The rising cost of a four-year college degree is leading many to pursue alternative pathways to traditional higher education from aviation to coding.

We look at ways to pursue careers in some of the most in demand industries.

That and more, stay with us as we dive into, Your South Florida!

Hi, I'm Pam Giganti, welcome to Your South Florida.

College graduates often earn higher salaries than those with just a high school diploma or GED opening the door for greater opportunities with a rising cost of a four-year college and the burden of paying off student loans, traditional higher learning isn't always an option.

This drives many to seek out vocational and technical schools, that offer industry driven career education and training, in some of the fastest growing fields such as aviation or healthcare.

As part of our recent town hall, we invited a panel of experts to discuss these alternatives to higher ed and the latest programs available that can help put you on a path to success.

Henry, let's start with you, In January of 2019, Governor DeSantis issued an executive order to make Florida first in the nation for workforce education by 2030, Later putting over $500 million towards workforce education in our state including technical colleges and the expansion of entrepreneurship education and training.

So why don't you talk to us about some of those initiatives, what all that means and why the renewed focus.

We know that the pathways to economic and social mobility are very different.

One may explore a university trajectory but one may equally explore a CT program That incidentally, can stack up into a university degree.

So it's about providing options, it's about providing choice and choice sort of again does well by way of our residents if we provide viable and exciting alternatives.

And so in January of 2019 like you'd mentioned, the Governor issued his executive order which provided a North Star, a clear vision to get us to become number one in workforce education by 2030.

And he put his money where his mouth is.

Committing over 500 million, as you said, this past legislative session to workforce education and training programs.

And within that, doubling down on apprenticeship programs and apprenticeship programs that are connected to higher education, committing a $10 million grant opportunity for residents across the state, as well as entrepreneurship.

And the Governor and the Commissioner, well they value skills training, they also know about, the critical shortage of critical thinkers, excellent communicators some of these more interpersonal and human skills which entrepreneurship education sort of helps cultivate.

So we wanted to try and both again, address the skills gap but know that there are other aspects to a well-ordered economy and society, graduating democratic citizens and excellent critical thinkers.

For which reason, he put another 2 million behind apprenticeship or rather entrepreneurship programs.

So it's really a holistic approach, when you think about it.

Trying to remove every barrier conceivable, to a higher education by providing our residents every opportunity to enter a high quality well aligned CTE program like those that are offered at McFatter Technical College Eric, I wanna talk to you about, what happened after COVID and we know many workers were either furloughed, or laid-off during the height of the pandemic, they might be looking for a career change or ways to be more self-sufficient perhaps now more than ever.

So talk about this importance of entrepreneurship that we just heard Henry talk about in the community and how the Center for Black Innovation is really helping in that arena.

For sure, so, one of the key things to remember about entrepreneurship is that it's being really impacted by COVID.

A lot of people had to close their doors in the wake of COVID, but as we kinda move forward, as a state into what is gonna start being kind of this resurgence of people getting out there and trying new ideas.

some of these programs are gonna be vital in making sure that we have clear pathways in order to create businesses.

So there's a lot of key fundamental things that people need to have in order to create the businesses that they're attempting to do, one of them being capital, but a lot of them is just being resources and knowledge.

Inability to create the businesses that they're seeking to do.

One of the things that the center is specifically doing is guiding people through that process.

Specifically, people who are looking for repeatable, scalable and profitable business models.

These kind of followed a traditional trajectory of a startup So tech companies that are startup but also outside of that innovation is not just simply people who are in technology, may cast a wide net into people who are simply trying to find a different or a newer way to do things.

So the center goes about helping out with that by giving people both foundational knowledge in startups that start with that but then move forward, more firmly into kind of the hard skills, how do you do your marketing?

How do you use data in order to build a strong infrastructure?

How do you build a team in order to do the type of work that you're attempting to do?

and then moving into kind of, how do you either get investment or how do you start to build up revenue by specifically targeting your audience So there's a couple of different ways to go about it but the center is attacking him from a holistic perspective.

They're trying to make sure that we hit every single prospect that an entrepreneur needs to have in order to grow but also know that growth is...

Entrepreneurship is not just technology, that it spread wider than that.

Yeah and Jeanette, let's go back to what Henry was talking about with McFatter, he mentioned you're the director there.

And then also hard skills, as we just heard from Eric.

So let's talk about some of the most in demand industries right now.

What are some of the most sought after courses that McFatter is offering?

And have you noticed more of an interest from potential students since before the pandemic?

So when the pandemic first hit, McFatter like Atlanta can share than the other two Tech Colleges here in the county, initially saw a drop in enrollment which makes a lot of sense.

People were dealing with other situations, other challenges as the pandemic has gone on here in the spring as we're seeing increases in the vaccination rates all of that enrollment is coming back.

Some of it is coming back in industries that were strong pre-COVID, nursing, firefighting, EMT, network support, but there are also some areas where we're seeing an increase that we didn't see quite as much pre-COVID.

For example, HPAC, our commercial vehicle driving program down at Sheridan has always been popular and is bursting at the scenes.

We've also got a lot of interest in our construction programs like electrical and welding.

And interestingly, you mentioned entrepreneurship we've actually seen here at McFatter, a recent increase in programs, that have actually career-wise temporarily taken a hit.

And one of the ones that occurs to me, is photography.

Commercial photographers were particularly hard hit by COVID.

And yet our enrollment in our photography program is very strong.

And what we're hearing from our students is, they are trying to position themselves as entrepreneurs, running their own businesses, once we come out of the pandemic.

So we've even seen things like that, where currently the market is weak, but they know that as soon as we come out of this, they will be strong and positioned to run their own run businesses.

One industry that continues to grow is, aviation, package delivery cargo continues to increase pasture, air travel numbers, we are starting to see go back up again after more people are becoming vaccinated against COVID-19.

So with that growth, the demand for skilled workers continues to rise.

And recently, I had the opportunity to visit George T. Baker Aviation, in Miami to get an inside look at how they are helping to prepare this next generation of workers.

Located next to Miami international airport, George T. Baker Aviation Technical College is helping prepare its students for in-demand careers in aviation, with courses from aerospace science to aircraft maintenance.

My name is Gabriel Sosa and I'm taking the airframe course right now.

The airframe course is basically everything except the engine.

So, you have your wings, your landing gear, the tires, the systems like hydraulics and pneumatic systems, antennas, electronics or everything apart from the engine.

My name is Ifeanyi, I've been on the airframe program while I have always a few planes at the airport.

I did that for like five years.

So while I was feeling the airplanes, so I kind of like developed interest in working on the planes and trying to fix the plane and I think is fascinating.

I just thought fixing the airplanes will be something huge and something I think I can do.

And right now, I'm on my way training and I'll get it done.

My name is Kamisha Warren, I'm in the power plant course.

It's basically pertaining to the functionality of a turbine engine or reciprocating engine.

It deals with the engine itself making sure that it is functioning properly for flights.

Baker Aviation graduate, Carlos Gonzalez, is now an instructor there, teaching students, the skills they'll need for this rapidly evolving industry.

From the time that I started in 84, when I started to now, it has changed dramatically.

Everything that I have learned through my years of experience, some of it is not even being used anymore Cause the new airplane 787, is all completely changed.

A lot of those systems are completely 100% differently.

When they first started with my classes, is the first time introducing them to turbine engine especially, they come in and they're all like worry and stress, Oh my God, this class is gonna be impossible for me to understand.

And then as we get them it's like baby steps that we take through and then by the time we get to the end of the class, I have like a personal interview with them and it's funny because then they go, "oh but it's so easy," it was so easy.

I go, yeah, is easy now since somebody is explaining it to you.

And we went through the whole process which in reality is not that difficult but it could be overwhelming if you don't have somebody instructing you the proper procedure and the proper way to doing things I'm someone who likes to try new things.

So I basically tried it out and it turned out to be a passion of mine.

It's helped me with character development, discipline.

So I definitely look at it as a blessing.

Let's talk about the diversity of the student body because you have more females in the program now than ever before, right?

It has increased incredibly in the past.

I would say about three years, I seen it go up, I was thinking right now, we're running at about, maybe 20% are female.

And it's actually great that that has been happening because the industry is demanding more females.

They're more attentive to detail.

And this industry is all about detail because those are the things that actually prevent accidents from happening.

In addition towards adult education courses Baker Aviation provides dual enrollment classes for Miami Day County Public High School students, giving them a headstart to a solid career.

The advantage of having this type of program for high school student to be able to come here they don't pay nothing out of their pocket.

Everything is free for them.

And by the time they finish high school they could actually have a high school diploma and have at least partial certification either a power frame license or an airframe license.

That means they could actually start working in the field right away.

And right now the field is actually acquiring a lot of the students.

They're offering them 20 to $25 an hour.

I mean, that's what I've heard of, that's a really good money especially for them to help her with their studies, if they wanna go to college, that could actually help up paying for the college.

Right now for the major airlines, the average salary for top paying mechanic which is usually takes about five to seven years.

It's over $100 per hour a year when they come here, it's like they wanna be here.

It's not like they're being forced to grow.

And even with the high school program, they come here and they express themselves.

Like they wanna be here.

It's not like, "mom, I gotta go to school, I got homework."

No, no, here they love to come here and that makes a big difference.

It makes it easier on the instructors, so is an incredible program.

Such an incredible program there was great to spend the afternoon there.

I personally learned a lot about these programs that have high school students and also have adult learners.

So Jeanette, let's talk about that.

Why don't you explain to us kind of what dual enrollment is and how important that can really be for a student to take advantage and get ahead start?

Sure, so you heard him mentioned in the package dual enrollment is something that's available for high school students here in Florida.

People are very familiar with dual enrollment.

For example, you might go to Broward college and take an English class or a math class.

Not as many people as aware of what we call career dual enrollment.

And that's when the students come to one of the technical colleges for focus study in one of our technical programs.

Now the technical programs for adults are very affordable, but they're not free.

It's helped supported by tax dollars but for our high school students if you career dual enroll, everything is free of charge.

And again, as you heard in the package, what happens as a result is the student can complete high school not only with their high school diploma, but also with the technical college diploma here in Broward county, there are two different ways to access dual enrollment.

Students can remain at their home boundary at high school and come to us usually in your junior or senior year for part of the day for their technical program.

In that case, they usually don't necessarily complete the tech program, but they get far into it or they can come to one of our technical high schools.

All three technical colleges, Atlantic, McPhatter and Sheridan, have a full technical high school on their campus where each of the three technical high schools enroll 600 students, they take their academic with us and they take their full technical programs, so most of our technical high school students complete the program, As a result of that, they also earn industry certifications in their fields and where this becomes really, really beneficial for the students, is the multiple pathways that are open to them when they leave us.

And one of the great examples I usually give is with practical nursing.

So a student can come through our career dual enrollment program, as a high school student, take a practical nursing post-secondary program completely free of charge, they graduate high school, as long as they've passed the INCLAX they're now a licensed practical nurse.

Many of them can go straight to work in the field.

In Florida right now, the average salary for practical nurse is more than $45,000.

So they can come right out of high school, making that kind of money.

They could choose that they wanna move immediately onto their RN.

So for example, they may go to Broward college and take the RN program, taking not only their knowledge that they've gained with us but also articulated credits.

So they start out the RN program, with many credits granted to them because of what they did with us.

Or you have the student who let's say wants to go on and become a doctor or a nurse practitioner.

They go off to one of the state universities, again as a licensed nurse, not only as they are a pre-med student do they have two years of working with patients, so they are ahead academically, but they can also work part-time in their field, nursing making 20, $25 an hour and help put themselves through college that way.

So it really does open up significant choices to the students once they leave us.

Yeah, absolutely.

And touch on the fact quickly too that students after high school, if they wanna go to the technical college can use Bright Futures in Florida pre-paid money as well, correct?

Correct, both adult students who've been out of school for awhile and high school students who just recently graduated the tech colleges in addition to Pell Grants being available, we are included in the Bright Future's program and the Florida Prepaid completely so all of those funding sources are fully available to any students who come to the technical colleges.

So Henry we've talked about... Jeanette just mentioned, licensed practical nursing, we talked about aviation, looking statewide, let's talk about what are some of the most in demand fields right now?

What are you seeing out there?

And what is it that the get there Florida initiative is really trying to do, to help fill these positions?

With get there campaign, if everyone can take a minute and visit getthere@fl.com.

Was launched back in September by the Governor and by the Commissioner, in response to the COVID pandemic knowing that many people have been impacted knowing that many residents found themselves without viable employment, needing high skills, technical skills, into a job that can be less susceptible to economic disruption and the Get There campaign is an attempt to sort of elevate what those programs are.

Not only that, the Get There campaign comes with resources.

The legislature has funded this year and it's waiting Governor DeSantis's signature at the moment $35 million for the open door grant.

This is money from the cares act fund, appropriated through the legislature for anybody that would like to enter any of these programs seeking a high priority, high value CTE degree or certificate.

The open-door grant provides what Pell or what federal aid cannot provide for.

So if there is, for some reason an inability of a resident to receive full Pell or full financial aid, this is not loans.

These monies do not have to be repaid.

If you are not able to receive full Pell for your program, the state is effectively going to kick in, what is left on the table.

So if you need help, if you need assistance if you wanna talk to me or one of our state's supervisors about where to go and what industry get into, visit that website, getthere@fl.com And now Pam, to answer your question The hottest industries are aviation, here in the state of Florida, especially the space coast and not just airframe and powerplant mechanic like Baker sort of traditionally trains for, aviation needs IT people, so cybersecurity as well as other kinds of cloud-based technology solutions for that aviation cluster, is really really vibrant at the moment.

Healthcare is the staple and we're looking to a resurgence in hospitality, but those kinds of jobs again are more likely to be susceptible to economic disruption.

So within hospitality, you see the sector now trying to pivot, into more entrepreneurial pathways.

So IT, healthcare, financial technology, aviation, and again the construction trades, especially as we think about the large infrastructure investments that may be coming down the pike, those are all phenomenal and viable industries to explore a career pathway.

And I would be remissed, frankly, Pam if I didn't plug teachers and education we need teachers in the state of Florida.

We know that's a vocation, we know in some sense that's a sacrifice but thankfully the Governor and the Commissioner passed his store teacher pay increases taking us from bottom 30 or 40 to number five or six in the nation in terms of how well our teachers are paid in Florida.

So I will be remiss if I didn't say that from the department of ed's perspective that we need more educators out there.

Let's go right to Eric because your background is data and design.

Talk about what the computer field looks like right now what you're working on and I'm sure you are a teacher in many aspects to people too who are looking to kind of take all those skills and use them in an entrepreneurial way, correct?

Correct, so I currently teach at Watson Institute as a data science in social impact and then also part-time at University of Miami for Design.

And the biggest thing that should be taken in consideration is that there's always going to be more things to do in IT.

And both of those positions, both using data and using design, are not only getting the bar lowered, in order to enter into them, but they will always be relevant and they will always play a part in not only IT specifically but across industries in general every single industry needs to better utilize data as they continue to grow.

So that you'll continue to see more and more positions that utilize data in them even if they don't say that in their position.

You're having managers who need to leverage data.

If you're in a spreadsheet, you're using data, maybe in a more simple format or a simple manner but people are learning to use that at higher degrees, we call them power users, in order to start leveling up how they utilize data in their fields.

So as I am teaching people, and as I'm working in the center, I'm seeing there's a more and more desire for people to leverage technology in their specific fields.

So as kind of Henry is pointing out, if we go back into aspects of hospitality, I have two founders right now that are working specifically in hospitality to operate their businesses.

And they are attempting to leverage platforms in order to understand how we can be in hospitality a little bit more with the technical lens.

So that is always interesting to see.

And you're gonna start seeing that across different industries, regardless not only in this state, but across the nation.

I know you're at the Center for Black Innovation but go back to your core, which was code fever Miami, talk about coding, how hot is that right now and it remains a hot industry, correct?

Yeah, so software development is never not gonna be hot.

There's always gonna be someone trying to do software development in some form of fashion that might change a little bit over time.

So in the center's history, we have focused specifically on teaching kids how to code through schools.

So that was, focusing on HTML, CSS and JavaScript basic layers that are needed in order to do web development.

And that initial coding that we taught in doing that, sets the foundation for them to learn so much more.

So going into those aspects of data analysis that I was talking about, those are appropriate.

There's Python and R, that are programming languages that are built on top of that.

Then we start going into other aspects that also use JavaScript in order to build out applications.

When we start talking about AR and VR, those are languages that are alongside those.

They may be a little bit more difficult to get into but HTML, CSS and JavaScript have always been kind of the gateway into those more difficult programming languages for children.

So there has always been something that the center has focused on, and we'll continue to do that as we kind of move on it's been difficult with COVID obviously not being able to go into schools and speak with kids and work with them hand to hand and that's gonna be the challenge moving forward.

How do we continue to assist youth and children as we continue to move forward while at the same time being able to reach them where they're and reach them where they're not just physically but also from the perspective and mentally.

Jeanette let's talk about McFatter and how it helps its students not only to get the certification for those jobs and the training for jobs, but how do they get into placement and actually get a job?

Is it through partnerships, that you have with companies that are waiting with open arms for those trained students and their new employees, if you will.

So all of the above we start as you just said we start by making sure they've been educated with a top-notch education.

We also have a program that funds reimbursements to them when they pass the industry certifications that are so valuable in their fields.

So we're able to help them get their industry certifications basically for free.

That equips them to leave us with the highest skillset possible.

Then we layer in the partnerships that exist between our program instructors, who are all professionals who have worked in the field and the partnerships they have, each of our technical programs has an industry advisory council.

Those individuals help provide jobs to our graduates, they help provide internships to our students while they're still with us.

And then the final piece we layer on to that in addition to what they get from those connections with their instructors is each of the three tech colleges here in Broward has a alumni association and a career services team.

Those teams work with students as they're preparing to graduate again completely free of charge, with resume building, they practice job interviewing skills, they help them find jobs, they learn how to job search, we connect them through networking and mentorships.

Part of our accreditation and funding is based on our success in getting students jobs.

So we want to be sure that every single one of them doesn't just come and get an education from us, but actually gets the job.

It benefits them by allowing this multi-pronged approach of the teacher, providing the excellent education the funding an incentive to get that certification and then there's team that works with them once they leave us.

The other thing we make available to all of our graduates, as we've seen certainly with COVID these services, the job services, the resume, the job hunt, the connections to potential job databases.

That's available to our graduates forever.

So they may leave us and 10 years later need to change fields.

They can come back to us and re-tapped into all of those services again for free as part of the service we provide to all of our alumni.

Let's...

This next question is really for the three of you and anybody can jump in here but let's talk about what has happened with COVID and what we all had to pivot and go to working remotely how has that changed the landscape going forward?

And Eric I see you nodding, why don't you start?

There's been a huge influx of people who are looking for certifications to feel validated, right?

So, we have a lot of people that come in with the idea, if I get this certification, I should have the requisite knowledge in order to be able to get this job.

Well, certifications are kind of half the battle Jeanette kind of spoke to, they have these associations, they have groups of people that assist in helping you kind of go and get the job.

Because at one point it's a little bit of a skills gap, but then the other half of it is that there needs to be relationship building and that needs to be professional development in order to actually secure the job at the end of the day.

Hard skills are a huge part, of what it means to be in technology, right?

If you don't know how to code, people are not gonna hire you, but if you don't know how to have a conversation if you don't know how to communicate, what you're coding if you don't know how to talk to other people on your team, you can't get a job either.

So that part of the battle is not only going through and getting these certifications, but it's also understanding to learn the requisite soft skills that allow you to kind of progress as you move forward.

So, some of that could be getting gotten through certifications, but the other part, still has to happen a lot through meeting and talking to people and developing your professional...

Doing that professional development online, because it can't happen in person.

At least, if they'll probably very soon as COVID starts to calm down, but it has to happen online, throughout this whole entire COVID period.

we had to reach out through a LinkedIn or we had to call or email people and you had to ask for advice, and that's very daunting for a lot of people just entering into the workforce.

You can watch our full town hall on our Facebook page @YourSouthFL, we'll see you next time, thanks for watching.