Higher Education Today: How to Secure Financial Stability With Jim Bologa

Alexander McCaig (00:11):

Hello everybody and welcome back to TARTLECAST. We're here for a brand new series within TARTLECAST series, specifically focused on higher education, and the host of this series is going to be Marty Herrick. Marty is the Chief Revenue Officer over at TARTLE and with that he brought on a good friend of his and special guest today, Jim Bologa. Jim, thank you for joining us.

Jim Bologa (00:34):

Thanks for having me guys.

Alexander McCaig (00:35):

And, Jim, like I was stating before this, I don't know much about higher education, but I do know that you run your own podcast. Would you mind plugging it right now to tell us what it is?

Jim Bologa (00:45):

Yeah, sure, absolutely. Thanks for the opportunity. It's called Inside Career Technical Education.

Alexander McCaig (00:52):

Interesting. So what does that then mean in layman's terms?

Jim Bologa (00:57):

Yeah. So the purpose of the podcast is really to allow anybody who wants to listen to it a little bit more information about the programs that we offer in higher ed. So, the school that I'm the President and CEO of, we operate a school that's got two different names. One of the school's names is called Porter and Chester Institute. We service Connecticut and Massachusetts. We have three schools in Massachusetts and six schools in Connecticut. The other school name that we operate under is YTI Career Institute and we operate three schools in Pennsylvania, and those schools are in York, Lancaster and Altoona, Pennsylvania.

Alexander McCaig (01:44):

Oh, I love that.

Jim Bologa (01:45):

And so what we do is, from time to time, we talk about topics around higher education. So whether you're a freshman, sophomore, junior, senior in high school, looking at another viable path post high school. We provide over 20 technical programs that you basically help run America every day, and I can go into those if you'd like. Or, again, if you're a young working adult, maybe you graduated high school, you weren't sure what you wanted to do, you took a few years off and you had either a retail job or some low-skill service job. Now you're looking at really making a difference and you figured out what you like, what you think you like and what you don't like. And so we have those folks as well as folks transitioning different jobs throughout one's career, so we have folks who are in their 30s, 40s, 50s, 60s, who have all transitioned from one job to another.

Alexander McCaig (02:53):

So, to be clear then, and before I hand the baton over to Marty here, this is for everybody. So, if you want to make a career change right at this moment, the possibility's there. You just need to know where to look. And I think that having these conversations like we're doing it right now with you, Jim, helps build that awareness for those individuals that are trying to really find a new enhancement, new probabilities and possibilities for their life where they can continue to evolve and do great things for themselves. So thanks for making this happen. And I know that Marty has some stuff he wants to tee up on this and really bring us into the brass tacks of the situation. So, Marty, I'd love to pass it over to you.

Martin Herrick (03:33):

Yeah. Awesome. Thanks, Alexander, and Jim, thank you so much for joining us for the first episode of our podcast that I'm going to be hosting to have some of your caliber as the first guest. That should help us get some followers quickly. So, Jim, I want to talk about higher education. We have a podcast going. We don't have a lot of listeners who know what's going on with higher education, especially post COVID-19. I want to get into some of those challenges with you and talk about what's going on, what companies like you are doing to help solve some of the issues that are out there, particularly in allied health with the huge shortage in allied health workers right now, because I know that's a big program that you have. About how many students a year are you graduating into allied health careers?

Jim Bologa (04:24):

Oh, geez. I would say at least 1,000 students, if not more.

Martin Herrick (04:33):

And so, what do you make of the headlines about the allied health skilled worker shortages right now? Is that the case for you in your area? Or is that just hitting us harder in Southern California?

Jim Bologa (04:46):

Oh no, no. So let me just briefly describe where we sit in the healthcare world. We offer diploma-based programs in medical assisting, dental assisting, practical nursing to become a licensed practical nurse, also medical billing and coding. We offer associate degree opportunities for those folks pursuing respiratory therapy, veterinary technician, which is a veterinary nurse, as well as health information management. So we sit in that area of the healthcare sort of industry, if you will, or segment. And yeah, for example, nursing. The nursing shortage, whether you're an APRN, an RN, or an LPN, there's a shortage in nursing across the board, just like, quite honestly, in terms of vet... You wouldn't believe this, but veterinary technicians are also, aka, known as a vet nurse.

Jim Bologa (05:55):

And so, even there are some shortages in vet nurses to deal with humans' pets. So, the shortages are real in the healthcare sector. The shortages are real in skilled trades. The shortages are real in transportation. The shortages are real in the IT world. Shortages are real in certain aspects of hospitality. So, again, I mean, the programs that we offer, there's not a week that doesn't go by that I'm not talking to some employer about demand, about having ample demand on their business side and not being able to supply that employee on the employer side.

Alexander McCaig (06:50):

Can I ask a question here, Jim?

Jim Bologa (06:53):

Sure.

Alexander McCaig (06:54):

The demand is so strong and we have this great resignation that has happened from, you were saying, low-skill jobs, retail jobs, anything of that sort. And how is it that you've seen the narrative for these students or these new adults that are looking to make this career change for something that has skill? Is it frankly that Porter and Chester is now actually helping teach purpose because there is a skill that comes with it so there's actually more of a personal investment into it, so that says, "This is actually a job I want to be a part of. This is something that I feel like I can evolve with," rather than say, "I can only get so good at flipping hamburgers all day long.

Alexander McCaig (07:32):

"But if I go to Porter and Chester and I learn a real skill that's in extremely high demand, I know I got a positive outcome and I know that there's something that I can evolve upon. I've built myself the foundation with you guys as the partner, and now beyond that it's time for me to be who I'm supposed to be in my career, especially the career for the rest of my life."

Jim Bologa (07:50):

Yeah, no, yeah, absolutely. I mean, so again, I think if you're an individual who... Let's just say you're an individual who likes to help people and you're compassionate, we generally see those kinds of folks going into healthcare or into pet care if you will. And-

Alexander McCaig (08:09):

That [crosstalk 00:08:09] was thrown up yesterday, so that's perfect.

Jim Bologa (08:11):

Yeah. And it's interesting. I mean, we're still in COVID. I stopped using post-COVID just because I think we're still in COVID, so it seems like it's continuing, and again, the vocations and the education that we offer at our school, again, is, for anybody listening in this podcast, I think it's a relatively good return on your time. Our programs are generally between 10 and 20 months to complete, so it's a good return on your time. And it's also, I think, a good return on the cost or the investment that one has to make given your future earnings potential. And most importantly, the education and training that you're going to get from us is in demand.

Jim Bologa (09:08):

So there's a very logical, natural progression, and one of our internal mantras here is, you graduate on a Friday and you go to work on Monday. And again, we try to encourage students to do that and in some of the professions they can. Some of them, they have to actually get a license, so it takes a little bit of time for them to graduate and then become licensed. But, again, very short order, and what I would say is that I think a lot of folks who are looking to improve themselves in and around the healthcare area have recognized that this is a viable option. You don't have to go to a traditional four-year school, and I'm not saying there's anything wrong with that.

Alexander McCaig (10:01):

Of course not.

Jim Bologa (10:01):

I think certain folks want to pursue that. But again, when you think about education, or at least the way I think about it today, is that the days of getting a degree and having that degree, the education contained in that degree lasting you a lifetime, those days are gone. And so, I think all of us have to just subscribe to the fact, whether you recognize it or not, that we're all lifelong learners and as soon as Apple comes out with the next iPhone, we're all going to have to learn how to figure out the software. But, that being said, I do think that there are tremendous opportunities and pathways that are viable to employment for folks who have interest in the healthcare field.

Martin Herrick (10:54):

So, I want to key in on that, because one of the most important tracks for TARTLE is focusing on these kind of marginalized communities who have looked at education and said, "You know what? Right now I can't focus on it. I can't work on that. I'm focused on keeping the heating on. I'm focused on finding the next meal for my kids." Is there a message that's out there for those people to reconsider education, that that's not the case? I mean, I feel like we're always talking about that to the people who use the TARTLE platform, but is there something that comes essentially straight from, if you'll let me use the phrase, the horse's mouth, education institution, what you would say to the students?

Jim Bologa (11:35):

Yeah, yeah. So, one of the things that COVID has provide, and again, when the country closed down, I mean, obviously we had to pivot and we pivoted in a day taking our students from 100% residentially-based programs that they attended physically every day to flipping to a hybrid model. And since then what we've done is we've taken all of our programs and we've converted them into hybrid. So what that provides a student is time of day flexibility. So, for the listener, what that means is that, let's just say that you're interested in practical nursing. Our practical nurses would come to school four days a week, pre-COVID, physically show up in a classroom, sit in a classroom, obviously then do some lab work and then go out on clinicals.

Jim Bologa (12:31):

What we've done is, we've taken that delivery model and the students are now doing lecture online. They're coming into school to do maybe some hands-on lab work, and then they're going out through their clinical. So the students are still attending school, if you will, I'm going to do that in air quotes, "attending school four days", but let's just say in this case, they have two days of lecture online that they need to go online and do from their home or wherever they can do that, and some of that's being delivered asynchronously, meaning that it's prerecorded, and some of it's being delivered synchronously, which is live. And so what that affords that student is the ability to balance their day.

Jim Bologa (13:22):

So, again, let's just say that you're a single mom or single dad, you've got children. One of your children wakes up at four o'clock in the morning, they're not feeling well, you get on the phone to the doctor at 6:00 AM. You take your child over to the doctor's office and then maybe the pharmacy. You get your child sorted out. So in and amongst all that you're taking care of your family. Meanwhile, in the pre-COVID days, classes started at 8:00. So now you've got tremendous amounts of anxiety because you're trying to figure out, "How am I going to get to class on time? If I miss part of the lecture, what are all the consequences of that in terms of my life?" And so now what the delivery method that we've employed provides a prospective student or an existing student for that matter is that time of day flexibility.

Jim Bologa (14:17):

So, normally maybe you would've gone at, say, I don't know, started your day at 7:30 and you went in and did your classwork, your lecture work and your classwork at 7:30 and you did it till whatever, 12:30 if you were in class for five hours that day. So now all of a sudden you get your child situated, you're able to deal with your family first, and then you get that taken care of, and then you can move on. And so maybe what you do is you don't start your schoolwork until nine o'clock or 9:30, because the pharmacy opened later, you got stuck in traffic, or whatever. And so you've got that time of day flexibility, and our students actually do appreciate that, especially students whose lives are a little bit more complicated, meaning that they've got family members that they've got to take care of.

Jim Bologa (15:04):

And so, we are seeing students who appreciate the fact that there is that flexibility that they have every day, and then they have weekly goals that they do have to meet. I mean, they have to... If a program requires them to be effectively clocking 35 hours of school during the course of the week, they need to do, let's just say, seven hours a day, five days a week. They might have a little bit of flexibility during the course of the week that they could do a little bit on Saturday and Sunday, but all their work is due on Sunday night at 11:59 PM.

Alexander McCaig (15:41):

Can I interject? At the 11:59 PM? At the 11th hour?

Jim Bologa (15:43):

Yeah. At the 11th hour.

Alexander McCaig (15:46):

Here's what I'm hearing here, and tell me if I'm completely off base, and I'm just thinking about in a macro sense. First of all, I can't fish for a vein through a Zoom call, right?

Jim Bologa (15:56):

Yeah. Correct.

Alexander McCaig (15:57):

So I think the asynchronous approach you have developed is that in the future, no matter how much technology there is, there are still skills that have to be developed and it has to happen in person, but the alleviation of the things that don't have to be in person, Porter and Chester and YTI have recognized that, and then adopted that model and found a robustness to it. And I think what's great about it is that you can maintain the standards and benchmarks that are required to bring these highly skilled individuals, after they've gone through your training, out to the workforce, but, too, for them, they get to do it on their time. And I think when you meet them where they are in their lives, that sort of model is far more robust and far more successful when I look at that sort of data and the people that are essentially coming out of Porter and Chester and YTI.

Jim Bologa (16:47):

Yeah. I mean, it's really the best of both worlds, right? I mean, it's a lecture online, so you actually are able to get exposed to the concept and the theories that support your actual hands-on training, and the beautiful thing about using both asynchronous and synchronous is everything's recorded. So think about... I mean, for all of us who have actually sat in a classroom and that time was, let's just say, an hour for a course, and that time was gone and it was never recorded, and if you've ever missed a class you have to be really industrious because you've got to find the best notetaker in the class, hope that you can understand contextually their notes, and how that all means.

Jim Bologa (17:34):

And so I think, in my opinion, this is a huge paradigm shift in higher ed. This, I think, is going to be a transformative period of time for higher ed, and I think there's going to be schools out there that are going to be successful and there's going to be schools that aren't going to be as successful based on how they navigate this vortex of change in terms of education delivery.

Martin Herrick (18:03):

Yeah. It's really a dynamic time and what we've done in this conversation, we've talked a lot about what's going on to get them enrolled, what they're doing while they're enrolled, but you mentioned something earlier in the conversation about, you graduate on a Friday and you get employed or you start your new job on a Monday. I know that that's more of an internal mantra than actual practical application, but what does that timeframe typically look like? You graduate and then, is it three months? Is it six months that they're usually placed?

Jim Bologa (18:35):

What's actually happening right now is, a lot of the students are basically securing employment before they graduate.

Martin Herrick (18:45):

That's awesome.

Jim Bologa (18:46):

The job demand is so robust that, one, if you want to work, if you want to continue to learn, if you have a great attitude, you got great customer service skills, the employers that our graduates go to are all in. And, again, we can't promise or guarantee employment, but I will tell you right now that if you're an individual who really wants to make a difference in your industry and in your career, there, in my opinion, isn't a better time if you want to go to work.

Jim Bologa (19:31):

And again, I would just simply say that there's a lot of companies out there that are looking, because they're trying to manage not only this great resignation that's taking place and affecting I think the broader employment trends, but there's also still the population that still is actively working that is aging out, and there's a lot of institutional knowledge that isn't written down. And there's employers that are very, very concerned about trying to get younger employees on the job and integrated into that process, if you will, as they continue to navigate the aging out process of the workforce as well.

Martin Herrick (20:17):

Hey, Jim, before I left education finance, one thing that we were starting to see a lot more of, even into this year, is the employer pay. Hiring the student after graduation and saying, "Hey, we'll cover your tuition up to a certain amount if you work here for a couple of years. You have to work here on a two-year or a three-year contract," or something like that. Started seeing a lot more of that in the last 18 months. Are you guys running into that? Are you guys getting partnerships like that?

Jim Bologa (20:48):

Yeah, it's funny you say that because I just got an email a little bit earlier in the day today where we had a local healthcare provider reach out to us and they wanted to establish a partnership with us to help train some of their medical assistants. And I think that the employer partnership piece is becoming more and more relevant in that employers are trying to secure basically human capital, if you will, their future workforce, by partnering with schools that have educational programs that really meet their needs. And again, I would just reiterate to the listeners that I think that there's not a better time. Again, if you want to work hard, you're dedicated, you got good customer services skills, you're open-minded, you're flexible, it's a great time to engage in a lot of this technical education because America needs it.

Martin Herrick (21:55):

Yeah. I mean, it's probably not inaccurate to say the planets have aligned. Schools are making it a much more robust environment, virtual environment for you to be able to have a more flexible schedule to attend the institute and get the knowledge in training that you need. And then on the other side of it, there's incredible demand for employees right now, so it's just never been a better time to go to school. And you said earlier, lifelong learner, Alexander, I was telling you about this, what schools do. I mean, you guys have great career services and they go out and they get a job. If they leave, they can come back to you guys for more support, things like that.

Jim Bologa (22:32):

Yeah. Basically, I mean, again, paint a couple of pictures here. Let's just say you're a medical assistant. You start out your career as a medical assistant. You do that for, I don't know, let's just say you decide to do it for five years. So you're working predominantly in a doctor's office, a healthcare clinic, some sort of, I'll say, smaller healthcare sort of facility. And then let's just say that you decide at some point you're interested in becoming a practical nurse, or you're interested in becoming a respiratory therapist because you want to run a mechanical ventilator to deal with all the respiratory viruses like COVID that are impacting the country. And so what we see is students start out one way, do it for a few years, and some do it their whole career, but some get to a point where they want to try something different, and so they'll actually change their career and they'll come back.

Jim Bologa (23:30):

That's a perfect example of a medical assistant who decides to become a practical nurse, or a medical assistant who decides that they want to become a respiratory therapist. Again, we have folks who go into medical billing and coding. They do that for a while and then decide that they want to really get more into the data element or the information element of that. And so they might then pursue our health information management associates degree. So we have a lot of folks who will basically start one place and do it for a period of time and then decide that they want to scale up a little bit more and do something different. So, again, with our programs being relatively short, the return on your time is actually quite good if you think about it. Going to school for, let's just say, 10 months or 20 months, that's a lot less than going to school for four years.

Alexander McCaig (24:30):

It's [inaudible 00:24:31] in the medical field.

Jim Bologa (24:35):

Or longer in the medical field. Absolutely. So, yeah, obviously if you become an APRN or a doctor, et cetera, I mean you're going to be in school for a long time. So, again, I mean, I think again, just to cap this off, we definitely have employers who are starting to recognize they have to contribute to their employees' education, and we do have employees who are starting in one place and maybe getting skilled up. The other thing that we recently are working on right now, another employer partnership is with a large vet hospital operator. We're hopeful that we put together a course for them, for their vet nurses, a continuing ed course where they can refresh their skills at teeth cleaning.

Jim Bologa (25:31):

So, again, for the listeners who have ever had to pay for their dog or cat to get their teeth cleaned, again, that's a skill that one needs to constantly brush up on and refresh on. So, again, I think, when we look at education and a person's toolbox in terms of skills, there's enough technology that's being introduced in every area of our lives that it requires us to subscribe to this lifelong learning, otherwise you're not going to be able to stay pace with current technology as it's being integrated into our lives.

Alexander McCaig (26:09):

I kind of like that because it's not so much that when you look at your Institute that it's something transactional. It's actually more of a relationship-driven approach with the people that are coming to learn because it's very easy to welcome them back and then say, "Great, I'm glad the apprenticeship started here, and then you've built out this skillset and we already know one another. Let's work on furthering you in your professional career, and we can help with that." And I think that's sort of relationship builds a huge amount of value robustness and essentially goodwill with Porter and Chester and YTI.

Jim Bologa (26:48):

Yeah, no, absolutely. And again, I think for that student in that relationship, I mean, one of the things that we are trying to do is we are trying to provide flexibility to that student. So again, looking at the programs and how they're delivered is really critical. I was just talking to a student today who's in our HVAC program in one of our campuses here in Connecticut. He's originally from Missouri. Parents moved up here to Connecticut. Now the family's moving back for family reasons, moving back to Missouri, and talked to him a little bit about how he found us. Again, found us online, and I said, "Well, you'll have to stay in touch."

Jim Bologa (27:34):

And the great thing now is that with Zoom and other video conferencing technologies, I mean, he'll be able to stay in touch with us no matter where he is at. The other thing, too, that we've done in, and I think this is pretty innovative, at least I think it is for us, we have a respiratory therapy program. That respiratory therapy program was 100% residentially based in Altoona, Pennsylvania. About a year-and-a-half ago we took that program, I'll call it in air quotes "online." It's lecture online and it's clinical where you live.

Alexander McCaig (28:10):

Oh, wow.

Jim Bologa (28:10):

And so we now are no longer just looking at say a 50 or a 100 mile radius around our physical campus, but we now have students interested in pursuing our program from Alabama and from... We have students in South Carolina and Kentucky and New York. And so we've been able to expand that by providing, again, an element of flexibility to how we're delivering that education. So we have students who are up in Syracuse, New York, they've attended all of the lecture online. We've used some simulation software to help them further enhance their learning. And then we work with them in the local market to find a clinical site, and we have a preceptor go in and basically have them do their hands-on training in a real-world environment. So, it's really, I think, really innovative and I think as we continue to work our way through the COVID pandemic, my hope is that we continue to innovate and bring other really, really solid solutions to prospective students.

Martin Herrick (29:22):

Education is changing for the better, right? It's happening. Maybe, [crosstalk 00:29:27] some would say a little late, but I think COVID-19 has put the right downward pressure on all of education, vocational training, like your institution, and traditional, not-for-profit institutions, them more so than others, really. They're kind of facing a reckoning. But I think that brings us to the top of our 30 minutes session with you, Jim. I want to thank you again for taking the time to meet with us and chat with us and all of your insight, just so incredible to have you here and to share that information with us.

Jim Bologa (30:02):

Thanks for having me. It's great to see you guys and really appreciate the opportunity to talk a little bit more about what I'm really passionate about and that's post-secondary technical education.

Alexander McCaig (30:14):

And, Jim, you talked about it. Where do people go to find out more about you and it, itself?

Jim Bologa (30:21):

A great question. So folks, if they're interested, can go to www.Porterchester.edu, or they can go to www.yti.edu, and they can learn more information about our programs as well as where our physical campuses are located.

Alexander McCaig (30:41):

Fabulous. Jim, thank you so much for coming on. Much appreciated. I'm glad I was here to kick this off with the both of you for this new series. I think this is exciting and it's great to have you be the torchbearer here, Jim, for really getting this new paradigm off to the races.

Jim Bologa (30:58):

Absolutely. I appreciate seeing both of you guys, and again, thanks again for the opportunity.

Alexander McCaig (31:03):

No problem. Thank you.

Martin Herrick (31:03):

Thanks, Jim.

Automated (31:03):

Thank you for listening to TARTLEcast with your hosts, Alexander McCaig and Jason Rigby, where humanity steps into the future and the source data defines the path. What's your data worth?