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Miami Herald
10-07-2025
- General
- Miami Herald
To fill seats, more colleges offer credit for life experience
PITTSBURGH - Stephen Wells was trained in the Air Force to work on F-16 fighter jets, including critical radar, navigation and weapons systems whose proper functioning meant life or death for pilots. Yet when he left the service and tried to apply that expertise toward an education at Pittsburgh's Community College of Allegheny County, or CCAC, he was given just three credits toward a required class in physical education. Wells moved forward anyway, going on to get his bachelor's and doctoral degrees. Now he's CCAC's provost and involved in a citywide project to help other people transform their military and work experience into academic credit. What's happening in Pittsburgh is part of growing national momentum behind letting students - especially the increasing number who started but never completed a degree - cash in their life skills toward finally getting one, saving them time and money. Colleges and universities have long purported to provide what's known in higher education as credit for prior learning. But they have made the process so complex, slow and expensive that only about 1 in 10 students actually completes it. Many students don't even try, especially low-income learners who could benefit the most, according to a study by the Western Interstate Commission for Higher Education and the Council for Adult and Experiential Learning, or CAEL. "It drives me nuts" that this promise has historically proven so elusive, Wells said, in his college's new Center for Education, Innovation & Training. That appears to be changing. Nearly half of institutions surveyed last year by the American Association of Collegiate Registrars and Admissions Officers, or AACRAO, said they have added more ways for students to receive these credits - electricians, for example, who can apply some of their training toward academic courses in electrical engineering, and daycare workers who can use their experience to earn degrees in teaching. Related: Interested in innovations in higher education? Subscribe to our free biweekly higher education newsletter. The reason universities and colleges are doing this is simple: Nearly 38 million working-age Americans have spent some time in college but never finished, according to the National Student Clearinghouse Research Center. Getting at least some of them to come back has become essential to these higher education institutions at a time when changing demographics mean that the number of 18-year-old high school graduates is falling. "When higher education institutions are fat and happy, nobody looks for these things. Only when those traditional pipelines dry up do we start looking for other potential populations," said Jeffrey Harmon, vice provost for strategic initiatives and institutional effectiveness at Thomas Edison State University in New Jersey, which has long given adult learners credit for the skills they bring. Being able to get credit for prior learning is a huge potential recruiting tool. Eighty-four percent of adults who are leaning toward going back to college say it would have "a strong influence" on their decision, according to research by CAEL, the Strada Education Foundation and Hanover Research. (Strada is among the funders of The Hechinger Report, which produced this story.) When Melissa DiMatteo, 38, decided to get an associate degree at CCAC to go further in her job, she got six credits for her previous training in Microsoft Office and her work experience as everything from a receptionist to a supervisor. That spared her from having to take two required courses in computer information and technology and - since she's going to school part time and taking one course per semester - saved her a year. "Taking those classes would have been a complete waste of my time," DiMatteo said. "These are things that I do every day. I supervise other people and train them on how to do this work." On average, students who get credit for prior learning save between $1,500 and $10,200 apiece and nearly seven months off the time it takes to earn a bachelor's degree, the nonprofit advocacy group Higher Learning Advocates calculates. The likelihood that they will graduate is 17 percent higher, the organization finds. Related: The number of 18-year-olds is about to drop sharply, packing a wallop for colleges - and the economy Justin Hand dropped out of college because of the cost, and became a largely self-taught information technology manager before he decided to go back and get an associate and then a bachelor's degree so he could move up in his career. He got 15 credits - a full semester's worth - through a program at the University of Memphis for which he wrote essays to prove he had already mastered software development, database management, computer networking and other skills. "These were all the things I do on a daily basis," said Hand, of Memphis, who is 50 and married, with a teenage son. "And I didn't want to have to prolong college any more than I needed to." Meanwhile, employers and policymakers are pushing colleges to speed up the output of graduates with skills required in the workforce, including by giving more students credit for their prior learning. And online behemoths Western Governors University and Southern New Hampshire University, with which brick-and-mortar colleges compete, are way ahead of them in conferring credit for past experience. "They've mastered this and used it as a marketing tool," said Kristen Vanselow, assistant vice president of innovative education and partnerships at Florida Gulf Coast University, which has expanded its awarding of credit for prior learning. "More traditional higher education institutions have been slower to adapt." It's also gotten easier to evaluate how skills that someone learns in life equate to academic courses or programs. This has traditionally required students to submit portfolios, take tests or write essays, as Hand did, and faculty to subjectively and individually assess them. Related: As colleges lose enrollment, some turn to one market that's growing: Hispanic students Now some institutions, states, systems and independent companies are standardizing this work or using artificial intelligence to do it. The growth of certifications from professional organizations such as Amazon Web Services and the Computing Technology Industry Association, or CompTIA, has helped, too. "You literally punch [an industry certification] into our database and it tells you what credit you can get," said Philip Giarraffa, executive director of articulation and academic pathways at Miami Dade College. "When I started here, that could take anywhere from two weeks to three months." Data provided by Miami Dade shows it has septupled the number of credits for prior learning awarded since 2020, from 1,197 then to 7,805 last year. "These are students that most likely would have looked elsewhere, whether to the [online] University of Phoenix or University of Maryland Global [Campus]" or other big competitors, Giarraffa said. Fifteen percent of undergraduates enrolled in higher education full time and 40 percent enrolled part time are 25 or older, federal data show - including people who delayed college to serve in the military, volunteer or do other work that could translate into academic credit. "Nobody wants to sit in a class where they already have all this knowledge," Giarraffa said. At Thomas Edison, police academy graduates qualify for up to 30 credits toward associate degrees. Carpenters who have completed apprenticeships can get as many as 74 credits in subjects including math, management and safety training. Bachelor's degrees are often a prerequisite for promotion for people in professions such as these, or who hope to start their own companies. Related:To fill 'education deserts,' more states want community colleges to offer bachelor's degrees The University of Memphis works with FedEx, headquartered nearby, to give employees with supervisory training academic credit they can use toward a degree in organizational leadership, helping them move up in the company. The University of North Carolina System last year launched its Military Equivalency System, which lets active-duty and former military service members find out almost instantly, before applying for admission, if their training could be used for academic credit. That had previously required contacting admissions offices, registrars or department chairs. Among the reasons for this reform was that so many of these prospective students - and the federal education benefits they get - were ending up at out-of-state universities, the UNC System's strategic plan notes. "We're trying to change that," said Kathie Sidner, the system's director of workforce and partnerships. It's not only for the sake of enrollment and revenue, Sidner said. "From a workforce standpoint, these individuals have tremendous skill sets and we want to retain them as opposed to them moving somewhere else." Related: A new way to help some college students: Zero percent, no-fee loans California's community colleges are also expanding their credit for prior learning programs as part of a plan to increase the proportion of the population with educations beyond high school. "How many people do you know who say, 'College isn't for me?' " asked Sam Lee, senior advisor to the system's chancellor for credit for prior learning. "It makes a huge difference when you say to them that what they've been doing is equivalent to college coursework already." In Pittsburgh, the Regional Upskilling Alliance - of which CCAC is a part - is connecting job centers, community groups, businesses and educational institutions to create comprehensive education and employment records so more workers can get credit for skills they already have. That can provide a big push, "especially if you're talking about parents who think, 'I'll never be able to go to school,' " said Sabrina Saunders Mosby, president and CEO of the nonprofit Vibrant Pittsburgh, a coalition of business and civic leaders involved in the effort. Pennsylvania is facing among the nation's most severe declines in the number of 18-year-old high school graduates. "Our members are companies that need talent," Mosby said. There's one group that has historically pushed back against awarding credit for prior learning: university and college faculty concerned it might affect enrollment in their courses or unconvinced that training provided elsewhere is of comparable quality. Institutions have worried about the loss of revenue from awarding credits for which students would otherwise have had to pay. That also appears to be changing, as universities leverage credit for prior learning to recruit more students and keep them enrolled for longer, resulting in more revenue - not less. "That monetary factor was something of a myth," said Beth Doyle, chief of strategy at CAEL. Faculty have increasingly come around, too. That's sometimes because they like having experienced students in their classrooms, Florida Gulf Coast's Vanselow said. Related: States want adults to return to college. Many roadblocks stand in the way Still, while many recognize it as a recruiting incentive, most public universities and colleges have had to be ordered to confer more credits for prior learning by legislatures or governing boards. Private, nonprofit colleges remain stubbornly less likely to give it. More than two-thirds charge a fee for evaluating whether other kinds of learning can be transformed into academic credit, an expense that isn't covered by financial aid. Roughly one in 12 charge the same as it would cost to take the course for which the credits are awarded. Seventy percent of institutions require that students apply for admission and be accepted before learning whether credits for prior learning will be awarded. Eighty-five percent limit how many credits for prior learning a student can receive. There are other confounding roadblocks and seemingly self-defeating policies. CCAC runs a noncredit program to train paramedics, for example, but won't give people who complete it credits toward its for-credit nursing degree. Many leave and go across town to a private university that will. The college is working on fixing this, said Debra Roach, its vice president of workforce development. It's important to see this from the students' point of view, said Tracy Robinson, executive director of the University of Memphis Center for Regional Economic Enrichment. "Credit for prior learning is a way for us to say, 'We want you back. We value what you've been doing since you've been gone,' " Robinson said. "And that is a total game changer." Contact writer Jon Marcus at 212-678-7556, jmarcus@ on Signal. This story about credit for prior learning was produced by The Hechinger Report, a nonprofit, independent news organization focused on inequality and innovation in education. Sign up for our higher education newsletter. Listen to our higher education podcast. The post To fill seats, more colleges offer credit for life experience appeared first on The Hechinger Report.
Yahoo
10-06-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Report gives new details on Trump assassination attempt suspect's 'descent into madness'
The 20-year-old gunman who tried to assassinate President Donald Trump at a rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, last summer experienced a "descent into madness" leading up to the incident, during which he was "having conversations with someone that wasn't there," a new report says. The New York Times, citing thousands of pages of school assignments, internet activity logs and interviews with dozens of people who knew Thomas Matthew Crooks and the investigation surrounding him, among other documents, reported this week that "he went through a gradual and largely hidden transformation from a meek engineering student critical of political polarization to a focused killer who tried to build bombs." "There was a mysteriousness to Thomas Crooks's descent into madness," Rep. Clay Higgins, R-La., who served on a Congressional task force that investigated the July 13, 2024 shooting, told the newspaper. He was "having conversations with someone that wasn't there," Higgins added, after learning information about Crooks' mental health during a trip to Pennsylvania to investigate the assassination attempt. Texts Reveal Officers Were Aware Of Thomas Crooks 90 Minutes Before Shooting Prior to the shooting targeting Trump, the only time Crooks got into trouble was receiving lunch detention in middle school for chewing gum, according to the New York Times. Read On The Fox News App The newspaper reported that Crooks scored 1530 out of a possible 1600 on the SAT and graduated from the Community College of Allegheny County, where he spent several semesters on the dean's list while earning an engineering degree. He was preparing to transfer to Robert Morris University located outside of Pittsburgh, telling classmates he wanted to have a career in aerospace or robotics, the newspaper added. However, Crooks' father noticed his son's mental health taking a turn in the year before the shooting and especially after the May 2024 graduation, telling investigators he had seen Thomas talking to himself and dancing around in his bedroom late at night, the newspaper said. The alleged behavior coincided with a history of mental health and addiction struggles in Crooks' family, the New York Times reported, citing portions of a report from the Pennsylvania State Police. A classmate said to the newspaper that during high school, Crooks enjoyed talking about the economy and cryptocurrencies. At community college, he reportedly designed a chess board for the visually impaired, such as his mother, the New York Times added. "He seemed like a really intelligent kid – I thought he would be able to do whatever he wanted," Trish Thompson, who taught Crooks' engineering at the Community College of Allegheny County, told the newspaper. About a year before graduation, in April 2023, Crooks reportedly wrote an essay in favor of ranked-choice voting in American politics, arguing against "divisive and incendiary campaigns which are pulling the country apart." "As we move closer to the 2024 elections we should consider carefully the means by which we elect our officials," Crooks was quoted by the New York Times as saying. "We need an election system that promotes kindness and cooperation instead of division and anger." Attempted Trump Assassin Seen Walking Around Pennsylvania Rally Hours Before Opening Fire Around that same time, the FBI said, Crooks made more than 25 different firearm-related purchases from online vendors using an alias. One purchase that Crooks made with an encrypted email address was gallons of nitromethane, a fuel additive that can be used to build explosives, according to the New York Times. He reportedly listed his home address for the delivery. In the summer of 2023, Crooks joined a local gun club, the New York Times reported. The newspaper added that Crooks visited news and gun websites, as well as the Trump administration's archives, before narrowing his online searches in the days leading up to the attack to queries such as 'How far was Oswald from Kennedy?'" Searches also included "major depressive disorder" and "depression crisis," the Times said. He also reportedly continued to show up for his job as a dietary aide at the Bethel Park Skilled Nursing and Rehabilitation Center in the weeks leading up to the Trump assassination attempt. On the night of the shooting, ATF agents visited Crooks' home in Bethel Park but had to evacuate after one spotted an ammunition can "with a white wire coming out" and a gallon jug labeled "nitromethane" in his closet, according to the New York Times. Outside the property, agents then interviewed Crooks' parents, with them saying he liked building things and visiting the gun range, and his father also reportedly claiming that he did not "know anything" about his article source: Report gives new details on Trump assassination attempt suspect's 'descent into madness'
Gulf Today
09-06-2025
- Business
- Gulf Today
Culinary grads learn how to cook up a business
Reem Helou was listening attentively. It was the last day of her menu planning class in the Community College of Allegheny County's (CCAC) culinary programme. Her professor, Charles Wallander, an adjunct instructor and advisor at the school, was going over the final assignment, which was due before the stroke of midnight that night. 'If you're going to be, at some point in time, an owner, a director, a general manager, a chef, anybody who's in charge of menu items, you've got to know how to price out and how to create menus,' he said. 'A menu is also a business plan,' said Wallander, who has held numerous positions in the hospitality industry. The information you use to plan a menu, he explained to his class, is information you could take to a bank to get a loan, for example. Baked into what some might think is a simple sheet of paper is the restaurant concept, target market, price point, location, a demographic study of the location (how busy it is, age groups, marital status of the local population, income, ethnicity) and a feasibility study (including costs and consideration of how a specific concept will work in a specific neighbourhood). For Helou, the menu planning assignment was 'probably one of the hardest projects I've ever had to do in my life. ... Very hard, but very good.' Originally from Homs, Syria, she was driven to emigrate, with her family, by the civil war in her home country. Now 30, she left Syria at 17, and moved to Detroit to live with her sister. (Her parents moved to Ohio.) When her sister and her sister's husband moved to Pittsburgh, she moved with them. Upon arrival, she was not even sure if her family would be staying in the US. Once settled in Pittsburgh, she had a few false starts in her studies. Initially, she earned a CCAC degree in early childhood education, then studied creative writing at the University of Pittsburgh. She decided to pursue an associate's degree in culinary arts because she had been working at a local restaurant as a server and then had been promoted to manager. 'That's when I was like, OK, I want to learn more about the industry,' she said. But as part of the program, she had to learn cooking skills as well as management skills — and she realised she loved cooking. That changed her career path from front-of-the-house manager to chef. She currently is a pastry chef at the Argentinian restaurant Balvanera in the Strip District, where she works under head pastry chef Ginger Baldwin. The opportunity to learn baking and pastry with chefs at CCAC has been 'great,' she said, and her experience at Balvanera 'amazing.' Before continuing on her career, though, she had to finish her project. For the final project, besides concepting, analyses and so on, students had to price out a recipe and indicate how they arrived at the figure. They had to research ingredients and prices of preparing dishes, including easily forgotten ingredients like spices, and consider the 'free' items that go with certain plates — like rolls, butter, sides. Although not difficult, there was a lot of math involved. Students had to explain how they would accommodate dietary restrictions, and consider the typography of the menu, the placement of items on the menu (high-profit items are given the top right corner) and the organisation of dishes into categories (appetizers, soups, salads, entrees, sides). Then there's the psychological, marketing aspect that goes into menu writing. Wallander offered up a succulent-sounding example: 'A six-ounce Black Angus filet mignon char-grilled to perfection, drizzled with a savory chanterelle mushroom sauce.' 'When you read a good menu description, you can almost taste it,' he said. Included in the project was also a one-page training document to explain to servers how to market the menu, how to upsell and steer customers to high-value items. 'You should really love your menu,' Wallander said. 'It's the most important thing in the house.' The following week, the projects had been submitted and amid the strains of 'Pomp and Circumstance' at universities and schools all around town, CCAC culinary students were also graduating. Tribune News Service
International Business Times
24-05-2025
- Politics
- International Business Times
Thomas Matthew Crooks: Chilling New Emails Reveal Gunman Who Tried to Assassinate Trump at Pennsylvania Was Making a Bomb
Chilling new emails reveal that Thomas Matthew Crooks, the gunman who tried to assassinate President Donald Trump at a Pennsylvania rally, was also working on building a bomb. Crooks, 20, shot dead one person, wounded two others, and grazed the then-Republican presidential candidate's ear during the attack in Butler on July 13, 2024. The ongoing FBI investigation into Crooks—whom senior officials have confirmed was not tied to any foreign conspiracy—has shed further light on the would-be assassin's plans and preparations. At the time of his failed attempt to assassinate Trump, Crooks was in the process of applying for a four-year engineering program while enrolled at a community college. Dangerous Plans of a Would-Be Assassin Meanwhile, he used an encrypted email account to purchase more than two gallons of nitromethane from a company called Hyperfuels. Twelve days after placing the order, Crooks sent a follow-up message asking about the delay. "Hello, my name is Thomas. I placed an order on your website on January 19. "I have not received any updates of the order shipping out yet and I was wondering if you still have it and when I can expect it to come," he wrote on January 31 at 7.44am. Federal investigators were able to access the email because it was sent from an account tied to the Community College of Allegheny County, where he was a student. Much attention has been given to Crooks' political views, especially since he was reportedly a registered Republican who had also made a donation to Joe Biden. The emails reveal a young man highly critical of the federal government, including one essay, where he blamed NASA for the 1986 Challenger explosion, and in another, he praised a George Orwell piece warning against imperialism. Trump is mentioned only once in the documents in an essay that supports nuclear energy and criticizes Trump's decision to withdraw from the Iran nuclear deal during his first term. Crooks also briefly mentioned Biden while analyzing a 2021 Washington Post op-ed that opposed the then-president's proposal to offer free community college tuition. Bigger Massacre Avoided Wally Zimolong, who obtained the records on behalf of America First Legal, an organization led by Trump adviser Stephen Miller, said, "A year later, we still don't know enough" about Crooks. "I think it raises a lot of important questions. Were they investigating anyone else? Are they still investigating?" Zimolong asked. Of the hundreds of emails reviewed from Crooks' college account, few provide insight into the shooting itself, but they do offer a glimpse into his everyday life. In one message, he wrote to a professor asking if it would be acceptable to bring only two or three adults to a presentation that originally required him to bring five. "I do not have access to any other adults" besides his parents and his sister, he wrote. Overall, Crooks is portrayed as an A-level student who expressed his fondness for the fall season and stayed in regular contact with his professors. "It's sad that he had so much promise and he chose to do this. It's just very difficult to understand where it came from," Patricia Thompson, one of his professors, said. On the day of the rally, Crooks positioned himself on a nearby rooftop just a few hundred feet from where Trump was speaking, armed with an AR-15 rifle and hid in a crouched stance. From a distance of less than 150 yards, he managed to fire eight shots in Trump's direction, one of which struck the former president in the right ear.
Technical.ly
14-05-2025
- Business
- Technical.ly
A Pittsburgh community college leans into ‘mechatronics' to upskill for debt-free careers
A federally funded mechatronics lab in Pittsburgh is helping students land tech jobs quickly without taking on student debt. In Pittsburgh's shifting landscape, regional manufacturers say demand for skilled workers in the field is growing fast, but companies are struggling to fill roles, according to Justin Starr, an endowed professor of advanced technology at the Community College of Allegheny County (CCAC). His program aims to change that by preparing students with the skills needed to step into modern manufacturing careers, without putting them thousands of dollars in the hole. 'The story that sometimes gets lost is that manufacturing is different than it used to be,' Starr told CCAC launched a new lab for mechatronics, which is the study of mechanical, electrical and computer systems used to operate and automate modern manufacturing machines, in 2023. Backed by $1.8 million from the federal Build Back Better (BBB) Regional Challenge grant, the space is outfitted with cutting-edge robotics equipment commonly used in today's manufacturing facilities. Mechatronics students at CCAC have a graduation and job placement rate of over 90%, according to Starr, and students are walking away without debt because of the program's low cost, something that's increasingly uncommon in today's education system. 'What we do is teach students to be able to effectively operate advanced manufacturing lines so they can go out there and be the people who are building the equipment of today and tomorrow,' Starr said. Christofer Main, 21, is one of them. As a plastic extrusion technician at VEKA, a window systems manufacturer in Beaver County, Main is completing a two-year apprenticeship that allows him to work and earn a salary while studying at CCAC. Main said the program was a clear choice, especially now, when he has a baby on the way. 'With college, my wife, for example, she's $40,000 in debt,' Main said. 'I don't have $40,000 just laying around. Monthly payments are crazy. This way, I still get paid to come to school and I don't have to worry about that debt.' Fast, reliable access to a skillset that pays The program's associate degree graduation rates have fallen in recent years, but Starr said that's actually a sign of success. Students are getting the skills they need to be productive with employers after just one semester or one year. '[Students] will go get a job, and they might not stick around for a full two years,' Starr said, 'because they're making $35 an hour and they're 18 years old.' Ethan Miller, 18, another VEKA apprentice studying at CCAC, is currently making around $40,000, plus free schooling, straight out of high school. 'You can't go to college and get paid for it unless you're a football player,' Miller said. 'I can get paid to go to school, and school is free, no debt. That beats college.' For some, CCAC's program is also a path to stability in a new country. Nahid Khajazada came to Pittsburgh in 2021 after the Taliban retook control of Afghanistan. She's currently living in the city alone while her family remains overseas. After a year in CCAC's mechatronics program, she landed an internship with local startup RealBotics. Khajazada said she hopes to transfer to a four-year university and eventually start her own company. 'Here, I've learned a lot of things,' she said. 'I'm more confident with how to work with this kind of stuff.' 'Mechatronics' over 'advanced manufacturing' hooks more people Funding for CCAC's mechatronics lab comes from the New Economy Collaborative (NEC) of Southwestern Pennsylvania, which is administering $62.7 million of the BBB Regional Challenge grant. That $62.7 million is part of a broader $1 billion BBB initiative, launched in 2021 through the American Rescue Plan to spur post-pandemic economic recovery and revitalize communities impacted by decades of industrial decline. The NEC is deploying the funds through five projects across 11 counties in the region, including Pittsburgh. CCAC's mechatronics lab is part of Project Three, which focuses on upskilling workers and expanding career pathways into sectors like advanced manufacturing, a major industry in the Pittsburgh region that's driving real economic mobility, Starr said. There are over 90,000 people employed by over 2,800 manufacturing companies in the Pittsburgh region, according to data from the nonprofit organization Pittsburgh Regional Alliance. However, stigma around manufacturing remains, according to Starr. 'We have a lot of students whose parents maybe did manufacturing in the 70s and 80s, and they think it's dirty,' Starr said. 'They think it's a field where their son or daughter could get laid off if they go into it.' To get around this, CCAC uses the term mechatronics to convey that the skills it's teaching are high tech and part of the advanced manufacturing industry. The field blends traditional manufacturing skills, like wiring and mechanical drives, with advanced technologies such as programmable controllers and collaborative robots. 'Technology changes constantly,' Starr said, 'and if we're going to fill a need in the region, we need to train our students to use the equipment that either industry is using today, or that industry is going to be using tomorrow.'
