At a time when the state’s community colleges are seeing record enrollment, for-profit career schools are prospering too, particularly in training students for jobs in allied health fields.
The appeal is simple — the schools make it easy for students to get through their training and into paying jobs. Gone are the prerequisites and the waiting lists to get classes; gone are the schedules that vary wildly and endless paperwork associated with enrollment, registration and financial aid.
Instead, students attend classroom programs geared toward the job ahead without having to fret over language and math requirements. Guidance and financial counselors walk students through every step of the process and the daily routine is usually the same every week.
But all this customer service doesn’t come cheap. While costs at Connecticut Community College runs $126 per unit plus books, supplies and lab fees, for-profit schools charge as much as $300 per unit.
The answer for many lies in loans, but it’s still worth it, according to thousands of students each semester. One of them is Holly Pino, a 23-year-old deli worker from Waterbury who wants to be a medical assistant.
Pino is shelling out about $15,000 for a 12-month program at Stone Academy that leads to an allied health certificate and a chance to earn a modest income starting around $27,000 a year with benefits.
Pino, who took a loan for the entire amount, will start making monthly payments in 2012.
“The program at Stone is short and fast,” said Pino, who attended Naugatuck Valley Community College before switching to Stone Academy in December.
At Stone Academy, Pino has a fixed schedule of medical assistant courses and attends school for six hours per day Monday through Thursday.
After she completes 10 months of various administrative practice, insurance coding and billing, nutrition, biology and anatomy classes, Pino will enroll in a hands-on lab for two months before graduation.
She hopes to have a job as a medical assistant by this time next year.
“Career schools, like Stone Academy, are valuable because we provide only the essential training needed to get our students out into the industry of their choosing,” said Joe Bierbaum, director of admissions for the Hamden-based school.
“We do not require students to go through prerequisite courses prior to learning the content that is relevant to the career they want to have coming out of school,” said Bierbaum.
Pino, who faced a minimum of four years of schooling at Naugatuck Valley Community College, struggled to get into general education and medical prerequisite classes because seats filled up quickly.
“I have a million things going on in my life and I need a decent income now,” she said. “The prerequisite classes are unnecessary and a lot of work that have nothing to do with being a medical assistant.”
Another challenge was finding courses she could take consecutively back-to-back.
“I would have a class early in the morning and then have nothing until later that night,” she said. “It was hard to schedule school and work on the same day.”
A shaky job market and soaring college costs are driving the swelling ranks of medical students to pursue job-focused training at career schools instead of through four-year university programs.
Fueling the demand for medical workers is the new health care legislation and an aging population of Baby Boomers. By 2018, more than 580,000 health care jobs — a 22 percent increase over today — will need to be filled, according to federal projections.
By 2020, nursing levels will be 57 percent below the number necessary to meet the state’s health care needs, according to the Connecticut League for Nursing.
Stone Academy is part of a burgeoning industry of private, for-profit colleges that offers programs that prepare students for various entry-level jobs in the healthcare profession, including office management, medical assistant and nurse aide positions.
“Programs at Stone Academy can get people trained in as little as four months with our longest program being a part-time LPN program that lasts 24 months,” said Bierbaum.
“The way this translates to the allied healthcare shortage, is that we can meet the need faster than any degree granting program,” he said.
Branford Hall Career Institute, the University of Phoenix, which has a campus in Norwalk and Lincoln Technical Institute, are among a handful of local schools that have introduced or expanded their allied health programs to meet the demand for skilled medical workers.
Career schools generally start new class sessions every four to eight weeks, which means students can enroll and complete programs throughout the year. At Stone Academy, which holds a formal graduation ceremony once a year, students receive their diploma when they complete their studies.
Bierbaum did not provide figures for Stone’s enrollment and graduates.
Connecticut Community Colleges, a 12-campus system, enrolls approximately 1,200 students at six of its nursing programs each year, according to Gayle Barrett, nursing admissions specialist in Hartford.
Barrett encourages nursing students to examine schools closely and make sure they find a program that fits their needs and budget.
Many licensed practical nurses who graduate from a career school go on to earn nursing degrees and work as registered nurses in the field, said Bierbaum.
Pino said she might consider pursuing an advanced degree after she’s worked in the industry a few years.
“I want to get a job in my field first and start making some money,” she said. “Then I can think about my options and what my long-term plans are going to be.”
