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August 28, 2018 02:00 AM

Postsecondary schools confront tough challenges to train tomorrow's techs

Rick Popely, Fixed Ops Journal
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    Automotive News photo
    An engine performance class in the auto tech program at Sinclair Community College in Dayton, Ohio, which maintains a high job placement rate despite declining enrollment.

    DETROIT—A new report by the TechForce Foundation, a nonprofit group that promotes careers in automotive tech, paints a grim picture: Colleges and trade schools are turning out far fewer service technicians than the industry needs.

    The report concludes that most of the decline has occurred at for-profit technical schools, some of which have endured financial problems in recent years. Overall enrollment in auto tech programs at public community colleges has increased, the study notes.

    Front-line educators, industry leaders and the TechForce report cite similar reasons for declining interest among young people in careers as service techs:

    • Fewer high schools offer auto tech programs because of the cost.
    • Fewer students want to work with their hands.
    • Their parents don't see a bright future for the job.
    • The starting pay is often low.
    • Most newcomers must provide their own expensive tools.

    Shallower pool

    At Sinclair Community College in Dayton, Ohio, enrollment in the automotive technology program is down from a peak of about 250 students before 2008 to fewer than 150 today.

    Justin Morgan, the program's chairman, says the managed bankruptcies of General Motors Co. and Fiat Chrysler Automobiles U.S. L.L.C. during the Great Recession scared off a lot of prospective students. Today, he adds, local high schools and vocational training centers offer fewer auto tech courses because of tighter budgets.

    "What that does for colleges and technical schools and the automotive industry locally is that it brings down the talent pool," Mr. Morgan told Fixed Ops Journal. "If you were a (high school) junior and you wanted to take automotive, but you didn't get in because it's competitive, you might go into heavy machinery or construction instead."

    All the news isn't bad, though. Dozens of community colleges such as Sinclair, and for-profit technical schools such as Lincoln Technical Institute and Universal Technical Institute, are taking advantage of relationships with auto makers and dealers. The common goals: train students in the latest technology, tools and equipment and produce new technicians prepared to work in dealership service bays.

    Sinclair offers streamlined programs with automotive-only courses that lead to certificates and two-year associate degrees.

    The degrees can be paired with a manufacturer-backed training program from Fiat Chrysler Automobiles, GM or Honda Motor Co. Ltd.. The auto makers' programs include paid internships and, typically, a good-paying job at a dealership.

    "Within the first semester, the students are getting a job, and upon graduation they are hired full time," Morgan says. "They graduate in May, and they start working full-time the next Monday."

    Students rotate between eight weeks of classes at the college and eight 40-hour weeks working at a nearby dealership, where they typically are paid $10 to $13 an hour — enough to cover tuition.

    Mr. Morgan says the school's placement rate is around 95 percent. Graduates hired by dealerships as service technicians typically start at $17 to $22 per flat-rate hour.

    "We have data from our postgraduation surveys that within the first two years, they're making anywhere from $40,000 to $89,000," he says.

    Despite such successes, recruiting students to become technicians is a challenge for many postsecondary schools.

    Enrollment in the auto tech program steadily has declined at Truman College in Chicago, a two-year school that is part of the city college system, dropping to fewer than 100 students from about 220 a few years ago.

    Harold Santamaria, an instructor in the program, complains that high school counselors continue to steer students toward college while giving short shrift to auto tech programs such as Truman's.

    "The trades are not being pushed as much as they used to be, and they aren't being taught in the high schools," Mr. Santamaria says. "When I started in 2001 at Truman, there were probably 15 to 20 (Chicago high) schools that had automotive programs. Now, there are probably six to eight, and they're hanging on for dear life."

    Nissan partners with Gwinnett Technical College in Georgia on a curriculum for technician training.

    He also sees a skills gap among high school graduates who have little or no experience working with their hands and may not know basic mechanical concepts. Some haven't ever changed a lightbulb.

    And then there's the lingering perception, he says, that auto repair is low-skill, low-pay work, and a place to send struggling students.

    "We have this stigma that automotive might be considered a dumping ground for students who didn't do well at something else," Mr. Santamaria said. "I see that a lot. I would like to invite counselors out and show them how complicated [automotive] systems are."

    Industry default

    Jonathan Collegio, senior vice president of public affairs for the National Automobile Dealers Association (NADA), says school counselors may be in the dark about what service techs do, and may not know that some earn more than $100,000 a year, because the industry has done little to educate them.

    "Last year, I went to the American School Counselor Association conference in Denver, and virtually every industry that is facing some kind of shortage was exhibiting there and talking about the benefits of the jobs in their industry," Collegio recalls. "Auto would not have even been represented had not Ford decided to be there for the first time."

    This year, NADA is launching an initiative to promote dealership careers, with particular emphasis on service technicians.

    Mr. Santamaria notes that dealerships often donate vehicles, parts, tools and repair equipment to local schools and colleges. He says they can provide another valuable service by serving on school advisory boards.

    Truman and Sinclair colleges have advisory boards made up of owners and managers of dealerships, independent shops and franchised repair businesses. They provide two-way communication about what their shops need and what auto tech programs should be doing.

    "They're the best source of assessment of our students," Mr. Santamaria says of Truman's advisory board. "If they hire one of our students, in six months I can talk to that service manager and ask, 'What is our program doing well and in what areas does it need improvement?' That will help us in the end have better students come out of the program."

    Managers from Smith South Plains Ford-Lincoln in Levelland, Texas, serve on several such advisory boards. Those relationships bring apprentices into the dealership's service department who can grow into full-time techs, says dealer principal Annette Sykora.

    "A tech we hired about three years ago was just coming out of high school and going into a community college program," said Ms. Sykora, a former NADA chairman and current NADA Foundation chairman. "He wasn't sure if he just wanted to do this while he was going to school or if he wanted to become a technician.

    "He completed the community college program and decided that was the career he wanted and to stay on permanently with us," she says. "He's very sharp, and I would say in the next five to 10 years he will be one of my lead techs."

    More of that kind of proactive approach would help dealerships alleviate shortages they face in hiring technicians, says Trish Serratore, senior vice president of the National Institute for Automotive Service Excellence (ASE) and president of ASE's education foundation. ASE has accredited 2,300 education programs, 1,100 at high schools and the rest at postsecondary institutions.

    "It is very expensive to run an automotive service technology program, so unless the industry supports schools that have a program, it could close," Ms. Serratore said.

    "My very simple statement to employers who say they need technicians is, get involved with your local school, whether that is a high school or a community college, because they're right there."

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