<figure>
 <img src="https://media.eaglewebservices.com/public/2020/5/1588703395697.png" alt=" Seth McConnell practices a weld during his welding class at Washburn Tech before the coronavirus shutdown. Chris Neal / For the Kansas News Service" />
 <figcaption> Seth McConnell practices a weld during his welding class at Washburn Tech before the coronavirus shutdown. Chris Neal / For the Kansas News Service</figcaption>
 </figure>By STEPHAN BISAHA <a href="https://www.kmuw.org/post/coronavirus-and-crashing-aviation-industry-hollow-out-kansas-tech-colleges-pitch">Kansas News Service</a>WICHITA, Kansas — It’s a simple, tempting pitch: hands-on training tailored for specific, high-demand jobs.It
 led thousands of students to enroll in Kansas technical colleges. But 
COVID-19 and a collapsing aviation industry undid that promise.Hands-on
 learning can’t replace the online lessons that social distancing 
demands. And many of those high-demand jobs that schools promised on the
 other side of a certification wilted with the economy. Others 
disappeared with the grounding of the Boeing 737 Max.Few things 
illustrate how highly specialized tech school training can go wrong like
 the problems with the jetliner. It's stretched past a year and made 
some plane-building skills irrelevant.Education experts say the 
Boeing example and COVID-19 also test a key premise of some tech 
education programs designed to train workers for the needs of specific 
companies. Yet they say schools like WSU Tech can adapt.“Right 
now, it’s a triple whammy,” said Lauren Eyster, a senior fellow with the
 Urban Institute. “(But) they are, especially Wichtia, pretty well 
poised to respond to this.”<h2>Hands-on appeal</h2>The rapid boom of Kansas tech colleges stands out against the state’s more traditionally academic schools.Stagnant
 enrollment began troubling the state’s universities since 2013. 
Community colleges fared worse over the same period, when enrollment 
dropped more than 15%.That distressed the Kansas educators. A 
decade ago, they forecasted an economy held back by a lack of college 
graduates needed for high-skilled jobs.Tech colleges proved to 
be the one bright exception to the state’s enrollment downturn. While 
they still taught only a fraction of the students learning at the state 
universities, tech college enrollment has jumped more than 51% since 
2013.A large part of the appeal? Hands-on training.Professors
 still lecture. Students still read from textbooks. But students also 
handle welding torches, rivet guns and sanders. It can take two years at
 a university before a student begins any core classes. Tech schools 
thrive on getting students onto a replica factory floor within a few 
weeks.But with the coronavirus, hands-on learning went from selling point to weakness.In
 March, before the state’s shelter-in-place order, colleges were already
 canceling in-person classes. WSU Tech had moved its lecturers and some 
of its less complex training online. But many of those lessons can’t be 
taught over videoconference.“It’s really hard to rig an aircraft
 in a virtual environment,” said James Hall, dean of Aviation 
Technologies at WSU Tech. “But we’re doing as much as we can to get the 
students ready.”The Federal Aviation Administration requires 
in-person training for many plane-building jobs. While the agency lifted
 some of those rules because of the virus, some of that training still 
has to happen on site.WSU Tech hopes to bring small batches of 
students on campus in June, assuming no state or county shelter-in-place
 orders extend past May.<h2>Jobs no longer there</h2>The trouble with hands-on training will eventually go away.But
 the one-two punch of the coronavirus and the grounding of the 737 Max 
to Kansas’ aviation economy will have longer lasting effects.Two
 years ago, the Kansas aviation industry looked untouchable. At the end 
of 2018, Spirit AeroSystems announced plans to create <a href="https://www.kmuw.org/post/spirit-aerosystems-announces-it-will-hire-1400-more-workers-kansas" target="_blank">1,400 new jobs</a>.&nbsp;&nbsp;The
 biggest challenge was having a skilled workforce to fill those jobs. 
WSU Tech was willing to pay students to move to the state and get 
trained for them.Then two crashes of Boeing 737 Max planes led to the grounding of the airliner.Economists
 said that wouldn’t hurt the industry much as long as the plane returned
 to the air in a few months. But March marked a year since the Max last 
flew. Spirit <a href="https://www.kmuw.org/post/spirit-aerosystems-lay-2800-workers-amid-737-max-shutdown" target="_blank">laid off 2,800 workers in January</a> — twice as many as it planned to hire in 2018. AThen the coronavirus ripped through the U.S. economy. Both <a href="https://www.kmuw.org/post/another-dose-bad-news-wichitas-economy-more-furloughs-spirit" target="_blank">Spirit AeroSystems</a> and <a href="https://www.kmuw.org/post/textron-aviation-furloughing-workers-coronavirus-outbreak-affects-production" target="_blank">Textron Aviation</a> began furloughing workers, and last week, Spirit announced&nbsp;<a href="http://docs.google.com/document/d/1_6R1NMmd2LEcYsUkwxYLMDFdKBFCamMjkrUe79oeobQ/edit" target="_blank">a round of layoffs</a>&nbsp;for nearly 1,500 workers.&nbsp;The state’s tech schools had been a training pipeline for those companies, but now that pipeline is disconnected.Tech
 schools now must adapt to an economy without employees begging for 
workers. The largest challenge for that change is cost. Technical 
training is expensive. Schools must either find the money for new 
equipment needed for that hands-training, or find ways to retrofit what 
they already own.Education experts say tech colleges have two 
advantages over universities when shifting to the economy. First, they 
have stronger ties to the local business community and therefore a 
better understanding of their needs. And second, they don’t have to go 
through lengthy curriculum reviews to get new programs started.“That’s part of the beauty of who we are,” said Sheree Utash, president of WSU Tech.<h2>Back to school</h2>Tech
 schools often tailor their programs based on what employers say they 
need. WSU Tech cut its sheet metal program from eight weeks to six 
because Spirit needed the workers quickly. Students train on the same 
equipment used by the companies offering jobs well before graduation 
day.All college programs face a balancing act between specific 
and general education. Tech college’s strength comes from tipping that 
balance to focus on the needs of a local economy and local employers.But that leaves graduates less employable ]when their niche in the economy goes south.“The
 tragedy in this, especially for people with the most specific 
education, is they rely on the employer being there and the job being 
there,” said Tony Carnevale, director of the Georgetown University 
Center on Education and the Workforce. “And that’s no longer the case.”But Kansas educators say tech school graduates get more than an education only useful for one employer.“I
 know of no program that we have that we only train to one company,” 
said Scott Smathers, vice president of workforce development for the 
Kansas Board of Regents.Recent WSU Tech graduates and laid-off 
aviation workers can go back to the college for retraining. While Spirit
 doesn’t need workers to build any more planes at the moment, those 
still flying need maintenance workers.Educators say that’s the 
true strength of technical education. Students get high-paying jobs 
quickly with minimal time and money invested. They then can eventually 
go back to school.Chris Coleman got hired as an aircraft painter
 at Textron Aviation after one semester at WSU Tech. Yet he got hooked 
by the hands-on training and immediately signed up for more classes. 
He’s now working toward a two-year associate’s degree.“Crazy 
enough, I’m actually looking to stay even longer and take another 
program,” Coleman said. “So I’ll have been turning WSU Tech into almost a
 four-year college.”Stephan Bisaha reports on education and young adult life for KMUW and the Kansas News Service. You can follow him on Twitter <a href="http://twitter.com/stevebisaha?lang=en">@stevebisaha</a>.

Virus, crashing aviation industry hollow out Kan. tech college's pitch