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According to an April article from McKinsey & Company, the skilled labor shortage that U.S. manufacturing has been facing for some time shows no sign of going away anytime soon, due to a variety of factors. There is an aging workforce and a lack of young replacements. Meanwhile, changes in the industry, such as the transition to clean energy, are increasing demand for talent.
In Happy Valley, the Central Pennsylvania Institute of Science and Technology (CPI) is filling these gaps and inspiring the Gen Z workforce to meet increasing demand and replace an aging workforce. The school also works to involve parents and the community in making career paths more attractive to students.
It is important for CPI to show young talent their potential sooner or later. The majority of the students are high school students. CPI teaches nearly 500 high school students and just over 100 post-high school students across its 16 program areas – and for those high school students, CPI tuition, which is quite affordable, is covered by their high schools, making CPI an equivalent is an option. more attractive option.
“We want students to get in early and learn a career or a trade so that if they choose not to continue their post-secondary education, they can enter the workforce at a good, well-paying, life-sustaining wage. ”, said CPI chairman MaryAnn Volders. “University is not for everyone. Post-secondary institutions are not for everyone…We could have 18- and 19-year-olds coming out of CPI and working for $75,000-$100,000 based on the skills they learned (here).”
(McKinsey noted that some sectors have seen wage increases of more than 20% since 2020, due to labor shortages and increasing competition for talent.)
CPI also stays abreast of student and industry needs through initiatives such as its recent joining of the Smart Automation Certification Alliance (SACA), which allows students to earn SACA Industry 4.0 certifications, preparing them for work in the Industry 4.0 and IIoT sectors. CPI also collaborates with more than twenty other educational institutions so that students can transfer their credits elsewhere and pursue further education if desired.
Overcoming obstacles to choosing an engineering degree is a community effort
Although CPI has excelled in equipping its students for the workforce in Happy Valley, it still faces a number of challenges.
“I think a lot of parents are afraid that if they send their students to a vocational and technical school, they won’t have an academic background and they will have to go to college. That is not true,” said Volders. “We need more parents to send students here to learn a trade. Maybe they use it while they’re in college, maybe they turn it into a career path, maybe it’s just a skill they learn… But I really think it comes down to people being afraid to say, “I’m a career and engineering student.” It doesn’t have the same appeal as saying, “I’m an academic student applying to Penn State.”
This is something the McKinsey article also touched on. One study found that despite increased enrollment in vocational and trade schools, 74% of students reported a perceived stigma associated with choosing a vocational program over traditional four-year universities, and nearly 80% of students reported that their parents preferred to attend a traditional university. education, with only 5% of parents sending their children to a vocational school.
“Vocational schools in the 80s and 90s had a different atmosphere. Now we are much more academic and much more student-oriented, and much more technical in nature. We’ve really upped our game over the last 20 to 25 years, in career and technical education. However, I think that many parents remember the old secondary school technology,” says Volders. “We are still fighting that stigma.”
There is also the fact that many members of the Gen Z workforce value flexibility, but it is difficult to provide a high degree of flexibility in a workplace where one must be physically present in a dedicated workspace, such as in a dentist’s office or a mechanic’s garage. .
However, that is not an insurmountable challenge. Volders stated: “Can we give people (in skilled professions) more flexibility in their time? Can we give them more personal days? Can we give them more vacation days? Can we help them put their families first and not necessarily put their jobs first when that’s not necessary? Those are the things we need to look at.”
All of the above, Volders noted, these challenges can be solved with a community effort that combines schools, parents, employers and students – and Happy Valley could be the community that makes it happen.
“We are fortunate to be a career and technical school in Center County,” she said. “We have three great school districts – Penns Valley, Bald Eagle and Bellefonte – that absolutely support careers in technical education. They send as many students to us as possible. They promote it within their schools.”
