ALC-Higher Education Subcommittee

There you go I spoke to the wrong thing so good afternoon I'm calling the higher education subcommittee. To order and we have some great presentations today first thing we have my co chair do you have any remarks. Good afternoon everyone I'm looking forward to hearing from Fort Smith which is just across the river from my house. Okay the first thing we have offer that is we have this review of reports from institutions of higher education for their annual certification of solvency as required by ACT six sixty two at one oh nine so it will be reviewed. And then we're also very fortunate today to have Dr Theresa Riley here the chancellor of the university of Arkansas Fort Smith if you'd come up anybody else you have with you. Like them anybody who liked you like to have with you. And we've all gotten some information that's been passed down here about the Fort Smith and the economic development activities are taking place up there. I will save got some fantastic stuff going on in the community with the amazing what happens when the college the K. through twelve the community the business community everybody all gets together and we have one focus and everybody's marching down the same path it really does make a difference in the not so great things going on which will be glad to hear about. Okay thank you so much to all of you for allowing us to come and share with you about the University of Arkansas Fort Smith will introduce ourselves to you I am Theresa Riley I'm the chancellor at U. AFS I began July first two thousand nineteen and it's an honor and a privilege to serve in this capacity in the state of Arkansas. I'm Jennifer felt I'm the chief of staff and I have and then at the university since twenty thirteen but I'm also a proud alumni of you a if this. Good afternoon can warden social vice chancellor for compliance and Legislative Affairs a minute you enforcement since twenty fourteen and other work other institutions the state more for some technical education for seventeen years prior to that so glad glad to see you all here today. Thank you all just pull your microphones up a little bit closer to you and. Because sometimes is pretty it's kind of hard for us to hear you back here. Okay excellent can you hear me you go ahead recognized thank you so much okay so the outline for today we want to tell you a little bit of the history of the University of Arkansas Fort Smith as well talk about what we believe the tellers are for a foundation of a great community it's something that we're all working on together we'll talk a little bit more about the workforce development strategies and economic development strategies that we've begun at U. A. F. S.. So first we'll start with a little bit of history on UFOs we were founded in nineteen twenty eight as Fort Smith junior college and then in nineteen sixty four we became Westar junior college I in nineteen seventy two we were renamed west art community college nineteen ninety eight we dropped the community in just add went with Westar college and then in two thousand two is when we joined the UA system and that's when we became the University of Arkansas Fort Smith and changed our role in scope to offer for you for your degree programs we have since then I have added two master's programs one in health care administration and the other in education. And also just a little side note in twenty twenty eight we will be celebrating our hundredth anniversary as an institution but it's doctor Reilly likes to say aye we don't look a day over twenty so. just a little bit of kind of analysis of where we are right now we have approximately five thousand seven hundred students across all of our programs on campus I'm more than fifty percent our first generation students and also more than fifty percent are pale at Pell grant eligible students. we have a pipeline of education I mentioned our master's degrees earlier but we have certificates technical certificates associate's degrees bachelor's and then also our master so you can really do just about anything at USS. Well I'll I'll take it over there from there and tell you a little bit about our finances and the institution I have had an annual budget of about eighty million dollars I think most of you know that our sales tax that we did profit from in our community Sunset in December of twenty twenty one and so unfortunately our revenue stream declined by six point two million dollars on average per year when that sense that occurred we really want to take the opportunity to thank the Arkansas legislature and governor Hutchinson because without your support for our institution I know that we would not have received additional base funds which have been critical for our operations we've re organized in our institutions to try to save some money and ultimately went from five academic colleges to three and trust me any chancellor who reduces overhead administration and big name titles with big salaries is going to be a winner with the faculty and with a tuition fee paying students that's for sure. We ultimately had building a great team at the institution along with the people who worked there for quite some time we feel very lucky and believe that our strategies for diversifying our revenue streams are really working well for us. So about the institution one of the things that really drew me to be at the university of Arkansas Fort Smith when I joined as the chancellor was the fact that I saw myself in many of the students I'm a first generation college students and I wish I had been Pell grant eligible my dad made just enough money where I didn't qualify but he didn't make enough money to give me any of it so I worked three jobs to get through college I wish an institution like UA Fort Smith had existed where I grew up in Missouri. Because at that point I didn't have the options and opportunities that we're able to afford to our students you can see that as part of our mission we're educating students from all across our region but the five main feeder schools are in Sebastian and Crawford counties so we maintain the true part of our roots and our organization we have in our admissions we have increased at mission and so although we did change our admission standards we actually are enforcing admission standards where we were open enrollment we have gone up in our first year freshmen and our overall enrollment about four percent and so we are really excited about what we think the future holds but even more so if you were to walk across campus now even in comparison to pre pandemic you would see so much more engagements and so many more people who are on campus and that's because many students about twenty five percent increase have decided to live in campus housing so that means there in dining halls there in retail dining there and libraries their activities Greek life and so ultimately having that renewed investment and being in person has made all the difference in the world but also we've worked hard to remain affordable we did not raise our rates for housing we're all of the the landlords around us were probably forced to raise rates because of utility increases we've actually increased our our on campus living and so that's really more than covered the cost of those additional utility expenses for institution. We also have a very generous foundation and we award about two million dollars annually and institutional I'm sorry up Foundation grant aid and scholarships some of that is need based on some is merit based and to our completions the best day on any university campus graduation day and for me that's the day I get to really celebrate the milestone achievement of a person who's worked hard whether that's for a certificate or for a master's degree it doesn't matter the excitement of that day is critical maybe more so than that as a mother with four children is the day they tell you about which jobs they got. And how much income they have one of the things that we've done that I have to keep you AFS affordable and is that we have really held our tuition and fees at the lowest rates of any four year institution in the State of Arkansas. And you'll see that in the degree completions which you'll see in the presentation but ultimately also in the fact that only about a third of our students take out any form of that. Michael as the chancellor would be for none of them to take out any student loan debt and we're working diligently to try to make that happen. So what are the pillars of a strong community. These are things that come from my experience I'm not only the chancellor of the university of service the chair of the Fort Smith chamber of commerce I'm on the Van Buren chamber of commerce I work with a variety of organizations throughout our community. And here is what I can boil it down to there have to be businesses and jobs people have to know that when there any community they can thrive not just survive so that's number one there have to be companies that have invested in being right in that community and will hire people who move their. Education when you think about moving to a new city one of the first things you might think about is quality education and of course I'll concentrate on that in my presentation today but it's great to be in a community where there's high quality education across the spectrum of education healthcare we all know that we have an aging population while I may have a community that understandably has some really great young folks we're also waiting and we know that health care is critical we have a critical workforce needs and so we'll talk about that today and quality of life so not only trail systems and outdoor recreation but also safety and the ability to to be in community with the people around you and so those are the main pillars. So to talk about quality education first this is a statistic that when I tell it many people are surprised but there are only seven hundred and seventy seven four year public institutions in the country. So only seven hundred seventy seven the grant for your degrees across the entire country can you imagine then that we have more than nineteen thousand cities towns villages that are incorporated and what a difference it would make in any one of them to have a four year degree granting institution how could bring in additional businesses I could bring in greater levels of quality of life well we're incredibly blessed and lucky to have that in Fort Smith mostly because of leaders who came far be it for me who had that vision and new the business needs in the community and so we are incredibly proud that we are accredited by the higher learning commission our school Sir college of business and industry has AACSB accreditation accreditation is only earned by about five percent of colleges of business across the globe these are some of the highest standards that are expected in education and we meet them I will say effortlessly its constant efforts on behalf of the institution to make sure that we meet the expectations original creditors. We also have a number of accredited programs which you can see in the presentation. Next we have some great recognition so it would not be who've me to be here to tell you about the great things we're doing and workforce development and the economy without also sharing with you some of the recognition that we've had as a four year institution. In the twenty twenty to twenty three year we have become one of the colleges of distinction one of the best colleges in the country so best colleges in the public and Arkansas arena but also our college of business school of education school of nursing and Babb center for career services all have been named in the top programs in our country. We also in US news and World Report or one of the top regional colleges in the south. We're number five in social mobility and quite frankly that may be either ranking I am most proud of. Because it means that we have taken students who come in the lowest quartile and socio economic status and because of their education at UA Fort Smith have moved them into the top quartile of income. So from the bottom quartile to top and we're number five in US news and World Report rankings that is incredible as a student who work three jobs. I know how meaningful this is not just for that individual not even just for the community but for the generations to come and that families trajectory so I was the first to graduate in my family but now all four of my children have college degrees. And I think that speaks volumes to the fact that students who graduate from UA Fort Smith who were very much in my situation have this great opportunity for their families and their communities for generations to come what an awesome investment. So we also then want to focus on military friendly designation so designations by the the organization that ranks has ranked UA Fort Smith as they still first our military friendly campus is incredibly important as Fort Smith our surrounding region is working diligently to acquire the foreign military sales project and to provide training on F. sixteen and F. thirty five airplane so ultimately we have not only a military friendly status but a military spouse friendly campus status. So we are really proud of that we know it is strategic for us to show our pride and our gratitude and so we work very very hard with all of our veterans and active duty soldiers who are on our campus every day to make them and successful but also to provide flexibility for them that's incredibly necessary as well as supporting your families my dad was in the navy for ten years I must say families need support. And to have that support at the university where your children are enrolled or where your partner spouse's enrolled is incredibly helpful. Cynics will move on and talk about workforce development we understand the workforce development is really concentrated around policies and government agencies working in close collaboration with corporations businesses and so for us I've and I've quoted the St Louis fed we really believe that what we do every day is to train the next generation or even next year's workforce every day. So some of the ways that we do that really go to as a young a developing child as you can imagine on our campus we have received a grant for more than one million dollars to create a child care center which will focus on early childhood development. That center will have forty two children and it will become the learning laboratory for our students in our early childhood education associates degree pathway we've also just sought and received permission from the US system to offer a bachelor of science in early childhood education I will be bringing that forward to Arkansas division of higher education for approval but ultimately this kind of a child care program we know that twelve point four percent of the students who are Pell grant eligible at U. AFS have dependent children. What an incredible thing it would be to be able to be in class and not be worried because of the convenience safety and development of your children right on your campus and that it is not only a learning laboratory for students but also a wonderful mentoring opportunity for faculty and directors and teachers who are in those classrooms every day. So early childhood education is one of the fastest growing programs on our campus and we have about fifty people on the wait list to get into that bachelor's degree assuming it's approved so an incredible resurgence in the desire to educate and and develop young children is again early a stage of of development that we can reach and we are doing I think a really great job of that and I'm excited about what the future holds with our center opening hopefully in the fall. In the area of early college and I think that this is what your woman English was mentioning earlier of the things that we are doing and Fort Smith are really pretty mind blowing. When I began as the chancellor actually before when I was named as the chancellor. People came to me with me and said the governor would like to meet with you. That's when I knew I wasn't in Texas anymore. That the governor was accessible that his door was open and the truth was that the it was to talk about workforce development. We had a dream in our community far before I have we had a dream of a center for career and technical education where students across the board and high schools in Fort Smith and all of the areas that we educate and support there are western Arkansas technical center could come together to be educated in advanced manufacturing and electronics network engineering and ultimately in healthcare and allied health professions. These are some of the greatest areas of need in our community and we don't believe that any student who was coming into high school in any of our surrounding areas should leave high school without some post secondary education now imagine being able to get that while you're in high school again the advancement way beyond anything I had available to me as a student when I was in high school. So we actually begin students in these programs even as early as middle school where they are learning about the career pathways that they can take but then they move on to actually come into high school answer to take classes either in the smart start concurrent credit program or for us also in our technical career education programs. So we have a tremendous number of students who are in the pipeline for these programs when I got here we had just started our LPN program in high school. So an LPN is a nurse who can actually administer medication who will care for you on a daily basis whether you're in a hospital or potentially in a clinic area and the LPN students when I have pre pandemic were starting their first jobs at the age of eighteen making fifty thousand dollars a year. So again. High school eighteen years old getting your diploma and your LPN and going on to make fifty grand. What an amazing thing that can do for families. We're also including a financial literacy and our programs because we understand that if you're fifty eighteen and you're making fifty thousand dollars a year understanding how to invest and save is a really important message for every student to get but ultimately that puts them in a pipeline of of education many of the students either go on to come to us for four year degrees or to other institutions to continue their pathways. But many are going out into the workforce immediately earning money to pay for education which is phenomenal exactly what we hoped would happen in that program in the last year we've had four hundred and thirty six students in that program we have capacity for more than five hundred. And ultimately they have received one hundred and sixty eight industry certifications the past year. So those are students who are going out to work rolling your sleeves up and ready not just to do the job but to be the person that if you were doing that job you would love to sit next year. A person who's well educated as a good person I understand civic responsibility and democracy. Smarts are credits as you can see here when students complete smart start credits concurrent credit in high school about thirty five percent of the students who do those with us come to UFOs for four year degrees and so ultimately great pipeline but also the students can take those to other institutions of higher education and easily have those articulated so that they count as college credits in almost any school. We're beginning to have discussions about an associate's degree initiative with Fort Smith public schools the pathway would be more of a general studies associates degree so that students have two years of education prior to enrolling for four year degrees so you can imagine how much more affordable it will be because none of these programs cost the students any thing. They all attendees programs for free. And so alternately to have two years of education. Already under your belt before you graduate from high school what a tremendous asset it would be to making college more affordable for everyone. Next I'll talk about our our educational partners we have a tremendous business and industry partnership. We would not be able to have the workforce development that we have without these great partners who hire our students and for apprenticeships even at the age of sixteen we have a apprentices at Reiman A. B. B. and a lot of other institutions and businesses in our surrounding community. That they bring the men to learn on the job so that again the receiving credit and learning but also being mentoring mentored and making money most of the students in those apprenticeships stay with those companies and those a great investment for those businesses to hire apprentices and allow them to continue their education with us and so we also have internships for most of our four year degree programs our students go out to get internship so again they get great experience and also clinical assignments we are incredibly lucky in Fort Smith to have two very excellent hospitals and a variety of clinics around us so ultimately clinical experiences are plentiful for students that are programs and you'll hear in a minute why that's so important. But we also have a private partner in that location and the Arkansas colleges of health education where they offer programs in DO PT O. T. and a master's and and biological science and so ultimately a CH you agree partner has indicated that our students who graduated meet the entrance requirements for any of their programs will have the first shot at interviewing for them. So it's an excellent way potentially to keep students not only in our pipeline that continuing to professional programs so that they will stay right there in our region. Because we all need physicians nurses at such from. So moving on from talking about our educational partners will talk it talk to you about educating adults. Across the United States it for your regional public institutions the average retention rate from the first year to the second year is only about sixty five percent so what that tells us is that there are a lot of adults out in our communities with some college but without a degree. So our institution created a couple of different programs that we're very proud of the first is in cooperation with the office of skills development and it is called future fit these are short courses that prepare adults for being career ready and ultimately I think our longest programs about sixteen weeks but we can do very short programs even in three weeks to have people job ready and so those are incredibly good positions typically in manufacturing we have great partnerships in all of our manufacturing businesses but also in industrial technology. Our adult degree completion program is the one that brings back adults who have started college somewhere at some point in their lives and stopped. We bring in roughly twenty students per cohort and we help them with the prior learning assessment basically allowing them to transcribe their life experiences work experiences and leadership. So that accounts for them. Between that and being able to do testing so they test out of some courses that might normally be required the students are able to finish their degrees. Every semester I meet with the students in the program it is tremendous to hear from parents who say it's a little bit humbling to sit at the kitchen table next to my son doing our homework together. It is a little bit more humbling to know how much I'm role modeling to my child. And that he sees me working hard he doesn't to. We have veterans we have law enforcement officers we have all kinds of folks in these programs who want to move ahead have stability within positions in their businesses organizations and truly when I handed my first diploma cover to a graduate it was from someone in our adult degree completion program and it was a spectacular moment to see that coming to fruition this woman who thought she'd never earned her degree had finished it and the celebration began I don't think it stopped ever since. Healthcare I ask you to kind of hold on and wait for this one because of how critical it is in the community and we announced on Friday the largest gift in the history of our university and it's because of the generosity of the Wingate foundation but not only their generosity their willingness to diversify the ways they have invested in communities. So the Wingate foundations very well known for their contributions to the arts. However they also have been much more flexible in the ways that they would invest their funds we brought to them a proposal that will more than allow us to double the number of nurses that we educate and put back out into our hospitals and clinics. This is the greatest area of need. The hospitals could today take a hundred and fifty nurses each. You've probably heard or read from the hospital administrators about the fact that their budgets have been in a tailspin because of how many people they've had to hire to work in healthcare but how many of them are contracted workers so they're paying well beyond market value for those professionals. Being able to invest in UA Fort Smith nursing program. Ten million dollars over four years will allow us to hire the nursing educators who are also very difficult for us to hire. But allow us to pay competitive salaries to those individuals and to provide the nursing education and a much more practical and flexible way will have evening programs and clinical experiences things that we haven't been able to do in the past we hope to more than double immediately our BSN program which is one of our top majors at the university and ultimately be able to invest more into our LPN program. Which is happening in the high school. It also and potentially to reinvigorate some programs that are in existence and some institutions we would love to have more of a pipeline of education we do have an accelerated BSN program that is again fairly small because of the number of faculty that we have to teach and it but this program and this wonderful amazing gift will allow us to more than double that program immediately. So. An incredible allied health program EMT and see in a at the high school level along with LPN as we discussed but also we have dental hygiene radiography sonography and surgical technology. We are working on a respiratory therapy program offering at our institution we're having discussions about curriculum development and may be able to present out in the near future. So I'm going to turn it back over to misspelled to talk about economic development. So doctor Reilly asked me to talk a little bit about our economic development that we do and I'll get into that and in a minute why she asked me to talk about it but as you all can see from the slides that you know economic development is really it's about creating jobs supporting innovation and new ideas creating creation of higher wealth and accretion of overall just better quality of life and as you can see by our presentation we really are about making life better for our students and so one of the ways that we are doing as are developing each at the economy in our area is through our UEFA center for economic development which is the only center of its kind in the universe in the state of Arkansas we had our grand opening in the spring and governor Hutchinson was able to attend that event and He was very excited about what we were doing in the river valley and as you can see all the quote it it really is the first of its kind in Arkansas and so in that Senator we actually House three centers within the economic development center we have that you AFS Arkansas small business and technology development center that is a partnership we have through the University of Arkansas at little rock there are these centers all across the state of Arkansas we had one in the Fort Smith area several years ago and it it kind of went away for whatever reason and then we we were able to get that back a few years ago during the middle of the pandemic. Three that and center and are we really service all N. the small business so that's really where an entrepreneur comes they have this idea and they need to get off the ground and so we have a great director who just kind of comes along side them and gives them support and just helps them through that process and you governor Hutchinson at our grand opening talked about sixty four percent of all businesses are small businesses and so through the center they can get started and but then they can also develop and grow so are this last year FY twenty two we had an ninety seven clients with an economic impact of six point three five million dollars and then once the. The idea and the business is developed and it starts growing out we have our a family enterprise center which is for family owned businesses this center has been in I have the university for for several years it's a big part of the Fort Smith area and through it we serve forty four family businesses. And eleven affiliate members and so the affiliate members would be those businesses that that help family businesses so like an example would be a bank and then lastly we have our center for business and professional development which is probably one of my favorite centers because it's one I've benefited from the most being part of higher education I have developed quite a love for education and so through the center I have been working on my lean six sigma certifications and I'm actually taking my green belt exam tomorrow so fingers crossed but have for those of you that may not be familiar with lean six sigma it was It was a program developed through Motorola and it is all about eliminating waste waste and making processes more efficient and so in my role as chief of staff at the university I am constantly looking for ways that I can approve can improve our processes and make things more efficient and so I through this program I will be able to kind of take a look at some of the things that we do and figure out how we can make it better and especially better for students in so through the center for business and professional development I we hosted at sixty seven training events for five hundred eighty seven students and forty six companies and agencies I can tell you it's been a great benefit to me to be part of this program because I'm not only learning more about lean six sigma but I'm also learning from my colleagues in the class about city government I have some colleagues that are work for the city and then also just I on the manufacturing side so it's been a great opportunity and so if you ever have any professional development needs please let us know we would be happy to help at our center. So while we've reached the conclusion of the actual presentation we'd love to answer any questions that you have about some of the ways that we are improving workforce development and economic development in Fort Smith and the surrounding region. Okay we have questions questions. Senator Chesterfield thank you madam chair and good afternoon thank you so very much for that very positive presentation the one thing that I noticed when we talk about when you talk about economic development I did not hear you mention transportation. Purpose so many that is. The greatest barrier to getting to a job or whatever what are your plans around that or sports Smith just blessed with one of the best transportation areas in the state. Well I don't I wish. I think our transportation needs are similar to other cities our size we do have a bus line in our in our city has actually invested in New buses of course have wifi there ADA accessible there quite lovely they're blue. So I'm hoping they'll put a line on the side of it fights and that understandably that's not sufficient is not enough we have mobility work that we are doing with Arkansas and the university of Arkansas in Fayetteville so they've received a grant for mobility and ultimately have purchased I'm sure bike. Concepts and so we have one that's on our campus so that our students have that availability but also they are throughout our entire community we have some faculty who just submitted a grant to study at additional transportation forms in our community we don't have the scooters that have permeated a lot of the bigger cities but we do have of course and shared rights systems and so from our perspective we understand that particularly weird different amenities or resources are placed is critical and we are just one of the stops that where people can get on and off of the bus or get a bike ultimately we know that transportation is going to be difficult though for other types of resources so we're looking at all the bus routes and where the stocks are so that we don't have an hour long wait for the next bus to come along that's really been a major concern for a whole community at something that we're working on together well one of the reasons to you have such a strong emphasis on pre K. education. And one of the things we found when we try to provide free K. was. If you could get the kids to school. It didn't matter and I don't know if the state law whatever but many of our pre K. kids do not qualify to get on the bus and there's a little you don't want on there anyway but it is one of those great barriers to a to parents especially who qualify for the Arkansas better chance program to get those kids to centers of learning and that's transportation so that's why I was asking since you didn't have it there and we had to have somebody about it because it's such a critical piece of economic develop and development and education so just wanted to visit with you about it again thank you so very much for being here I appreciate you it's good to see in person been written about jim the pipe thank you. Thank you representive thank. Thank you so much this was very exciting and very good presentation I was wondering with so much in the news lately about students being in serious debt when they graduate do you have any statistics about how many of our students come out of college debt free or with a very low debt so about a third of our students take out any debt and those who do the average amount of debt that our students take out in comparison to the national average is about eleven thousand dollars less. Senate national average so as you can imagine the sixty five percent who don't take out any debt that have an incredibly affordable experience typically because they have earned scholarships and grant aid are institution gives millions and millions of dollars in grant aid for students but also the Arkansas challenge in lottery scholarship. I mean that is at a critical way for this state to support our students to make it more affordable for them and that's why some if you have to take out any form of debt we have a very generous foundation again mostly from funding from some of those business partners that we talked about before and that's not justify a Quitman but ultimately to provide scholarships to make college affordable so that when people are coming to them for work and earning salaries from them the salary dollars go the furthest they can to investing back into the community buying homes shopping obviously investing their. Thank you. Okay let me see Representive right. Thank you madam chair and thank you Dr Riley for your presentation really enjoyed it I was very glad to see you highlight the military friendly distinction and so in light of that I want to ask you what is your experience been with the National Guard tuition benefit program obviously all have the hundred eighty eighth in your backyard and so can you just talk about how that's worked out for you all. So we have a certification officer who works in our office of financial aid and directly supports those students and utilizing their benefits we know that they need flexibility they have to be able to be deployed if necessary and so we often and roll our students in those programs an eight week courses but ultimately helping them to utilize their benefits efficiently so that they're not wasting any benefit is incredibly important for us the I cannot tell you the outcomes from that particular financial program I would have to look into that a little bit more but I do know that the students are working directly with our our and I don't agree completion program coordinator director to try to make sure that we are offering courses also on base for them. Okay and it is has the adoption right behind do you do you market that program to to folks in your area may be eligible yeah absolutely so it's part of what we provide and financial aid literacy essentially our financial aid advisors are all familiar with every form of either the students could receive not just the coordinator for the veterans benefits were active duty benefits so they have we we were joking about it this morning so when the students go to fill out their access for financial aid for the coming year they go out and have all kinds of educational programs I said maybe we should call like finessing financially making sure that you have the full use of any free dollars available to you before you consider any that we would love to package that aid first and so they can go on base we certainly have a number of the active duty who will come into our financial aid office particularly we've gone to having lots of virtual programs as well so that they're very familiar with all of the benefits and how to use them and how to qualify okay thank you for that I have one last question when you were talking about the early college portion of your presentation you mentioned something about financial literacy and I'm sorry I missed what you were saying about that can you go back over that absolutely so students in our programs are learning financial literacy so that if they are graduating from high school age of eighteen and earning pretty good salaries you can imagine if you have somebody who's completed their technical certificate in welding or LPN that they're making good salaries we wanna be sure that they are not wasting Mills dollars that are coming and at the age of eighteen I can promise you I would not make good choices. Is that is that a separate course or is that incorporated into the classes that there to it's actually incorporated okay of course thank you so much sure I will say though that are for your degree programs all of the students who graduate from those programs are required to take a for credit financial literacy course one hour course. That's excellent. Everybody needs that. Okay the C. by presented Bragg. Thank you madam chair on your internships and apprenticeships is that limited to age eighteen and up on a lot of facilities on really want younger kids working in there right no it isn't actually we have a number of the manufacturing firms in our community who are accepting apprentices at the age of sixteen. And so they're allowed to do that of course it's up to each particular manufacturing plant or company to make that decision and certainly to mitigate risk so a lot of times the sixteen and seventeen year old students are working on projects that they're ultimately learning the business for production while they are on the floor okay thank you. Thank you very much seeing no further questions anybody else have a question. A nine. I think you all one of the things that we talk about being defense ready I mean family ready is one of the things I'm I'm very involved in the council military children and so Fort Smith has just recently become everybody is a park school and and that's a wonderful thing and it really has helped you all all the things you're doing otherwise you know that military sales they might not happen but it takes everybody like you all working together the community schools everybody to make that kind of thing happen in your committee so I commend you. Thank you so much I was the the legislators who are here from our area have worked diligently to make that happen I you know I certainly am appreciative of everyone in our region who understands that this is more than a billion dollar a year economic impact to western Arkansas it is a constant thrill I think for all of us to imagine bringing in families from all over the world to learn alongside our current students and those who are enrolled in our public schools are private schools just an outstanding opportunity. And they will do it. Mr warden did you have anything you wanted to say. No ma'am I appreciate the opportunity but I think the chances that a fine job plus I'm I'm I appreciate you having us here today and look forward to working with you more money real. We are very glad to have you here appreciate you all being here thank you very much and I guess we are German.