industry is to get out there and really let folks know that these are viable, very viable careers and they lead to employment almost immediately. If you, you know, again, for us, our graduates generally are leaving school with a job. You know we, we hold career fairs, and we have sort of an internal commitment to ourselves that you know we want every student leaving with a job in their career and we work really hard at that and it, it's really, it's very rewarding you know just to see that happen and we do have folks will come back and share their stories with us and it's, it's, you know, it's, it's great to be able to you know at the end of the day to come you know to contribute to a community and see and see that success.

Douglas Carlson: I like that. Well, I'm also really curious about how things have changed over the last few years. What I mean specifically, so you referenced Mike Rowe, kind of, you know, bringing more attention to the space and how important it is. I don't think there's anybody today that would say, wow, we have enough electricians. Like, it's a universal experience. We know we need that trade. At least my understanding is with the kind of the gender, at least the sort of the 16, 18, 20 year old generation, there's been a shift in how they perceive the trades and it's almost shifted from, wow, like that's maybe not as desirable to actually being desirable. And I venture even maybe even cool in some regards. So I hesitate to say that because I am objectively not cool. But I'd be curious, have you seen that arc? You know, has the have opinions changed? Has it given you demand?

Jim Bologa: Yeah, there we go. Yeah, yeah, we're starting to see an uptick. I think the younger generation sees value in being able to do some tangible things at the end of a given day. And feel good about the fact that they're contributing to a bigger project. And I would say that the younger generation students are starting to migrate that way. And I think part of the reason they are migrating is because, again, they feel some intrinsic value in being able to contribute to a project or contribute to successful service in a given day. And you can walk away knowing that you're part of something bigger.

Joe Sallustio: Tell it like it is.

Jim Bologa: Yeah, and I think the other thing too that's also competing here is the, you know, just the overarching, you know, debt, I would just say the affordability issue of higher ed, traditional higher ed, and I think families are looking at this and they're starting to make, you know, really I think good academic life in educational funding decisions around what happens. They're gonna take and and so I think they're balancing all those things out yeah and you know and as a result I think the younger generation is a bit you know there's been all the student debt conversation for the last you know probably ten years you know in terms of it reaching one trillion dollars and and and that's been you know a headline story but I think that from what we see, students, there is a shift without question. 

And we spend a lot of time trying to cultivate relationships in high schools. We actually have a really very short program called, it's called our Career Exploration Program. And what we do is we go out to local high schools and basically share this with either the vocational teachers or the guidance counselors or the principals or the superintendents and we say look, you know, we know that you don't have the funding to support vocational arts in the school. So, you know, what we're willing to do is enter into a very short term period of time where we'll take the kids out for basically an hour, you know, at the end of the day and we'll run them through, you know, all the programs. And yeah, so they come in and then, you know, again, you know, an electrical, you know, we'll have them bend conduit, we'll have them pull some wire, connect some wires, they'll actually see like, you know, they'll actually see like, wow, there's actually something that happens when I flip the switch. I kind of make the connection now that the light comes on.

Joe Sallustio: Just like I promised, right?

Jim Bologa: Yeah. And, you know, and again, I think for a lot of us, you get to the point where you just assume, you just, you make assumptions and you don't know what you don't know. And I think that, you know, a lot of these younger, the younger generation is actually being inspired by and being able to contribute to the day-to-day activities of what runs the country every day.

Douglas Carlson: Well, and one of the really fun things about this podcast and being able to ultimately broadcast here at CECU is giving the sort of the broad expanse of everything that is vocational education. So one of the pieces we have not heard that you have, and I'm really curious to have you tell us a little bit more about it is actually veterinary technician and veterinary nursing. That's one. So forgive me. I came from Penn Foster. So I know that background really well. But it's also one that I haven't heard many people talk about at the show today. So I'd be one. I'd wonder if you could give us a little bit of background on that. How big of that program is those sort of pieces and why it's important?

Jim Bologa: Yeah. So we offer that program out of our York, Pennsylvania campus. That program caters to both small animals as well as large animals. And when COVID hit, like many of us, we had to pivot to some form of online and or hybrid education in terms of the delivery model. And what we did with regards to that program was we moved it to basically a what I'll call a more hybrid delivery. So again, think lecture online and then lab on ground, clinical on ground. And so what we've done is the students are basically doing their work during the course of the week in terms of, I'll just call it their classroom instruction. And then what they'll do is they'll either show up to our campus or they'll show up to a clinical site to do their lab and clinical work. 

And we've got relationships with large animal farms. So again, these students are going to be working on cows, horses, pigs, things like that. And in central Pennsylvania where there's a fair amount of agriculture, that works out great for us. And what I would say is that just going to the overall workforce trends, we've been approached by a major veterinary hospital system across the country to look at trying to partner with them because they want to take all their vet assistants and have them become vet techs or vet nurses. They want to provide basically a career path for them because again, they recognize how difficult it is to acquire an employee and especially if it's a good employee, they want to create a growth and career development path for them. 

So, and we've got a lot of cool things that we've been doing where we're getting approached by employers now directly along this similar path. So for example, we just had a relationship with a large defense contractor who basically is building nuclear subs.

Douglas Carlson: That's neat.

Jim Bologa: Yeah, and so we started a welding program and we actually just worked with them and a few other people in one of the areas of the armed services to come up with a national welding school as it relates to the protocols that they need their welders to have the competencies that they need to have to be able to work on, I'll just say, Navy-related ships.

Joe Sallustio: You better watch what you say now in the security clearance. Right.

Jim Bologa: So, yeah, so there's a lot of, I think there's a lot of things that are going on in the space. And I do think employers are recognizing that they're not getting what they need from higher ed in general, and they're now starting to reach out. You know, and again, we have another defense contractor in our market who's reached out to us. Their three best production workers building jet engines came from our school.

Joe Sallustio: No kidding.

Jim Bologa: They actually, they so, so we were fortunate that we had three graduates who were highly mechanically inclined but also learned I'll say lower voltage electrical in our low voltage program. And so they're able to assist on the production floor or with keeping equipment running. And so the management team there got very inspired by that. So they came over to our school one day and say, hey, we need our own program just like this. We want to pick these courses. And so we've been doing that, I'll call it contract training for them as well. And where we're basically just upskilling their existing workforce. So I think, again, I think the -

Joe Sallustio: Good revenue stream that.

Jim Bologa: Yeah. Yeah. No, absolutely. And I think that the workforce and the employers in the workforce are starting to recognize that if they want to secure their futures, they need to really think about education and training in a whole different way. And with where we're at in the generations moving through the workforce, there's a lot of institutional knowledge that is not documented, and many of them are very, very, very worried that once these folks retire and go out, that institutional knowledge around either a product or a service is gone.

Douglas Carlson: Yeah. And the longtime employees are the ones that are leaving and you have the newer generations are a little bit more transient with the way they move between companies.

Joe Sallustio: Where are you going to say? No, please keep going. I was just going to note that that shift, right, back in the old days in career education, the hustling of trying to find employers, take our graduates, take our graduates, let us convince you why these graduates are valuable and take them to, hey, we've got graduates. Do you want good employees? There has been that shift, right? Because good people are hard to find these days. Employers just cannot. I have not spoken to an employer on this podcast or through just my regular day to day that has said, we've got enough people, we're great. It's completely opposite of that.

Jim Bologa: Yeah, no, I think that's the trend in the country right now. I mean, we've got basically a career skills gap. But I think there's probably sufficient people. I think it's just a mismatch. So we don't have the right people. And so I think again trying to expose more people to you know what it's like to be an electrician or what it's like to be an HVAC tech or an auto tech or a vet or a vet tech you know also a vet nurse or you know practical nurse or you know respiratory therapist you know I think it's really a messaging issue, I think, for our sector or a piece of the higher ed sector that we need to do a better job communicating in our own communities in a grassroots way. Because again, I get calls every week. I went to get my oil changed at the local dealership. And I go there just to talk to the folks who are in the workforce. And the manager there said, you know, our best technician is a guy that graduated from your school in like 2004.

Joe Sallustio: Surprise.

Jim Bologa: And and he's like, I need five technicians right now.

Joe Sallustio: That's going to be gratifying to hear that.

Jim Bologa: Yeah. Yeah. Well, it's actually pretty cool because every now and again, he'll work on my car and and they do a little video of their inspection. So they're using a little bit of video in the actual inspection of the car. And so it's always sort of cool. And, you know, again, I go back and thank him for, you know, for for all his service because he's actually also come back and talk to students and let them know, you know what it's like you know a few years out from from school and you know, I think you know one of the interesting things I I think he's shared with the students is look, you know when you come to school for a year I mean you've got foundational knowledge you have to if you really want to be, you know a successful automotive technician you know, you have to you have to continue to to learn and grow and I think for a lot of folks I think that the whole concept of you know, I've got my piece of paper if you will and I'm done you know the car, you know, I started I've been in the space now for almost two decades and when I started I think maybe 30% of a car was electronic. Yeah, you know today it's now we have electric cars and we in most gas-powered cars are probably you know 90% you know electronic and you know and he talks about how he had to go back to school because again when he learned it was predominantly mechanical.

Joe Sallustio: Sure.

Jim Bologa: And you know I think for young people the challenge for them is back in the day you could you know you could borrow a box of tools from your grandfather or you know or an uncle or your dad you know because again it was predominantly male dominated and you could work on a car you know because it was predominantly mechanical. You know today the younger generation, it's very, very difficult because, you know, again, you've got to have an ODBC driver. You've got to be able to connect into the computer system. You know, generally, you know, you have to you have to have a bit more technology. You have to have the manufacturer codes, you know, in terms of the error codes or the areas to go look, you know. And so it's just it's just so much more complicated for, I think, the younger folks to get involved. And so consequently, you don't have folks working on their cars to the same degree that you once did in your driveway. I mean, people used to change their own oil. They would change their own, you know, maybe transmission fluid. I mean, there were a lot of things that they would do that folks just don't do, but that's part of this generational sort of void we've created by removing any exposure whatsoever to vocational programs through either middle and or high school. I vaguely remember going to metal shop and wood shop when I was in probably seventh grade.

Joe Sallustio: This is lunacy.

Jim Bologa: And getting some exposure to doing some of those things that you could do. I mean, and think about this generation trying to own homes. I mean, it's just, it's just, it's the, you know, the cost of home ownership now, especially, especially just the basic repairs. You know, if you don't have the expertise or have been exposed to that, it can get expensive fast and, and you don't, and you don't know if you're really getting a good quality job either. And, and so, you know, again, obviously rely on people around you who have used people, but I'm just simply saying there's always the chance of that not getting quality work done. And again, I think that this generation, the younger generations are, I think they're intrigued by this. I think there are issues, having grown up in a tech world, if you will, where they see a lot of the, I'll just say the bad things that happened to friends and family, you know, through social media. And, you know, it's unfortunate. But, you know, again, it's it's interesting, you know, listening to some of them tell their stories about people saying and doing things they'd never do in person because they can hide behind a screen. Right. You know, so.

Joe Sallustio: Well, we encourage everyone to check out Porter and Chester Institute at Porterchester.edu. Jim, it's been an honor having you here. Of course, my co-pilot. I'll outro you. He's Douglas Carlson, head of partnerships at Lead Square, the company that helped bring us here to CECU to interview our great friend. Let's see, I didn't do you right the first time you said, so let's do this. He's Jim Bologa. He's president and CEO at Porter and Chester Institute. Is that a little bit better?

Jim Bologa: Yeah, that was awesome.

Joe Sallustio: Ladies and gentlemen, you've just ed-uped.