Connecting the Dots with Nicholas Bishop

Join Kosta and his guest: Nicholas Bishop, Vice President for Economic and Community Development at Volunteer State Community College.

In this episode: Nick's career path from the TN State Legislature to Vol State Community College, how community colleges shape the workforce of Tennessee, exploring TN Reconnect, the program that will give anyone in Tennessee a free two year degree, and how we educate our workforce to fill the jobs vacancies of tomorrow. 

Better Together with Kosta Yepifantsev is a product of Morgan Franklin Media and recorded in Cookeville, TN.

Find out more about Volunteer State Community College:
https://www.volstate.edu/

Find out more about Kosta and all the ways we're better together:
http://kostayepifantsev.com/

Transcript

Nicholas Bishop: 0:00

If you could take almost any community college in the country, compare where they have a student at when they enter that college compared to where they're economically from away standpoint. A year, two years, three years post graduation, do that same comparison with the student from Harvard. The student that goes to the community college will see a more significant wage increase at the community college and the students that graduated from

Morgan Franklin: 0:24

Welcome to Better Together with Kosta Harvard. Yepifantsev, a podcast on parenting business and living life intentionally. We're here every week to bring you thoughtful conversation, making your own path to success, challenging the status quo, and finding all the ways we're better together. Here's your host, Kosta Yepifantsev.

Kosta Yepifantsev: 0:45

Hey, y'all, this is Kosta. And today I'm here with my guest, Nicholas Bishop, Vice President for economic and community development at Volunteer State Community College. For anyone who doesn't know you, you grew up in Morgan County, Tennessee, your first professional venture was an energy, you became a county commissioner. And this leads you to the Capitol working for the state of Tennessee, then to law school, practicing law. And finally, higher education. You're obviously incredibly driven by community development and outreach. What do you see as your end goal through all of this? That's a great question the to go deep right out of the gate, when you say the phrase and Goma hair on the back of my neck stands up a little bit. So that's a great way to put it. You know, sometimes I think I'm probably just a leaf blowing in the wind. So I don't really have one particular goal for myself. And this is going to sound cheesy or corny, but I really just feel like my purpose and what I'm driven to do. And what my calling is, is to try to help people be successful and try to help communities be successful. I'm a washed up athlete. So at the end of the day when

Nicholas Bishop: 1:52

baseball and basketball nice. And so whenever the end is, you know, I wanted to be able to look back and know that I did everything I could to help people be successful, help communities be successful, and just left it all on the field. And so that's kind of the path I'm on right now.

Kosta Yepifantsev: 2:07

I love it. And obviously growing up in Morgan County, like that small town live and I think the population of Morgan County as well, like 12,000

Nicholas Bishop: 2:14

Morgan County has about 23,000. Town is sunbrite. So shout out to sunbrite population 600.

Kosta Yepifantsev: 2:22

You know, I've been there a while yeah, so I used to do estimates for home mods, like I used to go to people's homes for TennCare. And like for our company and measure for like ramps and take pictures for showers. This was 10 years ago. And I used to drive through sunbrite and Wartburg. And, you know, on my way to like Campbell County, you know, II and sturgeons Ville and Upper East Tennessee, so I get it

Nicholas Bishop: 2:47

beautiful country. Yeah, some bras still doesn't have a red light, still still no red light. You

Kosta Yepifantsev: 2:52

think it'll happen one day? I doubt it. So it sounds like a lot of your touchstone is public service. And I want to get into later on who inspired you to have this type of love for public service. And I know you've said that earlier that you were a county commissioner at the age of 20. You were still in college at UT, which is huge. Right? So we got a lot to get into. But I want to ask, you've already had enough career experiences for three lifetimes. What drew you to volunteer state from practicing law and working at the state capitol,

Nicholas Bishop: 3:26

spent about 1011 years with Tennessee Department of Labor while I was going to law school, and the experience of working in department labor is honestly an education within and of itself. What was it like, I got to learn so much, just from a professional standpoint, and just running knowledge standpoint, I got to work across the entire state, I had the opportunity to work for three or four different commissioners. And so really got to learn a lot and have a front seat to government at a high level. So that was an education all of its own. And so after 10 years of that I kind of moved my way through department did a little bit of everything, and reached that point, completed a law school, got my law license, and was ready to do something else, you know, as administration's were starting to change. I always had an interest in business always had an interest in the law and always had an interest in government. And so this position opened up at Ball State, and I was like, this is an opportunity where you know, I can get to do all three of these things or use all three of these skill sets and felt like maybe I can have an impact there. So I just kind of threw my ring and a hat and went forward from there. And here we are.

Kosta Yepifantsev: 4:27

So when you were at the state capitol, how old were you? When

Nicholas Bishop: 4:31

I went to work in with as an intern for representative window? I would have been 2021 thing I was 21 Did you like it? I loved it and that was great as well shout out to your representative window or former representative window amazing guy. Super Human being great guy. Oh, a lot of my success in my career in education him he was a good mentor, and encouraged and supported me along the way and gave me access to learning you know, government my way around government. So So yeah, I think I was 21 when first started there.

Kosta Yepifantsev: 5:00

What did you major in? So, UT like your undergrad? Yeah.

Nicholas Bishop: 5:04

My undergrad is in political science, O'Connor and economics. So my wife often joke, she's like, you're the only person I know actually uses your degree. Your major.

Kosta Yepifantsev: 5:12

Yeah. Do you recommend for anybody that's interested in whether it's public service or even higher education? Do you recommend going and doing an internship at the state capitol? If you didn't?

Nicholas Bishop: 5:23

Absolutely. I really recommend internships for any any career but a great way to kind of get your feet wet.

Kosta Yepifantsev: 5:29

So as the vice president of Volunteer State, how do you believe community colleges shape the overall workforce of Tennessee,

Nicholas Bishop: 5:39

I think Community College is probably one of the biggest drivers and economic engines for economic development in the workforce in the state. We've been very fortunate in Tennessee dating back to even Governor Bredesen administration around 2000, probably six to 10 period. And then with Governor Haslam after that, and Governor Lee now, they've all had an education focus to some degree, whether it be higher ed or K 12. And tying that education piece back to the workforce, there has to be that connectivity that they can't be siloed. And so we've been fortunate with programs like Tennessee Promise to NC reconnect and free community college and that type of stuff. Something that people often probably don't realize or are not aware of community colleges, on average, do more to move people on a salary, economic self sustainability level than four year universities and Ivy League schools. So you could take almost any community college in the country, compare where they have a student at when they enter that college compared to where they're economically at from a wage standpoint. A year, two years, three years post graduation, do that same comparison with the student from Harvard, the student that goes to the community college will see a more significant wage increase at the community college and the students that graduated from Harvard.

Kosta Yepifantsev: 6:53

What are the demographics like at volunteer state?

Nicholas Bishop: 6:57

So we cover 11 counties, okay, a lot of people don't know that. So our main campus is in Gallatin, which O'Connor County just north of Nashville, then we have a campus in Robertson County Springfield, which is just kind of a little bit northwest of Nashville about 20 minutes. Then we have a campus here in Cookeville in Putnam County, and then a campus in Livingston. And then we're trying to build an additional campus in Mount Juliet and ice County. So we cover 11 counties from Robertson County Pickett County, as basically all north of Interstate 40.

Kosta Yepifantsev: 7:25

Are your students. Are they adult students? Are they 18 year old kids? What do you think

Nicholas Bishop: 7:31

our average age of students are on our 23 years of age? Okay, but we have students that range from 18 years of age to in the early 70s. Yeah. And we often will have students, we have something called a Middle College. So you can kind of go to high school go to college at same time. Nice. So every day, we have some students that will get their associate's degree two weeks where they get their high school diploma,

Kosta Yepifantsev: 7:53

you see now that is smart, right? That's extremely smart. You know, the statistics is that you can earn more money. If you go to a community college and spending all that money on a four year university. Why do you think people choose to go to a four year school as opposed to a community college,

Nicholas Bishop: 8:09

I think it's important to have options, I don't know knock on the university Paceman beat, we're partners in the process. But going back to the point about, you know, what makes community college that workforce engine, with the community colleges, I think they're more aligned to the workforce, we can get somebody from training to a job much quicker, the cost is much less. But I think there's obviously still value in going to the university route. I think a lot of it has to do with people's upbringing and their situation and what their career goals are, there's just some things you can't do with a two year degree, you need to get that four year degree, we have a lot of people that we push them on to the four year degree, we're just an avenue to help them get there. There's a lot of different options. But you know, it's a market like anything else, I think it's, you know, what type of experience are you looking for? What's your angle? So I think that plays a lot into the decision making.

Kosta Yepifantsev: 8:57

Why wouldn't anybody want to go to a community college, if it's free, under the Tennessee Promise for the first two years, that doesn't apply to a four year university, but it applies to community college. So I mean, it's a no brainer, go to a community college, get free schooling, and then take the transfer to Tennessee Tech for them absolutely. Makes perfect sense, right.

Nicholas Bishop: 9:22

I think they're in a pandemic, we saw a lot of people that were, you know, kids and parents were living together and working together and educating together the whole time. 24/7. So we heard a lot of people, both parents and kids alike, were ready to get away from each other. So I think that pushed a lot of people to the university. They felt like maybe there was a way to live there during the pandemic, but it's starting to kind of shake back out. But for Tennessee, I would highly recommend, you know, take advantage of that Tennessee Promise. Even if you don't go to the associate's degree you're out, take advantage of it while you're in high school, doing the dual enrollment. And then when you get to that four year university, you're 18 years old, not 10 years old, you already have Have a semester or two semesters of college knocked out away for free,

Kosta Yepifantsev: 10:03

right? Because I mean, nowadays you have to have like a master's degree. You know, that's the new bachelor's now. So you know, if you technically finish your two years associate's while you're still in high school, you'll finish your Bachelor's in two years, and then you technically will get your Masters by the time you're 21. Right?

Nicholas Bishop: 10:20

The running joke is, you know, a lot of employers are looking for somebody that's 27 years of age with 30 years experience. With a master's degree,

Kosta Yepifantsev: 10:29

might as well be a doctorate in my lifetime in our lifetime. It'll be a doctorate. Yeah. So one of your colleagues and a dear friend of the podcast, Sean Scanlon told us, we're putting the community back in community college. What does this mean to you? And has community left Community College?

Nicholas Bishop: 10:49

That's a great question. And great shout out to Sean, we're really happy and fortunate to have him on. He's the man. He's a recruiter for Ball State for the upper Kremlin region. So if you see him out and about, connect with him, and he'll, he'll get you hooked up to get your degree at Ball State. You know, if you look at the mission on paper of community colleges, and they were established back in the 70s, in Tennessee, it's actually some of the language in that founding mission statement is about being a community partner, supporting community organizations and opening up your campus and facilities to community groups. So I think in some aspects, just like every other organization in business, you get caught up in trying to pay the bills, trying to have enrollment, trying to do that thing. So sometimes you just have to refocus. And I think in our case, between the pandemic and just other situations, you can't focus on everything at the same time. So we just kind of had to refocus. But we're trying to do things here and overcome one to one let people know we exist, because Ball State actually didn't arrive in Cookeville until around 2016. What was it before so at the time, the Livingston campus has been here for 30 years, they just celebrated their 30th anniversary, but national state operated a couple of classes out of the Cookeville campus. But that was always part of the vol state service area. So there was some issues there that got worked out the state level. So a lot of people don't realize still that Ball State has a campus in Cookeville. And so we're trying to get that word out and appreciate you giving us opportunity. Oh, for sure. For sure. How

Kosta Yepifantsev: 12:16

many students do you guys have that are enrolled

Nicholas Bishop: 12:18

run out Cookeville campus as of today, for spring semester, we just busted over the 500 student mark. Okay. But prior to the pandemic, we were around 900 students that Cookeville we've got around 300 students at Livingston, so we've got, you know, 700 plus students and over Carmel area, and we're hoping to grow that in the fall. But from fall to spring at Cookeville. We're actually up some students, we have about a 15% increase there. So when you

Kosta Yepifantsev: 12:44

lay your head down on the pillow, and you close your eyes, and your last thought is Man, I wish I had x amount of students. What is that number

Nicholas Bishop: 12:52

for Cookeville, I'd like to see us get back to that 900 threshold, I think that he's there. You know, the past couple years, the college going rate is decreased a little bit, but it's starting to come back up. There's some things we need to align on our side as well. But I think we're going in the right direction. But think there's opportunity. When you look at the number of high school seniors, you look at the number of adults that either started college and didn't finish or didn't go the college route, but are looking for a career change, look at automation, jobs are disappearing. But also jobs are being created at the same time, but they need to be rescaled or upskilled. Yeah, and that's a great thing about community colleges, we can be there to help you get your bachelor's degree process. If you just need to be rescaled or upskilled, for a short amount of time to get a certificate, we can help you do that as well.

Kosta Yepifantsev: 13:38

So you guys do like the mechatronics. And, like nowadays, you can make like$100,000 a year if you just know how to work with machines and technology on a line. You know what, like a typical $15 An hour employee, if you had these certifications, you can make$70,000 a year, a lot

Nicholas Bishop: 13:57

of people are not familiar with the phrase Mechatronics but it's essentially advanced manufacturing, right? We often say if it moves is mechatronics. So anything that's in the manufacturing warehouse logistics field, if it has machine Mechatronics as part of it, it's really tied to it as well, because it's really a combination of it mechanical and engineering. A lot of our students are programming machines. So they might have a machine and one person is programming that machine to do a certain task. Another person will come in and repair that machine or troubleshoot that machine. And then another person has to design that machine. So you combine all those skillsets of engineering, mechanical and naughty, but there's just a ton of opportunity for that.

Kosta Yepifantsev: 14:38

And you can get all of that at Volunteer State at our Cookeville campus. Nice never have to leave Cookeville amazing. So is it t CAD? Yeah, TK

Nicholas Bishop: 14:47

Tennessee College of Applied Technology. Yeah, there are a partner so Tennessee system is comprised of what's referred to as Tennessee Board of Regents. It makes up 13 community colleges, I think about roughly 40 T ghats, but At our Cookeville campus, we're actually partners we have T cat Livingston, which is a partner in our Cookeville, Higher Education Campus. And then also Tennessee Tech University as well. So we all work together. We have articulation agreements. So you can start a program at Tika like industrial maintenance, for example. And then you can articulate what you learned at T cat to Mechatronics degree at Ball State. And then from there, you can go get an engineering degree at Santa Anita and

Kosta Yepifantsev: 15:25

when I say like, $70,000 a year like I'm not embellishing that herget, right?

Nicholas Bishop: 15:32

Reasonable. Yes, manufacturing be 23 years old, with no college debt, right? Knocking down $70,000 A year do you guys teach trades? We do some on our workforce of LM, oh, God, a lot of those are handled by the tea guys. But we do have some what we call workforce development programs, which are really industry certificate driven, that are short term, like a year or less. Actually, Ron, as we speak, we have a program taking place at Cookeville. There's a class there today for fiber optics technician. Oh, wow. So as you guys know, maybe even right now we're getting on the airwaves, probably through some form of fiber to the internet. So there's a huge demand for fiber optic specialist fiber optic technicians. And so we have a cohort right now of about 15 people that are being trained up at our Cookeville campus to become fiber optic technicians. And they can do that training. It's actually kind of crazy. They can do it in a week.

Kosta Yepifantsev: 16:23

So we're talking a lot about how volunteer state sets itself apart from other community colleges and major universities. How can someone utilize the resources of your programs, because currently, you have multiple programs completely free to help build professional equity and strengthen our workforce, including stop the bleed, safety upfront and Narcan trainings. Will you tell us about these programs and how you're expanding barrier free education, kind of

Nicholas Bishop: 16:55

alluding back to this concept of we kind of have two sides of the house, you can go your degree, academic side, or you can do this short term industry certification based training. So we're trying to bring more of those types of trainings to the upper Carmel and we have some OSHA trainings coming up here, you can get multiple certifications for OSHA and safety. Fiber Optics, as I mentioned, also some continuing education short term certificates in the healthcare arena. So we're trying to do more of those. And we're also trying to some of the courses you mentioned are like one day two day courses where we're trying to provide a free service to businesses and organizations, nonprofits, a CPR training, we're doing free CPR training, the stop the bleed, the front desk, active shooter, unfortunately, is something you just have to deal with these days, those types of trainings that we think would benefit organizations, trainings, that companies have reached out to us and said, Hey, do you provide anything like this or similar to it, and the cool thing about it, one, it's free, but to actually have some really awesome staff at Ball State. So one of our police officers, we have a police force, Officer Medellin, Justin Medellin, he's actually leading some of those trainings for stop the bleed front desk safety, those types of things. And then we have our OSHA program, this great to leverage those talents and resources within the college and then hopefully providing a great product and service back to the community.

Kosta Yepifantsev: 18:16

So is the purpose and I'm just I want to get a little technical here is the purpose of those programs, obviously, you're providing a great service to the community, you're also getting people to come to Ball State. And so at that point, you might be able to convert some people get them in the door and say, hey, you know, I remember that degree that I started back in 1982. And maybe it's time for me to finish it. So is that kind of the background behind? Yeah, you know,

Nicholas Bishop: 18:42

and going back to Shawn's comment about, you know, putting the community back in community college, you know, that's one piece of writing that service. But absolutely, you know, at the end of the day, and some people may argue this or not like to hear it. But the end of the day, we're also a business horse. And even though we're, you know, public institution, we're still business, it still costs money to operate without to pay the bills. And we want to do that as efficient as we can for the taxpayers and get the best ROI we can. So anytime you can get people on campus, it's perfect.

Kosta Yepifantsev: 19:12

And also, when you guys have higher enrollments, you can offer more programs, you can offer more opportunities, and we're going to talk about workforce development in the upper Cumberland. I do want to ask you about Tennessee reconnect first. But before we get to those next questions, so let's just say Tesla decides to build a giga factory here, right? The amount of people that are going to have to be upskilled to work in that environment is vast. If you don't have the students in the capital to be able to develop those programs. That's gonna be a hard lift.

Nicholas Bishop: 19:46

It's interesting that you pose that question or use that example because oftentimes, I'm fortunate enough to find myself at the table with our county government, city leaders, state leaders when these ikan All my development projects take place. And so when a company is looking to relocate, so if Tesla was to come to town, or were an existing company looking at expanding, one of the first things, they asked that CEO or that site selector is about the workforce. Yeah. And so it's really important to have connectivity between your K 12, your higher ed, make sure all of your higher ed's are also connected. That's one of the first things that comes up. And so that's where we tried to be nimble and flexible. And if that program doesn't exist, and we can obviously work with the government entities and the private sector and try to create that program, but you have to have the workforce to attract the

Kosta Yepifantsev: 20:37

absolutely, and I'll tell you, that's what they did at the Ford plant in West Tennessee, you know, it's like, I don't even remember, it's like 10,000 acres or some crazy like that. But before Ford would even agree to come and build this massive operation to build the Ford lightning, they also had to have T CAD, you know, build a campus on their property so that they can create a pipeline. Now, my question is, because you have so much experience in you know, obviously the political sphere, higher education, economic development, is that the model? Is there anything that you can you poke holes in that model at all? Or is that pretty much what you need to do for a company that size to come to cokeville?

Nicholas Bishop: 21:16

can poke holes in anything else? One hole? You know, it's kind of the theory of the cart before the horse? Yes, the first thing I think you have to do is you have to have a community that's ready to support economic development growth. And when you get into rural areas, you know, that becomes a topic of issue, because some people still really liked the rural area. And there's absolutely nothing wrong with that, first had to have a strategy and a plan. And so I think that's often missing sometimes is like, what really is your strategy for community? Is it the right strategy for community? And do you have your community on board, you'll never get 100% on board, but you have the majority. So once you figure out that strategy, then it becomes I think, moving to infrastructure, kind of the Field of Dreams, theory, build it, and they will come but you have to have utilities in place. I've noticed communities where the local government owns and operates the utilities, they seem to have a lot better success. The better partnership you have with TVA the better success you have. So having the strategy having the infrastructure, then at that point, I think it becomes education, workforce development, but having community college partners, decat partners, even university partners that have these programs that are set there on a foundational level, but also being able to be nimble enough to turn on a dime and say, we don't have this very specialized it program. But this company is creating 200 jobs, and they want and need this program. And so being able to work with your partners to create that program.

Kosta Yepifantsev: 22:44

So it's no coincidence that the poorest sickest states are also the least educated and I think it's critical we talk about Tennessee reconnect because you're literally giving anyone in Tennessee, a free two year degree. Will you explain this program and how adults can utilize these funds. I

Nicholas Bishop: 23:02

was talking to some staff earlier about Tennessee reconnect for up for a came to visit, you guys kind of tossed around this phrase of 23 and 23 or get your degree and 23 Because with Tennessee reconnect, it applies to individuals that are 23 years of age or older. So if you're 23 years of age or older, and you do not yet have an associate's degree, you're eligible for free tuition to community college and antique at the state of Tennessee. You just walk in the front door pretty much if you can get in the front door will take care of you from there.

Kosta Yepifantsev: 23:31

I love that. And so the difference between Tennessee reconnect and Tennessee promise is that tendency promises for high school students tend to reconnect for better over the age of 23 is

Nicholas Bishop: 23:40

our promises for that traditional high school students graduating high school and going directly into

Kosta Yepifantsev: 23:45

college are we the only state that does that, you know,

Nicholas Bishop: 23:48

Governor governor's housing him and and Randy Boyd started that program. And I want to say 2015 is when it really kind of launched in Tennessee, and a lot of states are looking at that there are other states that offer free tuition, Camino College dental colleges, but they're relatively new Tennessee was was definitely a pioneer in that regard. And it's really had, I think, a significant impact on our communities and our economic status as a state.

Kosta Yepifantsev: 24:15

We're going to talk about workforce development and the challenges of this region. It doesn't matter how many jobs we have coming to the upper Cumberland if we don't have the workforce to fill the positions. How are you using your experiences from the top down and the bottom up to break the cycle and ruler and developing areas?

Nicholas Bishop: 24:34

Well, I think I'm still trying to figure that out as we speak. But the one thing I can allude to is for so many years and some people may have to take a drink of water if they're listening to this but for so many years in higher education in general the message has been in really just in society honestly has been go to college. Now people are questioning you know, why do I need to go to college and that's perfectly that's actually a good thing that question but unfortunate Like everything else in society, everything's so polarized, it's one extreme to the other. It's either go to college and be a doctor, an attorney or an engineer, or don't dare step on a college campus, they will brainwash you, man, it's a waste of money, like there's nowhere in between. So I think community colleges and T casts are that in between plays. But I think for so long the messaging has been, you know, go to college. And so young folks are looking at that. And they're really confused by the mix signals we're giving as a society. So I think what we're trying to do this next year 23, is look at it. So here's a prime example. For the upper carbon, we really have like six, what I would call career pathways that are available to you in the upper Karwan, meaning you can get your education and training, you can get an internship, work based learning experience, and you can get a job in these six areas without having to leave the overcome one, our messaging is going to be do you want to be a nurse, we can help you be a nurse at Ball State without leaving Cookeville or Livingston, there are nursing jobs available in Upper Carwin. And we have those partnerships with the hospitals and the clinics where they're there with us helping us get equipment, giving us clinical opportunities. Same thing with manufacturing, you know, are you interested in building things or and repairing things and being part of you know, the future and what puts technology out there, you can do that here in the upper Carmilla. You can go work in the near star zinc mine operating a mining machine, 14 or feet above ground and make$60,000 a year and you can get there through Ball State. So I think it's that moreso of you know, what do you want to do from a career standpoint, we can help you get there versus just telling people, Hey, go to college, because colleges as a whole, but definitely Community College has really struggled with something called a retention, right? So about 48% of the students that go through college will not graduate. And I think a lot of that's because they're not really put on a good pathway to begin with. They don't know what the end in mind is.

Kosta Yepifantsev: 26:53

Well, I mean, Tennessee Tech's graduation rates only 54%. So

Nicholas Bishop: 27:00

that's successful. I mean, that's yeah, relative to 48%. Yeah. And that's what the interesting thing with Tennessee Promise Tennessee reconnect, even with free tuition, that still shows that there are certain barriers and hurdles, and we have to help people address those, whether whether we realize that or not. But I think a lot of that goes back to your mission, your purpose, why are you in college, and if you don't really understand that begin with that's gonna be detrimental to your success.

Kosta Yepifantsev: 27:27

Who's your competition in this area,

Nicholas Bishop: 27:29

we're great partners with T cat and Tennessee Tech, people that live in the upper Karlen. Man, they're very fortunate because they have a lot of opportunities and options. We don't really have competition. I love it. Actually, some of these online, I'll get in trouble for this, but somebody's online and for profit schools, you know, we have some programs that we can offer on the workforce side for, you know, a couple $1,000. But unfortunately, they're not eligible for federal financial aid. So we have to find other ways to help people find it. But some of these for profit schools offer those same programs for like, 18 $19,000. But they're eligible for federal financial aid and 6% interest. Yeah, well, if there's any lawmakers listening, you know, but yeah, so there, we do have that issue.

Kosta Yepifantsev: 28:13

You guys are uniquely positioned, because I feel like this is a perfect time where people are looking for value. And, you know, when you've got, you know, your brother in law, who, you know, works on AC units, which is not a, you know, I'm not trying to say that that's a bad thing. Right, exactly. He works on AC units, and he makes $125,000 a year because, you know, nobody wants to work in construction or in some type of trade, you know, whether it's plumbing or, you know, septic service, right. And so people are trying to thread the needle between like, Okay, let's see, I could spend $30,000 A year and go to a four year university and come out with a liberal arts degree and work in a museum and make $17 an hour. Or I could go and actually find a specialized skill at a free community college and then come out and, you know, make 80 or 60. And then, you know, when I want to find myself and find, you know, maybe a passion of mine, then I can go and do some either some online classes at a major four year, or even go on campus for that matter. But I think you guys are uniquely positioned to help people get the first leg up. And that's great. Yeah. And that's

Nicholas Bishop: 29:31

I kind of was saying earlier, as we Community College will do more for someone's economic mobility than an Ivy League university will. So I just hope people figure that out and hear that and take advantage of it.

Kosta Yepifantsev: 29:42

I think they are. Yeah, I think they definitely are. So hopefully you get to that 900 enrollee goal soon as someone that seen every facet of how we develop and grow our workforce and economy. What's our greatest challenge as a community and how should we move forward are,

Nicholas Bishop: 30:00

you know, I think part of it, we've alluded to some of it here, but it's that college going, right? Yeah, we need to get people in the college. But it doesn't need to be for the sake of going to college. It needs to be a teak at community college, university, whatever it is, but it needs to be you know, attached to a purpose and a mission and align with some type of career go and workforce base. And then with that is those some of those wraparound services support services are so many obstacles and barriers just to get through college, those need to be addressed. Going back to this mixed message in society of you know, need higher education. But you know, often hear people say, you don't need to go to college, you should go down to the T cat. Well, the C and T cat stands for college. So we need to value and not speak negative for people that go to trades go in the construction area, we need to give as much credit and value to an industry certificate or a T cat diploma is we do a university degree. And so I think that will help drive more people in that path. And then on this is like taking going take a left turn. But you asked about challenges, you know, the drug epidemic requirement. There's so many grandparents raising their kids are so many kids affected by this drug epidemic. I don't feel like it gets enough attention. And that's a problem. I'll see it in education. I'll see it in the workforce. I see it everywhere and see it in the court system, criminal justice system, amass a huge barrier. That's a lot of reason why you have vacancies. I mean, you can drive around any town now in Tennessee. And there's employers have signs up that says no drug tests required. It's crazy years ago, we would think that's a joke. No way. But and these are reputable companies. Yeah. And so it's and these people are also driving up and down Interstate 40. But we need to help those people. We don't need to, you know, shot them. It's a problem and also don't feel like as a community. And as a government. I don't feel like we're doing enough to address it. And it's, it's a trickle down effect.

Kosta Yepifantsev: 31:52

You think that that's the major contributor to the 11,000 vacancies that we have right now?

Nicholas Bishop: 31:57

I think it's a huge contributor. Yeah, I think the pandemic really turned the world on its head and I keep going back to the pandemic. But I think people figure out how to live in a different mode. I also think the gig economy has some effect into this. You may have 11,000 job vacancies, but there's also a lot of people doing gig economy work. And that hurts the community as well. Because some of those not picking on people if you're in the gig economy, but some of those don't make it back to the tax base. Yeah,

Kosta Yepifantsev: 32:25

it should next year, though. Well, yeah. So

Nicholas Bishop: 32:28

it'd be hard to catch all. But you know, that's the other piece of it. And you look at how data gets gathered for a lot of these economic reports, and so forth. There's a lot of data that's unattainable, right. And so what we see in reports, that's what people have access to.

Kosta Yepifantsev: 32:43

So Morgan's, gonna get mad at me, because she says, I've been talking too much today. But I do want to share. And I want to piggyback off of exactly what you're saying. And there's one more thing that I have now added to my tool belt as to why this is happening with our workforce and trying to understand the problem. So you know, obviously, the gig economy, and like you said, they're not reporting those people in in the unemployment rate, they're essentially out of the workforce. Now, the other thing that I think is so important to consider and one thing that I just honestly haven't ever thought of, I was having lunch with a good friend of mine, Kevin Christopher, and he brought it to my attention. So Wall Street Journal wrote an article about Gen Z. Okay, so I'm not going to knock Gen Z, because I like Gen Z, but there's just something that I have to share from this article that I think is it's profound. The generation that was born, you know, like 99 to 2012 is considered the Gen Z generation. Well, that is around the time that Facebook was being created, the Internet was finally kind of getting its footing and exploding into this thing that we see now. And do you have kids? No, sir. Okay, so I am very concerned and very aware of everything that my kids do on their tablets. And I also have, you know, screentime, password, stuff like that. Back when Gen Z was growing up, parents didn't do any of that, because we didn't know what was going on. You know, it was like literally, like, I think back to when I was in high school. And you know, my dad had no idea what Facebook was, or hell, he never even went on a MySpace, you know what I'm saying? And so, like these kids were growing up in this ethos and becoming adults in the Instagram era. So they see this glamorized way of life. Right. So the 11,000 jobs that we have open, I would venture to bet that 85% of them are entry level jobs with an entry level wage. Now who in the world would want to post a picture on Instagram of them working in McDonald's flipping burgers, right, nobody. So I think that we have possibly, in a roundabout way, almost created what I would call a lost generation.

Nicholas Bishop: 35:02

Absolutely. We could do a whole segment on Oh, I think I was the last generation that got to play outside. Yeah, it's no weird because because like the Internet became available really kind of like, you know, you're graduating high school, we didn't really have cell phones till we got into college. Texting wasn't a thing until like, two or three years into college. Yeah, we knew what computers were we had access to them, but it just not like it is today. So if it doesn't already exist, I would not be surprised at some point in the future some higher education institution doesn't develop a degree in like YouTube are influencing Yeah. Oh, I'm sure Instagram, whatever is out there. Now. I do think there's an issue there of work ethic. But there's also I think, some value. You look at the values of that generation compared to my generation and and our parents generation, grandparents generation, I think part of that workforce piece those vacancies is that the younger generation, and you can't really blame them for this, but they want to have this work life balance. Absolutely. For my generation, my parents generation, you know a lot about how much money am I gonna make gonna feed my family. And there's nothing wrong with that either. But our parents generation, you know, they it was common to keep a job for 2530 years, the same company retire and go live the dream, that was the American dream, will now even monitor your generation not counting the younger generation, they're going to have something like 4050 jobs is the prediction in their 30 year lifetime as a professional. I've had what, two or three jobs in 15 years. I mean, I can't imagine doing that. But I think they want this work life balance. Yeah, they're not there to sign up to be a lifelong person to a company, and that's fine. But they want to be able to take vacations, they want to be able to have that time off, they want to be able to travel or spend time with their family. There's nothing wrong with that. And I think the reason a lot of them are there, though, is because what they watched their parents do, yeah, I don't know, a lot of decisions I've made in my career, my personal house, because I've watched what my dad did and what advice he would give me, you know, he would always say, if nothing else shows you what not to do. Was this his favorite long? So I think there's, I think there's some value in the water looking as a younger generation, would you also still have to figure out who's gonna put the bricks up? Who's gonna fix the machine? And exactly, you know, make the burgers. I mean,

Kosta Yepifantsev: 37:15

and I hate to go on a tangent, but I just feel like it's so important as we're talking about workforce development and economic development. Because if you think about it, these vacancies, these entry level vacancies, they're not going to fill themselves. It's like this clash between people that, you know, need to hire, and people that don't want to take those positions. So where are you going to find those people?

Nicholas Bishop: 37:37

And we could go down the rabbit hole of politics with this, but that also opens up the problem you're looking at with immigration. Yeah, not being able to fill these entry level jobs is really part of an immigration and if Congress would ever get their act together and decide to look at legit immigration reform, which they haven't done in 30 years, but people need to understand how to connect the dots. Yes. And all these things, you know, unemployment, health care, the tax base, your potholes, whether or not your kids teacher gets funded, immigration, all those things are tied together. Yeah, drugs, crime, like all that is connected. And you can go back to education, economic workforce development, you know, and that the other challenge, too, is it's there's also some problems with our success. We create all these high paying jobs. And so people might be working at a hospitality job making $12 an hour. Now they can go to Amazon, or the Facebook meta data center, or UPS and make 18 $19 an hour, they should do that. Absolutely. That's that's the, again, the American dream, they should advance. But then it fills this vacancy, you know, of those entry level jobs. And you have folks like my nephew refers my wife and I's dinks, di N Ks, double income, no kids, this is also affecting our education, because by the year 2025, it may not impact us here as soon as it will the rest of the nation. But the number of students graduating high school starts to decrease in 2025, because less people are having children. And so if less people are having children pandemics going through all this crazy stuff, then who's going to fill those jobs. So it's a tough quagmire to figure out.

Kosta Yepifantsev: 39:14

I don't discredit the fact that people in the Gen Z generation want to work a job that they are passionate about, and that they love and they and they should they should go to the Ball State, they should get a two year degree. They should go earn money making, you know, a living wage 5060 $70,000 a year. They should do all of those things. The reason that I bring them up that generation up and I know that they're not what's the term monolithic? Right? They're all obviously diverse, but I bring them up because there is no good solution to those 11,000 vacancies, which is a microcosm of the you know, of the much larger problem. At some point. Somebody's like you just said someone's going to have to come Like the dots like Good grief, you

Nicholas Bishop: 40:02

know, for the last 10 years, probably 20, I'd say 10 years, that's pretty much been my involvement with economic development 1015 years, the strategy has been very much incentive driven. So companies would relocate or expand based on where they could get incentives, that's drastically going to have to change, it's gonna have to be very strategic in, I make XYZ product, I need XYZ skill set, work, and I go get that skill set. And communities are going to have to figure that out as well as to, we can't just recruit everything and everybody because we're not gonna go to fill all these jobs, we're gonna have to get communities that are like our tea communities, or manufacturing communities or health care communities. And that's the only way I can think of where you could really know that you can fill those jobs is that if you align the skills of your community with the jobs, you're recruiting, because it's kind of been the Wild West, you know, for last 1015 20 years of working, we get this incentive, we're gonna get this tax write pilot, and let's build this factory and create 1000 jobs, but there's not 1000 people there to exactly jobs. And that's worked in the past to some degree, but that's drastically going to have to change.

Kosta Yepifantsev: 41:11

Nick, thank you so much for coming on the show. I mean, you are a invaluable asset to volunteer state. And I am very impressed with how you've been able to, like you said, quote, unquote, connect the dots between all the different problems. And obviously, I can see why you have success at Ball State in terms of being able to raise enrollment and, you know, develop programs that bring more community involvement. So I think that's great.

Nicholas Bishop: 41:36

Thank you for having me.

Kosta Yepifantsev: 41:37

We always like to end the show on a high note, who is someone that makes you better when you're together?

Nicholas Bishop: 41:46

That would be my wife, Micah, often say that she's my biggest supporter, biggest cheerleader, but she's also my biggest critic. She's my biggest supporter, but she's also the first one to tell me when I'm wrong or call me out or critique me and so iron sharpens iron.

Morgan Franklin: 42:03

Thank you for joining us on this episode of Better Together with Kosta Yepifantsev. If you've enjoyed listening and you want to hear more, make sure you subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you find your podcasts. Leave us a review or better yet, share this episode with a friend. Better Together with Kosta Yepifantsev is a Kosta Yepifantsev Production. Today's episode was written and produced by Morgan Franklin post production mixing and editing by Mike Franklin. Want to know more about Kosta visit us at kostayepifantsev.com We're better together.