By Gary Meers
Preparing for a career is a major step in anyone?s life. A lot of thought must be given and counsel sought in order to make the most appropriate choice. Whether a person is a soon-to-be or recent high school graduate or a mature worker looking to make a career change, effort must be spent in exploring all of the training options that are available. It becomes a question of, "Where can I get the most appropriate and convenient training for the career goals that I have set for myself?"
In order to answer this question with satisfaction, individuals must make sure that they know all of the options that are available.
When making this choice, there are two major sources of postsecondary technical training available to explore?the local community college or a for-profit career college. Community colleges have, over the past 30 years, seen dramatic growth and change in their structure. Junior colleges have evolved into community colleges that offer a wide array of occupational programs along with baccalaureate transfer programs. New community colleges were created to meet the local needs of the population they serve. This is somewhat like the growth and change the for-profit career colleges have experienced. As much has been written about the community college movement, this article will explore the private career college delivery system.
For-profit career colleges have been around for a very long time. In Europe, the first career colleges were established around 1494 when an Italian monk, Father Luca Pacioli of Venice, developed curriculums in the areas of accounting, mathematics and the use of the Arabic numeral system. Spinning off of the initial effort were other schools that offered instruction in penmanship, accounting and letters. Combined with the apprenticeship systems that were in place, there were a number of ways in which technical skills could be acquired.
Over the next two centuries, a variety of different skill training institutions were created. The apprenticeship programs were formalized, public schools were created in response to local needs, and universities were established as a result of federal initiatives such as the Morrill Act of 1862. Parallel to the expansion of secondary and postsecondary public schools was the establishment of private career colleges, especially in the area of commerce. In 1832, Benjamin Foster founded Foster?s Commercial School in Boston to train clerical and paraprofessional accounting staff persons. The school was created because the apprenticeship and public school systems were not meeting the specific needs of industry.
During the Civil War, women were moved into the workforce as a result of men being engaged in the war. At the end of the war, many women wanted to stay in the workforce but were in need of additional skill training. The invention of the typewriter in 1868 and shorthand in 1888 accelerated the need for training for new clerical skills. Traditional colleges were serving primarily males, so a need existed to meet the training needs of women.
Entrepreneurs like H.B. Stratton and P.R. Bryant recognized this growing need and developed a chain of 50 colleges focusing on training in all areas of business skills. These "commercial colleges" continued to grow both in size and number for the next 100 years. They became such a part of the training process that many people would think of the primary source of training for business careers as being secured from a "commercial college."
Private career colleges continued to grow both in numbers and training fields during the 40s and 50s. With many GIs coming home with the opportunity to further their educations through benefits from the GI Bill, private career colleges flourished. The demand for customized training by business and industry helped with the expansion of many training programs.
The Vietnam War again brought great growth in the number of private career colleges. In 1972, the Higher Education Act was changed to enable private career school students to participate in federal student aid. These returning vets, plus the growth of the economy, created a demand for even more career training opportunities. The private career college increased in numbers and locations. They were bringing more accessibility to technical training on a local basis assisted by the federal aid.
During the 1980s, private career colleges underwent a very difficult time in their development. Many private career colleges were established to serve high-risk students with little or no oversight from accrediting agencies or the federal government. This resulted in students not receiving the training for which they had signed up, questions of mismanagement of monies and traditional collegiate trade associations calling for the removal of career colleges from federal aid programs (Title IV).
Recognizing that sweeping change had to come to this sector of career training, plans were developed to regulate use of federal funds and ensure that programs being offered were relevant and that students were being assisted with placement opportunities. The federal government tightened its oversight of the accrediting agencies and forced them to develop severe policies to weed out marginal colleges. This effort resulted in the closure of more than 1,500 schools during the early 1990s.
Those institutions that survived were stronger in content, quality of instruction and support of students. In addition, those surviving institutions increased their efforts to be even more responsive to employer needs. They increased their efforts to secure employer input into the structure, format and content of the training. Business and industry advisory committee use was defined and refined in even more specific ways to ensure that training reflected need.
Over the past decade, there has been a 78 percent increase in the number of two-year institutions and a 266 percent increase in the number of four-year institutions. The share of the two-year college market for career colleges grew from 19 percent to 28 percent over the past 10 years. The career colleges are proving through their growth that they are meeting an increasing demand for training technical workers.
Students attending career colleges are as varied as you would find in any college setting. The common bond that all of them have is that they want the training that is being offered by the college. They are career-goal focused and are ready to put forth the effort to secure the needed skill sets required for employment.
The student body of career colleges is composed typically of two groups, recent high school graduates and career-mature adults who are attempting higher education for the first time. These individuals have often been described as being the "other 75 percent"?people who were not in the top 25 percent of their high school classes and who would be unlikely to enroll or be successful at other types of institutions.
The recent high school graduates are ready to pursue training in their selected career choices, and they are ready to do it now. They are not interested in general education requirements, support courses or traditional campus life. They want to compress the training time down into a specific number of months and go full speed in the process. The career-mature adults are much the same way in their desires for focused training leading them to a more secure future. As they have very busy lives requiring much of their time, they want to come to the college campus, receive focused training and then go home or to work.
In many cases, for members of either group, their enrollment in a career college is a bit of a risk. They may be the first of any of their family to go to any type of postsecondary setting. This "risk taking" increases the students? motivation, dedication and sincerity, but it also is a bit scary because they are exploring unfamiliar territory and aren?t sure what to expect. One fact that is known to them is that they don?t want to fail themselves or their families.
Career college students are there because they want to be, and they know the outcomes for which they are paying and expecting to receive. There is a sense of communal focus that assists the students in their desire to learn and complete the training.
Today, two-thirds of students in career colleges are full time. Of these full-time students, 50 percent of them work full time. The career colleges arrange their teaching schedules to meet the needs of their students. Convenient schedule is the term most often used with career colleges. They work very hard to offer instruction at a time that is most convenient to students. This most often means morning and evening classes. In addition, many colleges offer weekend classes arranged around certain short-term training needs.
Career college faculty all have credentials that demonstrate their experience and expertise in their areas. Most accrediting groups require that the career college faculty have at least three years of experience in their fields. In addition, most have a degree above what they are teaching. They will have been trained to teach and will have demonstrated such to their supervisors or fellow faculty. Most career colleges have a faculty improvement plan that lays out specifically the professional improvement activities the faculty will participate in to improve their instructional delivery. With the absence of tenure, career college faculty focus on keeping their delivery and content skills current. They must "prove" themselves each time they teach a course. Since the faculties do not have to publish or research, they are able to focus on teaching and developing student relationships.
The faculties of career colleges are there because they want to be. For the most part, they could earn more money in their technical areas than they are being paid to teach. They are motivated by the students they have and the content they are sharing.
The majority of career college faculty are full time. They are a part of the college?s culture and campus structure, so they are available to the students for consultation. Part-time faculty are generally only used to teach certain high-demand technical subjects for which it would be nearly impossible to get a teacher full time.
As most of the classes are smaller than traditional college classes, the faculty can develop a closer relationship with and appreciate the dedication and focus of the students more fully. In addition, by the sequence of the classes, being one at a time, the instructors get to see the growth of students on a daily basis. This is a motivator mentioned by many career college faculty.
Career colleges offer programs that are based upon business/industry needs. By keeping in close contact with employers, career colleges are reflective of the immediate needs of the employing community. A strength of the career colleges is their ability to get a new program up and running very quickly. Their structure allows them to redirect their resources and faculty, as need dictates. They can create start dates that will coincide with completion dates as required by employers. They are just as quick to drop a program that does not have a demand for its graduates. There is a constant movement of customized training programs being created based upon demand. Many of the training programs are created on a short-term basis to fill an immediate community employment need.
The most recent data from the Accrediting Commission of Career Schools and Colleges of Technology lists 528 different degree programs being offered by their accredited schools. These programs represent career training in areas ranging from wooden boat building to informational technology. No matter the program being offered, it is based upon demand and employment opportunities.
Career colleges pride themselves on the attention they give to students. Many students have expressed their satisfaction with the career college they attend based upon first impressions. They liked the attention they received at their first contact with the college and the prompt follow up to their questions.
Since the majority of career colleges offer only training, without the traditional campus-life activities, they focus their resources directly on the students. From the initial intake interview, through enrollment, the students are made to feel special as customers, clients and students.
Most career colleges have developed extensive intake procedures and assessments to assist in the proper placement of students in training programs. The intake assessments also assist the college in identifying support services needed by students. Once the students are enrolled, they are offered a wide variety of support services to assist them with their learning progress. Most career colleges use the faculty as a first line of defense against attrition. The faculty focuses on those students who may be at risk and tries to provide whatever assistance is needed to ensure student progress. This may involve tutoring, after-class consultations and formation of study groups.
Other services include smaller class settings, individual attention and assistance with financial aid procurement. All of these services are intended to keep the student focused on classes that are being taken and the content that needs to be learned.
The training sequences for most career colleges are like military training rather than traditional higher education. The students take one course at a time, devote all of the instructional time to it, and then apply it with large amounts of laboratory time-on-task. When the course is completed, the next course is taken, until the sequence is completed. It is a building-block form of instruction.
The students start right off in their chosen technical areas. From almost the first day, they are learning content and practicing skill development. "Immersion" is a term that is often used when describing the training received in career colleges. Course content is organized around developmental skill sets that enable both students and faculty to see and measure growth.
Many career colleges have available technology-delivered or enhanced instruction. They use distance-based instructional programs to support the onsite instruction being delivered. Others are delivering instruction totally through distance formats.
The training cycles are shorter, usually 10 to 12 weeks in length, so the students can stay focused on the one course for the length of time it takes to acquire the knowledge and skills without becoming burned out on the subject.
Career colleges are located in any number of different settings. They may be in an office building, a separate campus or a strip mall. The location is generally selected for the convenience of the students. The colleges try to come to the students, or at least locate where public transportation can bring the students to the school. The campuses tend to be smaller in size than traditional colleges and offer physically only what is needed for the programs.
The majority of the campus space is devoted to classrooms, laboratories and student services. A visit to such a campus will clearly illustrate that the primary focus of the college is career preparation.
The measures of success for career colleges are retention, completion and placement. As has been previously discussed, career colleges work very hard to keep their students in their programs. They don?t want to lose them due to circumstances that they can control. This is why faculty support and early intervention are used to reduce the potential for dropping out.
Completion is needed by both the schools and the students. The students want to complete the training in order to go to work, and the schools want the completion to demonstrate the success of their training programs.
The ultimate measure of success for any career college is placement. The question must be asked, "Are the graduates getting employment in their fields of training?" Placement rates for career schools consistently range between 85 and 100 percent.
It doesn?t take very long for a career college that is of low quality or is not meeting the needs of employers to be in jeopardy. This is due to the fact that employers simply won?t hire the graduates.
Current data from accrediting agencies reveals that these schools are meeting a real need area of career training. They offer career-oriented, hands-on, customer-focused programs to their students in concert with the schedule demands of their students. The schools operate year round, allowing for compression of preparation time. The faculty comes from business and industry, with practical experience. From the first day of class, the students are exposed to training in their chosen career fields. All of these components come together to give the students the kind of training they desire.
Why would students choose to attend a for-profit career college when they can attend a public community college for far less money? The answer rests in the meeting of needs. Through schedules and calendars of specific training times and commitment to quality instruction, the career colleges are meeting student needs. Career colleges focus on career-oriented programs without a lot of irrelevant requirements in order to allow students to make maximum progress toward their career goals.
Private career colleges are a viable option that prospective students need to explore as they make their career plans. Career colleges are going to continue to grow as they meet the demands of a growing economy for highly trained skilled workers. The career and technical community must make sure that it has a knowledge base of all the training opportunities available in order to assist individuals as they make meaningful, realistic and informed career-training choices.
Gary Meers is a professor of career and technical education at the University of Nebraska, Lincoln, Neb. He can be contacted via e-mail at gmeers1@unl.edu. 
