Event Coverage WyoTech closing?

I heard Wyoming Tech is shutting down, what the hell happened? I was there in the late 90s when Doug Larue was still there, it was a pretty impressive school. I can't believe its closing.

 

Overstating the employment and pay scale maybe??

 

Well you could almost pay for a real 4 year collage degree for 2 years at one of those "Schools". Has something to do with it.

 

loan officers outnumbered the instructors

 

Was there in the early 90’s.

 

I visited the School in the 80's after a rep visited my class a few times. I was pretty impressed when I was there but if you were a student you had to be financially self sufficient as they didn't want you to have a part time job. At that time there weren't any part time jobs available in Laramie that the college students didn't take anyhow.
I had one female student go there and finish and end up marrying a classmate from New York and moved to upstate New York. If you head the story about the gal who put the plug wires that the guys had pulled off her to keep her from driving it after having too much to drink and driving it off, that was her.
The schools being spendy, off the beaten path and the no part time job thing kept a lot of guys from going though.

 

When I had my big shop I had three employee's over the years that went there. I could have save them a lot of money on classes. They where great employees but barely had basic skills. had to start from scratch with each one. It was to bad, I thought it would have been a cool school to have around when I was young . But it seemed all they wanted was to fill class space not educate, corperate America at it's finest Larry

 

it will be a nice auction -they had lots of equiptment !

 

Long explanation here: https://www.wyotech.edu/multimedia/announcements/Website Statement.pdf

 

Why pay for it when you can get it for free. Case in point. I have two nephews (brother's) the oldest wanted to work at the local Chevy dealer turning wrench's. They said no because he had no proof that he could do the job so he went to Wyotech and got his papers. The dealer then hired him. Now comes his younger brother that got in to the dealership as a porter because of his old brother. The younger brother on his free time would hung out in the shop and helped out. The dealership noticed he was good and knew his stuff. The dealership sent the younger brother to school for free and put him on the line while doing his schooling. Big brother was like .

 

I spent about a year in Laramie one winter, back in the early 80's. I went through the auto tech class. I thought it was alright, I learned some decent stuff. I think that the piece of paper that said I graduated got me through the door at the local Cadillac dealer.
Laramie, where men are men, women are scarce, and sheep are nervous.....LOL

Bobby

 

I had a hand on a drilling rig that went there about 15 years ago. He told me he was in debt for around 30k for his auto body degree that he recieved there, and that he landed a job as a shop manager in a SLC dealership. He and the dealership discovered that he did not have the knowledge or the skills needed to do repairs, let alone manage. I have heard that that program was pretty much a crbon copy of ICAR training, and remember hearing of a lawsuit stating such.

 

I taught a portion of a class at a vo-tech school.I got done with my cycle and stated my opinion. I told the director that the students weren't getting their monies worth and neither were the local corporate sponsors.the students who could didn't need the course. The students who couldn't weren't ever going to.

 

any higher education now is very expensive, with no guarantees that any degree will get you a good enough job to pay off the big education debt. shame that most tech classes have been eliminated from High Schools.

 

While on the face of it, it appears that this was done to help the students. But looking into the parent company ECMC (Educational Credit Management Corporation), what it's really about is making sure that all these places that were in danger of going out of business (and thereby releasing their students from student loan debt for education scams), ensures that as many as possible retain their loans and these guys can make money collecting on them.

 

I looked into Wyotech in the early 1990’s, but ended up staying home and graduating from Ranken Technical College in St. Louis with an Associate Degree. I believe it’s easier to get a job when you go to a local institution that everyone knows of.


Sent from my iPhone using H.A.M.B.

 

I hired one kid from there as a Dyno technician.

Nice kid and a good worker...when he wasn’t hung over.

Killed him self in a motorcycle crash.

WyoTech was basically a money-making machine, with high advertising overhead, that relied on government insured loans.

They got caught up in making dishonest claims re placement rates and salaries as part of their recruitment advertising. They also preyed on the low achievers, which diluted the value of their certificates.

Good riddance. Local community colleges and public trade schools are more efficient at training kids that want to enter the trades.

 

Glad it's not just me. Worked with 4 or 5 "grads" from there, each one thought they were Foose, Trepanier and Bass all rolled into the ultimate specimen. The last one called his mom on me for making him clean the restroom. Couldn't read a print, drilled a 1/32 hole where it called for a .137. "We didn't have a 1/37th drill." Didn't know what scale meant (it was a 1:1 print). "What's 1 to 1? I don't get it." When mom showed up ( she wasn't hard to look at) I gave her the full tour and turned on the charm a bit. I know, shame on me, but she baked us chocolate chip cookies and brought em over the next day. Others would throw fits, tell me I didn't know what I was talking about, even cry. Wyotech? "Uh, ok I got your info, I'll call ya..."
Maybe some talent came from there but they just didn't end up working for a day at the beach like me. What? You don't think I'm a day at the beach? Hey, I didn't say a nice day.

 

I teach high school students auto body
I visit a lot of shops. I have never had a shop have a degree or even a HS diploma as a requirement for emoyment.
They are looking for a teachable body that will show up, pay attention and pass a drug test.
I stress with my students the basic skills for an entry level position as a body tech or painters helper/assistant
They understand this and that the experience and necessary skills to become a technician will come from a hard few years of working with an experienced tech.
Some have the ability to advance faster than others. It's all about opportunity and desire. My job is to help provide the opportunity with enough skill to hopefully survive. The desire is something in ones DNA.

 

Anthony,
As a retired Autoshop Teacher, I believe there are a lot of influencing factors at play here. Wyotech is certainly not the only school with problems. Plenty of blame to go around and it really needs to be a separate thread.

Just keep on doing what you do and the young men (and ladies) that you are teaching now will turn up later in your life and surprise you with what they've accomplished. A few might even be Auto Body Techs.

I think I may just start that thread.

 

Reading the stories that you shop owners have told only makes me think of this

 

I think higher education is too expensive no matter what field you go into. Just look up some statistics on student debt. My mom retired last year from teaching and just payed off here student loans a couple years ago.

 

Wyotech has had a bad rap for years. Sure, some talent has come out of there, but would those stars have fared just as well (or better) talent and salary wise, by working their way up in a good shop 40+ hours a week for those few years and not be saddled with student loan debt in the end?

 

Have a fairly big rod/resto shop and had two hires from Wyotech and one from McPherson through the years. The McPherson one was much better trained.

 

No blame for Wyo
They come around recruiting and have a nice sales pitch
Nice facilities and equiptment. I have worked with couple of graduates from places like this and they were very capable but not experienced enough to be unassisted techs.
The loss or decreased apprenticeships is the biggest problem I see. I am currently working with my local shops to fix this.

 

the college was accused of falsifying job placement data in advertisements for its schools. They want the government to eat 480 million of debt.

 

if I were going to hire someone to build cars I would want to see pictures of what they have done, not a piece of paper that says what course they paid for.

 

Worked for me.

Pictures of my work got me my current position at GM.

 

Trades can’t be taught in a classroom.

We have some private automotive schools up here not accredited by the government and they are scams 15-20,000 dollars and you get a free 2 month job placement in the end, hopefully the shop hires you on and sends you through the actual government apprentice program .

I see no new kids coming in, all kids in there teens and twenties have 0 interest in any of the trades.

Sad where are we gonna be in 20 years when the workforce retires and no body wants to be “ blue collar” ?

Stuff will always need to get built, fixed, shipped, and maintained ........

 

Speaking as a 2 card carrying Tradesman (Tool & Die Maker) (Pattern Maker) now 70 years old, had my shop for 36 years, in trade for 44 years, I wonder what happened in general over time to our youth. I can only speak from my experiences, as a kid in high school, discovered I liked making things using machines, the thought process, figuring something out was natural for me, very lucky, found my niche at a very early age, worked my butt off to be good at it, enjoyed the work/challenge and life has been very good to me. As a business owner I trained some apprentice's, but stopped around late 80's early 90's, just hired journeymen and paid the wages, could not find a kid that wanted to work, show up, take pride in their efforts and I did not have the patience to wait for some brat to grow up (bad attitude and work ethic was none existent) The school systems have eliminated most of the shop programs in our country, IMO, partly due to the manufacturing shift to off shore sources, Places like Wyotech, I thought would be valuable to help to Carnut type kids to get a start in the automobile sector. Agree with the comments, where are the next generations of workers (skilled) going to come from ? There are many trades that cannot be outsourced, my free advice to any young man reading this, get yourself in a trade, work hard, get good at it, you are in demand, supply and demand equals good money to be made and find something you like and work becomes easy... My work years flew by in a flash.