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Career education is a vital pipeline to high demand jobs in the workforce. Students from all walks of life benefit from the opportunity to pursue their career education goals and find new employment opportunities. Join Dr. Jason Altmire, President and CEO of Career Education Colleges and Universities (CECU), as he discusses the issues and innovations affecting postsecondary career education. Twice monthly, he and his guests discuss politics, business, and current events impacting education and public policy.
Jason Altmire (00:04)
Welcome to another edition of Career Education Report. I'm Jason Altmire. And when I travel around and people talk about the podcast and what subjects people would like to hear more about, I continue to hear requests to talk about AI and especially the impact on career schools and the unique circumstances that our students face with regard to
the use of AI in their careers moving forward and supplementing what they're learning, but also how schools can use AI for instruction and ⁓ using it to benefit the students in that way while they're still in school. So we have a great guest today to talk about that very issue. Her name is Lauri Kien Kotcher, and she is the CEO and co-founder of a company called Different Day.
and they focus on making AI useful and functional for sort of middle market businesses and has special expertise as it relates to career schools and knows about the market dynamics and the skills gap and the workforce shortages that we talk about so much on this podcast. So she really is the perfect guest to address a lot of these topics. So Lauri, I can't thank you enough for being here. Thanks for joining us.
Lauri Kotcher (01:29)
so
much Jason and one additional piece which you wouldn't know about me but I have a personal interest in this topic and in career schools also. I have a son who has learning challenges and was in special ed for his whole life until college and I was a board member at this school for 20 years so I've been very close.
to what's happening in schools and the various paths that students can take graduating from high school and understand there are really many paths. And I can see that the career colleges are really having a moment and are so critical to what's happening in the macroeconomic environment today.
Jason Altmire (02:19)
appreciate that. And we've been talking about this, not just on this podcast, but our association, Career Education Colleges and Universities. And the data really tells the story, what you have seen across the nation, which is 6.6 % projected annual enrollment growth because more people are getting into these type of programs. The 17 % spike in skilled trade applications just for young people.
between the ages of 18 and 24, the Gen Z, that demographic that is so interested in the trades. And it's estimated that if we don't start expanding this pipeline and getting more people into the trades, that by 2030, it's going to be a $1 trillion deficit to the country that we're losing because we can't continue with these projects. And there's almost a 3 million
open positions across the country by 2030 in the trades, just in the trades. you know, talk about that and what impact AI can have in helping these students and enrollment growth at institutions, you know, kind of bring that all together.
Lauri Kotcher (03:35)
There's so much talk these days about the impact of AI on the next generation and their ability to get jobs. And you see the data in the ability for students from traditional colleges to get jobs is really eroding. The early workforce is having a very difficult time coming out of traditional colleges. Students will need to have AI skills.
everywhere in their life and in their jobs. And the situation is only going to get, I'll say, more confusing, more challenging, more difficult, which is why for career colleges and the stats that you just talked about, the path there for good jobs paying six figures or more over time.
is a really certain path and these are jobs that cannot be disintermediated by AI. You're going to need nurses, you're going to need HVAC technicians, you're going to need aviation mechanics. These are all jobs that are going to be needed that pay well. So I think we will see growth, we're seeing it already. I think we'll continue to see growth in the career college network.
and the career college delivery of the workforce, especially with where we are in immigration as well, that's going to be an exacerbating factor.
Jason Altmire (05:15)
And I think part of this issue, and we've talked about this on this podcast before, is the paradox that exists where recent college graduates in record numbers can't find jobs at the same moment employers in record numbers can't open positions. Because there's a misalignment in our higher education system and there's never been as much dissatisfaction.
in higher education, traditional higher education, as you find today, people wondering if their four-year college degree is worth it. So talk about how ⁓ AI is disrupting that and the work career colleges do to train people and how resilient that is compared to a four-year path.
Lauri Kotcher (06:02)
think what's happened here is the education system, the traditional colleges, do not move and change at the speed that the workplace is changing. And so they've not updated their curriculums in really decades. It's largely the same curriculum with a few exceptions. And faster growing colleges
are the ones that are updating their curriculums to address students being able to get jobs better. And that would mean some training in AI, but that's not the most typical. It's really that the four-year colleges, and I actually have felt this way for a really long time, the four-year traditional colleges, really don't set students up as clearly for a job in today's marketplace.
as a career college does. A career college is a very clear path to an actual job. So until traditional colleges really start to address that and change it, and it'll be AI skills, but it'll also be helping people do a better job of connecting their education to what's needed in the workplace and helping them find a job much better.
One of my frustrations in the traditional college world is about the difficulty that students have. They're really left on their own. There's basically no help. They might as well not have career centers because that's not how anyone finds a job. So students are trained but not trained for a job and they're not trained on how to find a job. That's one of the things career colleges always have done so much better.
and I think still can do even better as well in helping their graduates find placements.
Jason Altmire (08:05)
On that note, talk about AI fluency in education. And I've heard you sort of dispute what we know to be untrue, but sort of the conventional wisdom out in the public that career colleges may not be the most AI fluent institutions. And I have traveled around and visited over 200 trade schools and I've seen it in action and I know you have too, but what do you think about the comparison between the
fluency in AI at career colleges versus more traditional schools.
Lauri Kotcher (08:39)
Let me flip that a little bit because I think all educational institutions have a long way to go in AI. And it's not only career colleges compared to traditional colleges, it's educational institutions, period. When you think about where all companies are, so if you look at the commercial environment, there are very few companies that really are at the place they need to be.
on AI implementation, AI fluency, right? We're still in the bottom of the first inning on this. So, you know, even if career colleges are a foot ahead of traditional colleges, no one has really gotten very far yet. And the way I think about it is the career colleges have the opportunity now because of the way their model works.
the short cycles, the really stretched teams, and a lot of them being for profit, they're gonna understand ROI and be wanting to push on getting ROI, meaning results, just very simply getting results, very quickly. So our thesis is that career colleges are really poised to be adding ROI, adding results faster.
from implementing AI, and we'll come to some of the specifics, from implementing AI than traditional colleges are. Their decision-making should enable them to move faster. They're going to see results faster. And once you start to have a few that are out there really talking about the results, I think you'll start to see more uptake faster. I think where they are today,
is the career college model is set up for success to get its students into the workforce. That's the whole point of why they're there. But the operating layer underneath the model hasn't yet caught up to incorporate AI as much as it could. And that's really where we come in. That's what we're building.
Jason Altmire (10:52)
Let's talk about that because a lot of school leaders listen to this podcast and they're thinking about that operational component because, you know, bringing it down from the 30 foot level, what does it really look like at an institution when you think about department by department and things like marketing, admissions, student success, financial aid, compliance. You talked about job placement earlier with the specific operational shifts.
that AI could possibly bring, how would that work across the operations of an institution?
Lauri Kotcher (11:28)
So let's go department by department. We'll do a short tour. Before we start the tour, a couple of themes across these institutions that are driving it. Really small teams, really heavy workloads. AI is the only realistic way for career colleges to get leverage and be able to grow their enrollments without adding headcount. Really short cycles, not necessarily every career college, but most of them.
really short cycles. Traditional colleges have a four-year runway. Most of the career colleges are restarting the clock every five to 10 weeks. They can't afford a missed text. They can't afford a confusing aid letter. They can't afford to let an enrolled student not start. And the student here is different. The student is a career switcher. They've made a decision. They know what they want to do. They're coming for a purpose.
So they're adult learners and they're betting on a new life. This is someone's livelihood. They're not just a number. So when we think about the departments, and so let's start with marketing, tiny teams, there's maybe eight to 10 programs that they need to be facilitating. So they've got paid search, organic, social, email. They have outside agencies that if they're working with outside agencies, maybe
don't understand the career college demographic very well. And the cost per lead are creeping up. It's the same thing as in the commercial world where costs of acquisition of a customer are leaping up. And so what we can bring to that is very easy tools that help them make the decisions on where to spend the money next, what's the best spend, what is the right creative and allowing them
to make that creative very easily. So changing the picture to be tuned into an email, tuned into HVAC versus nursing versus cosmetology, social listening for understanding what's happening with their competitors. And there are competitors. If a student's not coming to your nursing college, they're going to go to someone else's nursing college. Speed is critical.
So you need to get to these students quickly. Every text that's not returned for days or even weeks means you've lost that student to a competitor. So that's where we can use AI to come in and help these schools do all this work without adding staff and do it really easily. One of the things I have to say is that the way we work, we make applications, we make tools for schools to use that sit on top of their tech stack.
And we do this soup to nuts. We design it, we build it, we integrate it, we train your team. So there's really very little you need to do. You don't change your tech stack. We put this on top of what you've already got in place. So let me take another example, moving into sort of the admissions world. So you're getting a load of students coming in, sending transcripts.
all at once. It can be thousands and tens of thousands at some institutions. You need to figure out how you're going to evaluate those transcripts, how much credit you're going to apply from because they're usually coming with past credits, and then what the cost of the program is for the student. If you have all of those all at once, thousands and thousands, and you only have a small staff,
you're going to likely not be able to give an answer to that student. And if they don't know how much the program costs and how much financial aid will cover, they're going to go on to whoever's giving them an answer first. One of the tools we have, we call a transcript analyzer. It does two things. It helps you figure out very quickly and covers about 80 % of the transcripts out there. How much credit to apply, how much you should charge the student for your program.
and then moves maybe 20 % of the transcripts for a person to review. And by the way, we always believe people need to be in the loop. AI is not replacing people. AI is helping people do their work better. It frees them up to do the work they came to do. know, marketers can do marketing, admissions people can think about students and not just push papers around and not just look at transcripts.
In every department, you'll see that. So the transcript analyzer also, before the student walks in the door, gives you a sense, and we use AI scoring to tell you which students are likely to have some struggles in the institution. Doesn't mean you don't take them, but it means walking in the door, you know which 15 % of students your team should be focused on helping and really watching. So your deans, your
faculty can really focus on the ones who are going to need the extra help. And that's the difference. You know that walking in instead of waiting until it's too late. So let's keep going to admissions. This whole speed to lead piece is what matters more than anything else. I talked a little bit about getting a text. You need to get back to people, you know, in a minute you need to get back to them with texts, not emails. Students read texts.
So you gotta be, you know, we're on every platform. We can manage this in a multi-platform way for every student. You have to know them. You have to personalize what you're doing with them. The other thing you have to do is spend time with the students once you've enrolled them and before they show up. Don't just leave them in a chasm. You've gotta keep communicating with them. And so that's where...
our applications can continue that personalized communication, can send them information about exciting things happening on campus, can keep them in the mix, keep communicating to make sure you get them in the door. That's really one of the most important things. So then once they're in the door, once they've started, one of the things that's really critical, we believe, is what we call student success. And so we've created an application called Student Success.
which is really about helping students be successful, recognizing where they are and if their behavior changes. So it watches all of their on-campus interactions with your systems, with your classes. And if it sees a drop-off, if it sees their grades going down, if it sees that they missed class, it will intervene.
Immediately with messaging that you create as a school, all of this is customized, by the way, for every school. Every school works with us to customize the communications, the UI, UX, that just means the way the application looks. It's a fancy word for how the front end looks for your team. But we set it up so that it recognizes before it's too late, if a student seems like they're having difficulty and then
Your team, again, this is where a person comes in, your team can reach out to them, intervene, figure out what's happening, because life happens. These students are older and life happens. They can have a child who is sick. They can have parents who are sick. They can have a car that broke down. There can be all kinds of things that happen. Your team can intervene with them and get in front of it as soon as it's happening, instead of waiting till it's too late and they've dropped out.
Jason Altmire (19:18)
Well, talk about this rather than walk through every individual department, because that really, makes a lot of sense what you're saying. Let's say it's a year later. So this integration has occurred. What does a career college look like a year after this AI is embedded across every department? And I guess equally important, what does it mean for not just the students and their entering the labor market, but just
the workforce generally? How does not only the school improve its operations, but how does the community and the workforce benefit?
Lauri Kotcher (19:55)
Let's just take a few examples, right? Admissions is now spending time talking to students. They get to advise people. They're turning their speed to lead from hours or days to seconds. The financial aid team is gonna stop losing students to paperwork. They get to interact with students and coach them.
the deans and the faculty get to spend their time focused on the students who need the most help and who can benefit from the help. And they're going to be able to personalize what they're doing. So the team at the school gets to do what they came to do. And the school, every person on the team has what I would call a digital teammate that never sleeps. So it's not about AI replacing humans. It's about AI
bringing the humans back to the work they came to do, helping them do the work they came to do, making their jobs more fun and more rewarding, and allowing them to help students graduate more likely, get better jobs faster, and have the institution, the career college reputation be that much better in the marketplace, in the external world.
I think this whole arena of AI supporting career colleges can really turn institutional reputation on its head and student success becomes career college success, which just begets more students coming in. Students want to know they're going to get job placements in what they came to do and the colleges are going to have more success and better reputation in the marketplace.
So it could change the reputation of the entire career college world.
Jason Altmire (21:55)
We've covered a tremendous amount today. We could go on for a long time, but if somebody wanted to learn more about the work that you're doing and how they can get involved in that, how would they reach you?
Lauri Kotcher (22:06)
They
can reach us by, I'll give you my email at risk of being inundated, which is lori, l-a-u-r-i, at differentday.ai. Or they can come to our website, differentday.ai, and can reach out. There's a link right on there to reach out for demo. I'm going to make a plug, Jason, for your conference. We're going to be at CQ.
and we're gonna have a workshop. And I hope that anyone who's interested will come to our workshop as Monday morning before the whole event really gets going and we'll have a booth. I have three of my colleagues joining me for the conference. And so we'll be there in full force and really excited to meet your members and help lots of career colleges make the most of this upcoming AI opportunity.
Jason Altmire (23:00)
Our guest today has been Lori Keene-Kotcher. She is the CEO and co-founder of Different Day. Lori, thank you for being with us.
Lauri Kotcher (23:09)
Thanks so much, Jason. Great chat.
Jason Altmire (23:14)
Thanks for joining me for this episode of the Career Education Report. Subscribe and rate us on Apple Podcasts, Google Play, Spotify, or wherever you listen to podcasts. For more information, visit our website at career.org and follow us on Twitter @CECUED. That's at C-E-C-U-E-D. Thank you for listening.