Career College Central

Subscribe at www.careercollegecentral.com 4 As technologically advanced as our schools have become, it's difficult to imagine a simpler time when students rode to school in carriages and spent evenings studying by candlelight. But in America, private schools were offering vocational and business education long before the nation's public education system was developed (and long before highways and byways). Vocational education dates back to the mid-1700s and the days of Benjamin Franklin. About 175 years ago, the first established private career school was founded and began purveying skills that allowed men and women to make real contributions to the business world. In 2007, the Imagine America Foundation worked diligently to chronicle career colleges and their storied past in our history book, "In Service to America: Celebrating 165 Years of Career and Professional Education." e collection of dated photographs and historical articles comes together to tell the story of what it was like to pursue an education at a career-training- oriented college beginning around the time of Benjamin Franklin to the present day. In this edition of Career College Central, we begin a series of heritage articles focused on the history of our schools based on research discovered in the development of that publication. With the career college sector currently weathering the strong winds of change, we thought we would take a look back at our deep roots. How our schools began, their initial purposes and accomplishments, and what led them to attain the level of success they have reached in recent decades can be our motivation for overcoming today's challenges. From women who wanted to help find a way to help our country win World War II to today's online students, career colleges have been there the entire way, adjusting LETTER FROM THE Robert "Bob" Martin, Publisher PUBLISHER JOIN US ON facebook Write a COMMENT about US or just SHARE US and YOU can WIN a $50 Gift Card. to and developing new strategies for reaching students who want to make better lives for themselves. We believe our heritage series of articles will help educate newcomers to our sector as well as industry veterans about the wherewithal of our schools. We have a lot to be proud of, and our history shows that. As always, on the following pages, we also take a look at the current issues of our day. is edition continues several series we started a few issues ago. We feature the second and concluding portion of our interview with Steve Gunderson, president and CEO of the Association of Private Sector Colleges and Universities. e third part of our ongoing feature on millennials and the second part of "e Best of Us," which is how we call attention to the tremendous work our schools do with military students and veterans. You will also find our usual perspective on today's growing career fields and news about the latest happenings in our sector. Accept our invitation — use this edition of our magazine to take a look back at how things began. You can feel some pride in how far we've come, but most importantly, in knowing that we can handle whatever stands in our path.

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