Bob Donaldson, Post-Gazette Chad Beach, above, works at a computer in the classroom at the First Energy training facility in Oil City, near Clarion University's Venango campus. Click photo for larger image. About the series Sunday: Starting early From reading to algebra, everything in school is starting earlier   Monday: Math and reading No Child Left Behind has altered the face of education   Tuesday: Data Performance data driving education now   Wednesday: Business Education booms into an $850 billion enterprise   Thursday: Discpline Zero tolerance makes discipline more severe, involves the courts   Friday: Wellness Snacks, soft drinks banished as schools focus on nutrition   Saturday: Higher Education Lines blur between nonprofit and for-profit schools   Back to school in the region: West: New technology, teachers greet pupils North: It's a brand new year South: Pupils return to healthier food, online learning

OIL CITY, Pa. -- Chad Beach is training here to be a utility company lineman.

Halfway across the state, Lindsay Garvin is working on a bachelor's degree in business.

A generation ago, it would have been a safe bet which student was at a trade school and which was at a state university.

Not any more. The fact that Mr. Beach is climbing poles for credit at Clarion University of Pennsylvania and Ms. Garvin lives on the campus of the for-profit Central Pennsylvania College illustrates how traditional lines separating for-profit and nonprofit higher education have begun to blur.

Fueled by rapid changes in the job market and competition for students, some career schools are acting more like nonprofit campuses, shifting emphasis to bachelor's programs and even adding sports teams and workout rooms, amenities traditionally seen as superfluous to their career-focused training.

Nonprofit campuses, in turn, are delving deeper into workforce training, joining forces with firms desperate for specialized workers, or with trade schools to jointly teach curriculum.

In Mr. Beach's case, the result will be an associate degree with a few splinters and some high-wire anxiety as he and 13 classmates get used to digging their spikes into 40-foot poles set up in rows near Clarion's Venango campus.

"The first time was pretty scary," the ex-Marine recalled after one shirt-soaking climb in sticky August heat. "Everybody was looking at each other. We all kind of hugged the pole."

It's not that Harvard is churning out plumbers, or that for-profits have suddenly scrapped their career focus to develop Shakespearean scholars.

Rather, it's a tweaking of existing missions at some schools -- a new certificate program here, a bachelor's degree there -- that is becoming more noticeable as both sectors find themselves grazing in the same areas for new students.

"We're meeting each other in the middle," said Melissa Vayda, vice president and chief academic officer at Central Pennsylvania, a school near Harrisburg.

A decade ago, it had no bachelor's programs but found surprising demand for them once a 1997 state law change allowed for-profits to introduce four-year degrees.

Today, 68 percent of the school's enrollment is in bachelor's programs. The share is nearly as high -- 65 percent -- at another for-profit, The Art Institute of Pittsburgh.

Experts say it's a convergence that carries both promise and risks: more student choice, but also the potential for greater confusion, given the already bulging array of certificates, diplomas and degree programs.

To understand why the division of labor has started to shift, consider the market being chased: an increasingly diverse population of students, many working, who are demanding a customized education and fast career returns.

"It's not just 'Can I have DirecTV in my dorm room?"' said Travis Reindl, director of state policy analysis for the Washington, D.C.-based American Association of State Colleges and Universities. "It's about 'When can I learn? Can I learn on my own time?' "

They know employers are demanding more credentials. And, said Mr. Reindl, students are finding that writing, speaking and analytical skills have become a prerequisite for success "whether you're going into a machine shop in Martin, Pa., or the law school at Penn."

It's why some career schools say they're feeling pressure to offer broader preparation more typical of nonprofit campuses, even as those schools are being pushed to make sure graduates have skills the economy needs.

For Mr. Beach, 35, of Franklin, Venango County, the two-year degree he is pursuing in electric utility technology could be his ticket out of the cab of a truck and, eventually, into a utility company's front office.

Weeks after returning from Iraq, he answered a newspaper ad about a novel program at Clarion's Venango campus in Oil City. The school in 2003 rolled out a varied menu of technical instruction paired with academic credits for residents of a region hit hard by the loss of employers like Quaker State.

The first half of each week he learns about high-voltage electricity, pole-top rescues and other technical topics from journeymen linemen at First Energy Corp., which wants to hire the graduates to work on transmission lines. At midweek, he leaves the utility company's labs and crosses West First Street to the Venango campus, where Clarion professors teach such subjects as English, math and science.

In all, Clarion offers two dozen variations of its associate of applied science in industrial technology degree in areas as diverse as hardwood lumber inspection, milling and advanced computer applications.

Some of what Mr. Beach learns will broaden his horizons. Other parts of the program could keep him alive.

"This isn't liberal arts. When you reach for 6,000 volts, you're dealing with applied physics," said Vic Bowser, chairman of Venango's Applied Technology Department.

Bob Donaldson, Post-Gazette At left, he tosses a basketball with fellow utility linemen in a training exercise to improve coordination and balance. Click photo for larger image.

In the short run, Mr. Beach's associate's degree will probably mean a $20-an-hour job. But having university credits under his belt could yield far more, possibly a job in management.

"They're kind of setting you up for success," he said.

Ms. Garvin, 19, of Canonsburg, wants success, too. But she prefers to get her bachelor's degree in three years, not four.

So, she's forgoing summer vacations, enrolling year-round at Central Pennsylvania, taking courses like cultural anthropology and art history as part of her business administration degree. She said the 1,000-student campus could use more fun like karaoke and bowling parties, and is so sleepy "you can't do much" without a car.

Still, she didn't enroll for parties, but rather individualized attention and a quicker path to a job.

And she didn't have to submit an SAT for admission, a plus for a student who had a 3.2 grade point average at Canon-McMillan High School in Washington County but an SAT score of roughly 700.

"They go mainly on your grades and how well you did in high school," she said.

Nationwide, for-profit enrollment has nearly tripled over the last decade, in part because of the growth of behemoths like the University of Phoenix but also because of gains at smaller institutions.

In 2004, proprietary enrollment was 880,247, up from 304,465 in 1996, according to the most recent data available from the U.S. Department of Education. That's a modest subset of the 17.3 million students enrolled in post-secondary education, but it's outpacing growth in other sectors, said Tom Snyder, who directs the annual reports program for the National Center for Education Statistics.

For-profit schools awarded 42,306 bachelor's degrees in 2004, more than four times the total in the mid-1990s. Some policy experts are confounded by the growth of these schools, which cost more than public campuses and don't discount tuition the way private schools do, yet manage to woo students, even those with low incomes.

Aggressive marketing is one reason why, said Thomas Mortenson, senior scholar at the Washington, D.C.-based Penn Institute for the Study of Opportunity in Higher Education. But it also shows the allure of a stripped-down education delivered at flexible times.

"You don't have rock climbing walls at proprietary schools," he said. "But you probably have pretty good computer labs and libraries organized for the business of training students for jobs."

During the 1990s, the rise of for-profits like Phoenix with its mix of online and classroom learning fueled a sense of siege on many traditional public and private campuses. They watched the for-profit industry cherry-pick enrollment from the most lucrative disciplines, using lower-paid faculty to hold costs down.

But it seems proprietary schools are being nudged, too.

At The Art Institute of Pittsburgh, planners of a new 650-student residence hall Downtown are making room for a lounge and a basketball half-court on the first floor.

"We would have never considered that two years ago," said George Pry, its president. "We're starting to think more about student activities. When you have students for four years, what do you do with them?"

The school's 14 bachelor's programs now outnumber associate and diploma offerings. "My intent is to ultimately look at master's degrees here," he said.

Central Pennsylvania long had sports, but it's adding a tennis team and athletic director to enliven campus. Library holdings were expanded to support bachelor's programs. And it may seek admission to a four-year college athletic conference.

To be sure, the overwhelming majority of for-profit schools thus far have steered clear of bachelor's programs, said Richard Dumaresq, executive director of the Pennsylvania Association of Private School Administrators. Within the state, there are seven with bachelor's programs of 154 for-profit campuses that are eligible for federal financial aid.

But it's clearly impacting the schools that have them. Two-thirds of The Art Institute of Philadelphia's students are in bachelor's programs.

Given their draw at his small school, it's easy to imagine others will follow, said Matthew Shein, director of marketing at The Restaurant School at Walnut Hill College in Philadelphia. About 70 percent of his school's 600 students leave with a bachelor's.

"Schools are going to have to respond to the demand," he said.

Traditional schools like La Roche College say the same in explaining their push into areas of higher interest to local employers. The Catholic campus in McCandless has created specialized programs in areas from real estate to nursing, and officials say the turnout for some indicates the school is on the right track.

"Our associate program in nursing has a waiting list," said Howard Ishiyama, vice president for academic affairs.

At Clarion's Venango campus, officials say the school saves equipment and faculty costs by teaming with employers like UPMC Northwest, whose clinical staff teaches part of a nursing degree, and with such schools as Precision Manufacturing Institute of Meadville.

"I think you're going to see more and more of these partnerships," said Venango's executive dean Chris Reber. "Why should we compete with these proprietary schools when, working together, we can offer more value and a higher level of education?"