C-TEC Paves the Path for Many in Licking County

Passion equals purpose and locally, C-TEC has been molding the passion of local learners into a valued and necessary workforce for almost 50 years. The Career & Technology Centers of Licking County, more commonly known as C-TEC, is coming up on its golden anniversary of building the talent pool of Licking County’s trade school graduates.

Recently, I had the privilege of talking with Brian Wilfong, communications coordinator for C-TEC of Licking County, about how trade schools compare with traditional four-year institutions and some of the things high-school students and adults should consider when looking for a refresher or change of profession.

What are some of the current growing/popular/trending areas of study?

Public service is doing really well right now. I find that very interesting. Paramedic, EMT, firefighting. There has been an uptick in that. Health care has always been a pretty popular field. The skilled trades right now – there’s a huge emphasis on that. We’ve been pushing that for years, … but just in the ten years that I’ve been here, we’ve seen a significant increase to the number of people interested in those. CNC machining (Computer Numerical Control), robotics, automation, welding, things like that. In fact, of the things that we really have to focus on with our students is that they’re coming to us in those fields specifically, and they’re getting the skills and getting the certifications, and the employers want them to come work for them even before the complete the program. It’s ‘Oh, hey you’ve got the skills and we can work with you from there.’ So, we’re fighting to say, ‘No, no, no. Stay here and get it done. You’ve just got two months left and then go. Complete it.’

So, it’s just the demand of the industry?

The demand is so great.

And of course, IT (Information Technology) is massive and IT is one of those fields where honestly, I’ve sat in panel discussions and I’ve watched CEOs and different IT firms here in Central Ohio who have said, ‘I don’t care if you have a Ph.D. or if you have a GED, if you have these certifications – and they rattled some of them off – I will hire you.’ The end.

Because the certification tests are difficult, which is why we teach them the skill set. … The certification is proof you know how to do this. And that’s the emphasis, especially in those IT fields.

How would you compare C-TEC or trade schools to a typical four-year university?

Well, number one obviously, we don’t take four years.

Most … of our programs are completed in a year. Most of our programs are certificate-bearing. So, there’s options for multiple certifications and articulations at the end of or during those programs. And obviously, cost is a huge factor. We are not anywhere close to the cost of traditional … four-year and higher institutions.

A lot of our programs articulate with two-year degrees. So, you do the first year of your program here and then you might move on to COTC (Central Ohio Technical College) for your second year and to complete the degree. We are part of what they call the … post-secondary pathway. So you can start a degree here; you do not earn a degree at C-TEC, post-secondary, but it can be part of a … degree-bearing path. So, the cost and the time and really the environment are probably the three most significant factors in terms of the difference between a traditional four-year institution.

I will say that it’s very, very rare that someone comes to our post-secondary center and doesn’t know what they’re going for. And, of course, that’s not the case for a lot of the four-year institutions. I mean, when I went for my undergraduate degree, I had no idea what I was going for my freshman year and not only did I not know, the school encouraged me to not know. It said, ‘Do your Gen Eds (General Education Requirements – prerequisites to declaring a major and taking major-related coursework) and see what happens.’ So that’s a big difference, too.

You touched on it [earlier]: ‘Would one enter a trade school without an area of study in mind?’ Do you have guidance counselor-type individuals for somebody who is thinking about it … in high school and needs somebody to talk through it?

We do. And that’s not something that’s specifically isolated to our post-secondary center. We have district-level positions; we call them career development coordinators, and there are a couple of them. They … visit or they actually have hours set up at every public school in Licking County. Those career development coordinators’… job is to be a career counselor.

You know, if there is a second-grader that says they want to be a doctor, then there needs to be someone saying to them, well, this is what that entails. We say all the time here, ‘Careers come later, but the works starts now.’ We’re not talking about pressuring second-graders who want to be doctors into higher-level math and all that, but we should be very honest with them at the appropriate level about what that means, what that looks like. Because honestly, even 7th and 8th grade, if you’ve not thought about something that requires a lot of post-secondary education before then, the chances of you going and successfully completing that field aren’t good. The stats back that up.

How would you “sell” a trade school education to someone discerning between that and a 4-year university?

Well, it’s all about immediate goal and return on investment. So, that student needs to know what it is that they want. Again, we’re not knocking traditional pathways, we’re just saying you need to know what your pathway is. And if the career path that this person is interested in can be accomplished in less time for less money, all the while in an institution like ours where business and industry are on site, where we’re there, where we partner with them to develop curriculum, … then why wouldn’t you do that?

If your desired career path requires a four-year degree, well then, we’re not appropriate. If you want to go into law, if you want to go into medicine, then you need to go that route. Some of our programs in the health-care field, you could start here and end up there. It depends on the field. And in that case, you can get a certification here that you might need that’s relevant to your degree field, use that certification to be employed in that field while you continue the rest of the higher-education path. That’s obviously a path also, and it will save you money because we’re significantly cheaper. Even just one year here is significantly cheaper than one year someplace else.

And classes in a trade school are – I’ll say sometimes, but really, I think the truth is – always much smaller than they are at a traditional four-year institution. And for some students that’s needed.

What is the admissions process?

If a student has a program they are interested in, they can contact us through the website which is https://www.c-tec.edu/on the post-secondary side and we will really work them one-on-one to remove any barriers. Sometimes they are financial, sometimes they’re work, they’re schedule related, things like that. If they don’t have a diploma or GED, we can work with them to get that, and they can get that here. GEDs are not issued to us, but we have classes and whatnot that we can get them to that threshold. And every student needs to take … aptitude tests for our full-time programs which finds out skill levels … and where they are and if they need remedial help. They complete the FAFSA® (Free Application for Federal Student Aid), just as you would with a traditional four-year institution or two-year institution. Again, we assist with that. That helps them, of course, for financial aid. And then depending on the programs they’re in and when the start dates are, we work with them on enrollments. The nice thing is that when a student contacts us and says ‘I’m interested,’ we make sure they’re really interested and that they know what it’s about, and then they got one-on-one help through the rest of that process. They would have a phone number; they would have a name of an individual who would help guide them through that.

“Traditional” universities are typically assessed a four-year graduation time frame. How do trade schools compare?

Most of our full-time programs are completed within 12-14 months, from start to finish. And there are some short-term I’m-just-coming-in-for-some-certification-type options – STNA (State Tested Nurse Aide), things like that – but full-time programs are typically 12-14 months.

Is there anything else you want to leave us with? Anything we missed?

We have such a robust university system in Ohio, and that’s not the case in a lot of places. Post-secondary education is important and we are a part of that.

* Author’s note: Interview answers and questions have been edited for both length and clarity.