As a way to counter the stress of college debt, FVTC is expanding a program that gets students studying a specific career pathway while still in high school.
With three high school academies—Automotive Youth Education Systems, Automation, and Firefighting Principles—already thriving, FVTC is ready to add the University Transfer Degree Academy in fall of 2025.
Each high school academy offers a set of classes designed to guide and expose students to a specific career. The classes are taught at FVTC in the morning and students return to their high schools for afternoon classes. The goal is for students to earn a complete credential by the time they graduate from high school.
Beyond the academies being a cost-effective way to start college, there are many other benefits. Jennifer Van Thiel, manager of K-12 Partnerships and Jason Vosters, Automation instructor recently joined WHBY radio host Hayley Tenpas to explain how local high school students can get started and be ready for the fall semester.
Tap the video to listen to the interview or scroll down to read the transcript.
Check out more media coverage about FVTC high school academies:
Appleton Post Crescent: FVTC launches new program for high school students to earn college credit
FOX11: FVTC expanding university transfer program for high school students
Tenpas: Welcome back to Focus Fox Valley. It is our Focus on Careers segment with Fox Valley Technical College and an opportunity to highlight careers of promise. Today we are leaning into anyone who might have a younger student, high schoolers in particular. We are reminding you of the K-12 partnerships program and the different offerings that can get your students access to college opportunities. Joining us today are two voices within the program, we have Jennifer Van Thiel, manager of K-12 partnerships in the studio. Welcome back, Jennifer.
Van Thiel:Thank you. Good morning.
Tenpas: Good morning. We also have Jason Vosters joining us, who will lend us a hand in talking about this and give us some insight into his area as well. Hi Jason, how are you doing?
Vosters: I am doing great, yourself?
Tenpas: Wonderful.
Vosters: Awesome.
Tenpas: Let us get to know you a little bit. Jennifer, refresh our listener’s memory on your connection to this program and kind of how you got here.
Van Thiel: I lead our K-12 partnership office, so anything having to do with early college credit while still in high school and career exploration. I graduated from Appleton East and when I was in high school, I thought for sure I was going into health care. My favorite teacher at Appleton East, Mrs. Marx, required us to do a senior job shadowing the second semester of senior year. I remember going to the hospital and leaving, thinking, man, Grey’s anatomy is not based on reality, so I knew I had to make a life decision in a short period of time. I decided to go to Fox Valley Tech through the marketing program, so I did not spend a lot of time and money and realized after four years that I still did not have a clear direction. I interned in the marketing office while I was a student there, and it was my second day on the job I said, I am never, ever leaving. Since then, I have made it my lifelong mission to help others realize that Fox Valley Tech or technical college education is a smart option to enter the workforce and also build a solid foundation for continuing your education if you choose to do that.
Tenpas: That is wonderful, and I love the teacher shout-out because they are so great at helping us make those decisions that we may not have realized in those moments. Jason, I will ask you the same question. Tell us how you got connected to K-12 partnerships and help us with your current role.
Vosters: I graduated from Fox Valley Tech in the Automated Manufacturing Systems program. I eventually was hired within that program to help guide students, I was in a non-faculty position at that point and eventually moved into faculty and have been teaching automation for a long time. With part of those endeavors, for the last couple of years, I have been teaching high school students, which is not the normal route that a technical college instructor might take, but it has been a great experience, and I have enjoyed every moment of that.
Tenpas: Thank you for sharing. Can you give our listeners a better glance at what this program provides to students, and then we can highlight high school academies? Jennifer, what are these? How do they work and who is eligible to participate?
Van Thiel: Great question, I think college debt has been a hot topic recently and this is a great way for young folks to grow as a professional without having the burden of debt long term. It is really about purposeful dual enrollment, looking at what the end result might be, and then taking early college credit courses that are in specific alignment with those career goals. The Academies at Fox Valley Tech are a set of classes working towards a specific pathway. They are on our FVTC campuses in state-of-the-art labs with advanced equipment, and they are taught by our experienced FVTC instructors. The nice thing is many of them are grant-funded, which means that there is no cost to students, families or the school districts. Those that do have a cost associated with them are tuition, books and fees for the most part. If you look at our tuition, it is about half of what the UW charges and about a third to a fourth of what the private colleges charge. When I went to Fox Valley Tech, I graduated with my associate’s degree and then I transferred to Lakeland, which is a private university, and my classes at Fox Valley Tech were about $400. My classes at Lakeland were about 1500, so it is a significant cost savings.
Tenpas: We just talked about the University Transfer degrees two weeks ago here, so that is a great connector. I will ask you, Jason, if you are teaching these classes tell us a little bit about what that looks like and students are coming to those labs, as Jennifer mentioned, on campus at Fox Valley Tech, correct?
Vosters: Yes, in our case it is an academy for automation. We are trying to teach students how to possibly end up in a mini engineering role, for example, where a company is trying to build their product quicker, easier, cheaper, faster, more reliable and more efficient. In that learning, they come to us five afternoons a week, and they are with us for a three-hour session, five days a week. They can do that for 1 or 2 years, depending on whether they are a junior or senior. It is Fox Valley Tech instructors in Fox Valley Tech Labs using our equipment. We will do tours with them as well to give them an insight into what a manufacturing environment looks like or what a typical day might be. But yes, they are off of their high school campus and on the FVTC campus.
Tenpas: If I had done something like this in high school, I would have thought this was so next level. It is so wonderful to be getting a jump start on that learning. What are you hearing from the students now that you are teaching in the classroom for 15 hours a week?
Vosters: The students that we hear from are very excited to get off their high school campus. They are working here with students from different high schools, so they get to know new students and are put in a new environment. They are not with traditional program students, so the whole class is the same age and have the same skill set if you will. Often green for the experience. But that stuff that we work through. So, it seems like they have very good experience getting to know new people and trying to identify if this is a skill set, they would like to continue with.
Tenpas: Excellent, we talked a little bit about automation, but we are going to also highlight a couple of the other academy offerings after the break so do not go away. It is our Focus on Careers you are listening to on WHBY.
Tenpas: Welcome back, our Focus on Careers with us here today will highlight the details of an open house in just a moment coming up on Tuesday, March 4 but right now we are highlighting the K-12 partnerships with Jennifer and Jason. Jennifer, why don’t you walk us through some of the other Academy offerings? We touched on automation just a little bit. Tell us about what other types of programs high schoolers can jump into.
Van Thiel: Students who are in good academic standing and are ready to get a jump start in their future can look into the Fire Principals Academy, which is a semester-long academy where students come to the Public Safety Training Facility. Thanks to grant funding, it is completely free to students, which includes their PPE for the program and then they walk away with a four-credit class that is the first class in their associate’s degree program, but it also qualifies them to be a volunteer firefighter, so that is pretty awesome. At the Public Safety Training facility, they have amazing tools out there, if folks have not had a chance to get out there, it is awesome.
Tenpas: It recently celebrated a big anniversary out there too.
Van Thiel: Another one is we have an automotive academy which students can start as a junior or senior. Applications for that are currently open and start right away in the fall. Students who continue from junior through senior year can earn up to a technical diploma in maintenance and light repair. That is actually about a $3,500 program if they complete that as a high school student. That one some of the schools will pay for that and then we also have students that maybe go to schools that do not pay, and then they are willing to pay for that just because of the tuition break that they get.
Tenpas: That is a huge motivator I would imagine for a lot of families, right?
Van Thiel: Absolutely.
Tenpas: How does this set our students up for success? Can you explain? I will turn to you, Jason, what does this do for our students who are looking to take the next step towards their college degree?
Vosters: We have been doing this program for a couple of years, and we have had several students after high school come back to FVTC to complete their entire associate degree. They are roughly halfway to their associate degree through their high school endeavors. We also have students up at Michigan Tech from the high school academy. We have students who quite honestly have said, do you know what? I do not think this is what I want to do long term and that is also fantastic with us because they had the time to make that determination for themselves and be like, hey, this is maybe not what I want to do. We have students going right to the workforce to come to us or going right to a four-year engineering school.
Tenpas: That is fantastic. You have an open house coming, maybe some parents or grandparents are out there listening and want to bring their high schoolers to check things out and see the scene? When will that open house be happening? Jennifer.
Van Thiel: Yeah, the Open House is on Tuesday, March 4, from 3 to 6. Individuals are not required to register. They can just come and go as pleased if they apply for admission that evening, the application fee is waived for them. It is completely free and that is a lifelong fee. They can check out our programs, we have faculty and currently enrolled college students on campus, and they can get tours of whatever labs they would like to check out.
Tenpas: Fantastic. It has been awesome having both of you here today so thank you again. We will toss out a website for you which is fvtc.edu/academies, which will also link on our website. Jennifer and Jason, thanks for being part of the show today and helping us learn more about those K-12 partnerships and some great setups for successful moments for these students.
Van Thiel: Awesome. Thank you for having us.
Vosters: Thank you very much.
Tenpas: Thank you.
