Editor’s note: This is the third in series about technical training for a new workforce.
By CRISTINA JANNEY
Hays Post
Nineteen-year-old Braden Mahin of Lincoln wants to work on electric cars.
He came to Hays to study auto mechanics at North Central Kansas Technical College right out of high school with no real experience working on cars.
“I have always had an interest in cars ever since I can remember,” he said. “I just wanted to know how they worked, and I never had anyone to teach me, so I thought coming here I would learn everything I needed to learn.”
Mahin is one of many students who are skipping college in favor of a technical education.
NCK Tech officials say the demand for their graduates is high — and their stats prove it. The technical college has been No. 1 in the nation in student placement two years in a row.
Richard Cox, auto instructor and former NCK Tech student, has worked for years to cultivate relationships in the auto industry and boasts of a 95 percent placement rate for his students.
Eric Burks, NCK Tech president, said enrollment at the technical school has remained steady, but insists there is a strong demand for trade skills now and will be in the future.
“We train in programs [and] jobs that are needed right here in Hays and in the communities these students come from. They have been needed for a long time, and I think they are going to continue to be needed for a long time. I think it is just the technology within those trades that is going to change,” Burks said. “The tools they use to do those jobs are going to change, but we are always going to need a plumber, we are always going to need a nurse, we are always going to need someone to fix our vehicles.”
The economy is demanding skill sets, Burks said.
“Knowledge is great, and we want people who are very knowledgable, but at the end of the day, what can you do with that knowledge?” Burks said. “Just knowing it is one thing, but you have to be able to actually apply it. That is where these technical skills really become the difference maker for someone who not only has the knowledge of it, but the working ability to apply that knowledge.”
Sandra Gottschalk, dean of the Hays campus, said students learn their skills by doing.
“It’s a lot of hand-on practice,” she said. “With that hands-on practice, they get more skilled and they get more confident and more proficient. They learn the fundamentals in the course, but it is that hands-on experience that is what ties it together.”
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Burks and Gottschalk said as they work with high schools, they are seeing a shift to more focus on technical education.
“I think it is because that is where the jobs are,” Burks said. “Not to keep going back to that job placement, but we have no trouble helping our students find jobs They have to meet a few requirements, but we guarantee placement, and that is because they are in such high demand.”
Burks said K-12 schools are seeing not everyone is headed to a four-year college.
“There is definitely that push toward technical because that’s what is needed, and it is also going to give our economy the boost that it needs,” Burks said. “If we push everyone into those four-year degrees, then we are not going to have enough people to do the other things that really need to be done, and they are high-paying jobs. It is not people who are living on the other side of the tracks. These are [people] living next door to four-year graduates. The quality of life is right there the same.”
As Burks addresses high school students he tries to dispel myths about vocational training.
“They are not choosing a lesser life if they go this route,” Burks said. “They may choose less debt if they just go through two years. A lot of these trades are highly sought after, and if they are skilled, they can get paid very well and very comparable to a four-year degree. …
“Obviously, it is going to depend on their skill and how hard they work at it, but the sky is limit for someone who is disciplined, like we talked about earlier, and talented.”
Costs continue to rise for four-year degrees. Students going to a technical school are likely looking at less debt and being able to enter the workforce in their field sooner.
Most students graduate in nine to 18 months with tuition, tools, and room and board costs ranging from $5,900 to $15,000 per year. Costs usually drop for subsequent semesters as students do not need to repeat tool purchases.
Burks said we often think of education as linear, but for many students it is not. He said he thinks recent legislation and articulation agreements with universities like Fort Hays State University are making it easier for students to continue their education at a later date.
“Maybe they got some skills through their high school credits, and they want to go out and work for a little bit. Then they realize, ‘I need to upgrade my skills if I want to up my wages,'” he said. “So they will come to us for a year, go back and work in the field for a little while, and they will come back for another year and get some more skills and go back. We have tried to build this system, so if they want to do it linear and go one year after the next, great, but that is not how all students are going to work through this.”
Because NCK Tech is a technical college, students can start with NCK Tech and go on to a four-year college.
FHSU saw the growing need for trade leaders and constructed the new Center for Applied Technology on its Hays campus.
The building is housing students from both NCK Tech for classes, such as welding, and FHSU students who are training for applied technology degrees to be tomorrow’s managers and foremen.
FHSU has a bachelor of science in technology studies and a bachelor of science in technology leadership. These degrees are between technical degrees and engineering science degrees at a Division I school, said Kim Stewart, FHSU’s Department for Applied Technology chairman.
Students go on to be construction managers, project managers, superintendents, 3-D modelers or building information systems managers.
Just as NCK-Tech sees a blend of traditional and non-traditional students, so doses FHSU’s Department for Applied Technology.
In the department’s leadership program, students can transfer 40 hours from a technical or community college degrees and plug them into the bachelor’s degree program at FHSU. General education credits can also be applied.
The FHSU program is interdisciplinary with business, communication and leadership classes. This is an all online degree because most of these students have already developed their technical skills and are working and have positioned themselves to move up in their companies, Stewart said.
FHSU has had articulation agreements with other institutions for years, but it is recently revisiting those and making it easier for students to see and understand how courses they are taking at vocational or community colleges will fit into bachelor’s degrees at FHSU.
“I think it is going to open up avenues, based on students being able to see the path that is going to take to get to their educational goal,” Stewart said.
Stewart is seeing a growing demand for the department’s program’s and its graduates. Five years ago, the college started its construction management program with two students, and now it has 50. Many students are being recruited as juniors during their internships.
“There is a demand for labor people,” Stewart said, “and the more labor people that we have — those that have technical skills — means that we need more people to manage those people. So our niche is to create those people who can go out and be the project managers and superintendents — the people who work with the engineers.”
Misael Banderas is a 2016 FHSU graduate in construction management. He started working on construction sites when he was in high school and currently works as a senior project engineer for McCown Gordon Construction of Kansas City, Mo.
He said he was able to pick a company where he thought he could thrive professionally and personally.
“I think the biggest misconception that a lot of students have within the region is that they have to go to a KU or a K-State or an OSU for you to have the position that I have,” he said. “I can assure you based on opportunities that have come up for myself, I am driving my own career. I have been blessed with multiple, very exciting opportunities from the world’s No. 6 company in the world.”
He said his hands-on experience allows him to better relate to the people he now manages.
“My memories were all started with a shovel,” he said.
Banderas said he is proud to be a FHSU graduate and is now trying to open doors for other FHSU students at his company.
“I reached out to our talent development team and took a trip to recruit out of Hays,” he said. “I think moving forward we are going to have a partnership where we are reaching out every summer to try to have students as interns. If they work out, if they use every opportunity to grow, hopefully [we can] bring them on board when they graduate.”