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ORLANDO, FL — Cory Orr works 70 hours a week, does three jobs, and often works in shifts at the restaurant chain where he is the assistant kitchen manager. A divorced father, he raised three children and a younger sister, but he worked too much on weekends and he rarely saw them. At the age of 38, he could count the number of vacations he took with one hand.

But Orr finally approached his promotion in the restaurant and approached the salary he wanted. If he can keep going, he thought, "In a few years, I can slow down."

Then there is Covid-19, which makes Orlando more than 30% of hotel work costs-including his.  

"My financial situation has obviously changed drastically," Olgan said bluntly. To help pay the rent, he found a roommate. He accepted any job he could do. This is "better than spending savings at home."

Early in the morning, Orr told about it with surprising humor in a brightly lit classroom in the Accelerated Training Center of the Valencia Academy. He did not slow down, but accelerated it-he needs 616 hours of study and laboratory time to obtain certification, which he hopes will open a new chapter in his life as an industrial maintenance technician. This is much faster than the usual two years.

People working in this field keep high-tech factories and warehouses running, maintain robots, and work in the aerospace and defense industries. The pay for this type of work goes far beyond just working in the kitchen, and the demand is so high around Orlando that employers are as impatient with workers as workers are impatient with work.

Orr and his classmates are one of millions of Americans who are tired of their careers and seek new ones. But this group has many other things that potential job changers can't find: super fast training to help them complete it quickly.

Even if they were not forced to resign, 4.2 million Americans resigned in October, compared with 4.4 million and 4.3 million in September and August, respectively.  

Very few colleges and universities now allow students to learn more or less full-time for certificates, starting anytime, anywhere, rather than waiting for the end of the semester. In Valencia, this means they need to complete 4 to 22 weeks of training on their way to work in areas such as information technology, advanced manufacturing, construction, welding, healthcare, transportation and logistics.

For many years, Orr did not attend one or two classes at a time in the evenings or weekends, but spent seven hours here every day, four days a week. He started in late September and will end in mid-February.

"I can't stop to go to school for two years," he said. "It's just that there is no way. I want to reach my goal as soon as possible."

Related: A surprise for many career changers in the U.S.: They need to go back to school 

Although traditional educational institutions have long provided what they call short-term training, they usually mean "less than the time required to obtain a degree." Such courses usually still follow academic semesters that only start in the fall or spring, with meetings for a few hours a week and lasting for months or years.

 Joe Battista, Valencia’s Vice President of Global, Professional and Continuing Education, said: “We have developed a plan that is not related to the semester, nor is it related to the academic calendar, and you can get the same faster The number of hours."

"We are breaking this model and defining a different way of going to college for you," Batista said. "The whole idea is to get you trained and find a job quickly."

Such so-called rapid skill retraining is still surprisingly rare in public and non-profit higher education, and they are usually slow to respond to the needs of the country's many transferees for accelerated training.

Maria Flynn, president and chief executive officer of the advocacy organization "Jobs for the Future" (JFF), said that the number of institutions adopting this approach is "still small." The organization announced a $5 million competition. To develop more rapid retraining programs to reduce the training time of high-paying occupations by at least 50%.

But the demand is huge. In Orlando, more than one-fifth of residents are engaged in the hotel and leisure industry. This proportion is second only to Las Vegas in the United States, and the decline in employment caused by Covid-19 is among the highest in the country. According to data from the Census Bureau, even before the pandemic, Orlando's overall median salary was third from the bottom of the 25 most populous metropolitan areas in the United States, after Tampa and Miami.

According to the US Bureau of Labor Statistics, even if they were not forced to resign, 4.2 million Americans resigned in October, compared with 4.4 million and 4.3 million in September and August, respectively.  

"They don't want to do two, three or four jobs," Batista said. "They want to support their families and have welfare jobs. They want to receive training as soon as possible."

Batista said that although the Valencia plan started before the pandemic began, the enrollment has doubled since then. Using CARES Act funds, the college provides rapid training in the vacant conference center during the peak of Covid; in late November, it opened the fifth and largest accelerated training center in a 27,000-square-foot space in northwest Orlando. The spokesperson said it cost 2.4 million U.S. dollars.

According to the non-degree credit research network of the George Washington Institute for Public Policy, workers and employers are increasingly viewing short-term certificates as a solution to labor market turmoil. (This finding comes from a study by the Lumina Foundation, which is also one of the funders of the Hechinger report.)

Not surprisingly, for those who change careers, the sooner the better. A survey by the Strada Educational Consumer Insights Center found that 85% of people said it was worth the price after graduation from a certificate course that took a month or less to complete, while 59% took 6 months to a year Completed a study.

"I can't stop and go to school for two years... There is no way. I want to reach my goal as soon as possible."

The college reported that when the Monroe Community College in New York added an accelerated certificate for addiction counseling in January, the certificate was about half the time of the traditional full-year version, and the enrollment rate soared by 50%.

Monroe also launched a 22-week accelerated precision tool certificate—about half the normal time and a 50% increase in completion rate—and a 10-week heating, ventilation, and air-conditioning “Jumpstart” training, suitable for 80% of graduations Students lead to entry-level jobs with partner employers. It plans to add an 11-week basic industrial maintenance program next year.

Related: As enrollment drops and universities close, a staggering number of new universities are opening

San Jacinto College in Texas has launched 11 non-degree programs, called "fast-track", which can obtain certificates in subjects such as logistics in 11 months or less.

“The pandemic has increased the sense of urgency,” said Shelley Rinehart, who is the newly created acting assistant vice-principal responsible for teaching and program support. "Priorities have shifted. These choices for students to consider how to speed up their studies are more important than ever."

David Urban, Dean of the Jones School of Business at Middle Tennessee State University, said that business schools have a unique advantage in providing accelerated training because they already provide short-term professional development for busy managers. High-demand areas of professional sales, only 12 weeks.

"The pandemic has increased the sense of urgency. The priorities have shifted. These choices for students to consider how to speed up the completion of their studies are more important than ever."

"We really accelerated the pace," Urban said. "This is very, very attractive for changers. People want it to be faster, they want it to be cheaper, and they want it to be more convenient. This is not the booming operating model of traditional colleges and universities."

Urban has just concluded a meeting about launching a fast certification program for workers who want to start their own businesses.

"We won't teach them all the knowledge about marketing, finance or accounting that we might teach them, but we might be able to combine a'business hottest' and let them roll," he said. "What we really need is something that can be done in a few weeks, say, a summer."

Related: Will college degrees be rewarded? Now you can finally see the numbers

Advocates say it’s equally important for universities to pay attention to the needs of the workplace when deciding which faster training to provide and which jobs will pay off—this is something else they don’t always do. In Valencia, the accelerated program focuses on occupations that pay at least $15 an hour and have benefits. Rinehart said that in San Jacinto, new training will only be added if it can bring a starting salary of $26,800 or more.

Urban said: "What we usually teach in colleges and universities is based on the teaching experience of individual faculty members." College teachers often think, "'What happens after graduation is someone else's problem. It's not my problem,'" he said . "And I don't think we can do that anymore."

However, another impact of the pandemic—according to the National Student Information Exchange Center Research Center, enrollment in community colleges has fallen by nearly 15% since 2019—may encourage these universities to ignore workplace needs and income. In the case of adding more courses, said Josh Wyner, founder and executive director of the Aspen Institute University Excellence Program.

"In these moments of declining enrollment, the instinct is to do everything possible to get as many people through the door as possible, whether or not they participate in programs that provide value," Wyner said.

"University must have success after graduation," he said, "and most of them don't."

Valencia’s accelerated training center in downtown Orlando is located in a former T-shirt shop and a small brewery next to JDub’s Dub Shack, in the shadow of the Marriott Hotel. The students clocked in at the clock near the door at 7 AM four days a week, and "High-demand occupations in a few weeks" was written on a banner outside.

Cory Orr likens this 30-hour in-depth training per week to learning a language by moving to a country where the language is spoken. "Instead of going to a school that only takes a year or two to learn Spanish," he said, "they will take you to Spain."

University officials said that an average of 89% of students completed the accelerated course in Valencia, and 82% of graduates found a job in the field they were trained in—in both cases, the ratio was higher than in other types of higher education.  

Lecturer Robert McMillan said that graduates have continued to work at Tesla, Amazon, and aerospace companies RUAG and Blue Origin, and their salaries are higher than those of many people who did three or more jobs before completing the program. McMillan said that it would traditionally take up to two years for his students to obtain certification within 22 weeks.

Related: More people with a bachelor's degree return to school to learn skills trade

In the new northeast center of Orlando, workers are hoisting a "Valencia College" sign outside the building. Inside, the huge bay door is open on warm days; students wearing yellow helmets are learning woodworking, while other students wearing fluorescent vests are training on forklifts.

Lucinda Rex received a Bachelor of Arts degree in 2016 and started working 60 to 70 hours a week as a waiter in a restaurant to repay what she said was a $60,000 owed student loan. Rex said that when she was fired because of the pandemic, she thought, "I can't do this anymore," so she signed up for a 22-week welding training program in Valencia.

33-year-old Rex said: "If you are looking for a career change, less than a year is good," said Rex when the welding torch burned behind her.

Having completed the plan, Rex stopped on his way to the job interview. Valencia welding graduates have a 97% employment rate, says their mentor Jason Becker. As for Rex, she said "in my opinion there is no doubt" that she will get a job. "And I don't have to work so many hours."

The 21-year-old Oscar Romo's work has exceeded his due share. He works at Chipotle, stores shelves at Wal-Mart, and remodels with his father. He started learning welding in a three-year program that combined full-time apprentices with part-time schools. But when the apprenticeship had been paying only $12 an hour, he gave up.

"For many people, it just takes too long," Romo said. "They had no motivation, their enthusiasm disappeared, and they finally gave up."

Now that he has completed a 22-week welding project in Valencia, he started a job with an hourly salary of $17, and his salary will be increased three months later.

Romo heard about the accelerated training in Valencia, when he met a former teacher at the red light. Orr learned this from the speaker at the breakfast of the Christian men's group he was hosting.

This illustrates a problem with accelerated training. Its booster says: Unless by coincidence or accident, few people know its existence.

"As a country, we don't have the career navigation tools that learners and workers need," said JFF's Flynn. "We don't have a good transparent system to help people really understand what their choices are and what training requirements are consistent with those choices."

Related: One surprising reason why students cannot complete college: lack of transportation

If more traditional universities do not speed up their training and associate it with work that pays decent wages and benefits, they will lose this trend.

 "We will continue to find solutions. We will continue to see the growth of new types of training providers outside of traditional systems", such as training camps and private for-profit universities, which have long been consumer-friendly attributes such as rolling start , But also often less successful, and more expensive for students. "We will continue to see companies building their own solutions internally."

She said that this is entirely a matter of supply and demand. And "the market may reach a point where they are unwilling to wait for the emergence of traditional public systems."

This story about rapid retraining was produced by The Hechinger Report, a non-profit independent news organization that focuses on educational inequality and innovation. Sign up for our higher education newsletter.

The Hechinger report provides in-depth, fact-based, and fair education reports for all readers free of charge. But this does not mean that it can be produced for free. Our work allows educators and the public to understand the pressing issues of schools and campuses across the country. We tell the whole story, even if the details are not convenient. Help us continue to do so.

Jon Marcus writes and edits stories about higher education and helps plan reports on higher education. He used to be a magazine editor and wrote articles for The Washington Post, The New York Times, The Boston Globe, Wired, Medium.com...More by Jon Marcus

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