Michelle Powell wanted a better life. After about 19 years removed from her job as a nurse with surgical skills, the mother of five returned to school.

“It’s a lot of work, it takes a lot of family support because all of a sudden everybody’s got this shared responsibility to take care of the household,” she said.

With just her husband’s income, now three teenagers at home and the down economy, her only solution seemed to be returning to school to achieve that better life. Now, Powell is in her second quarter of a year-long program to become a surgical technologist.

She is one of the many people who have opted to return to school in the present economy to better their chances of getting a job.

Renton Technical College has been training more and more students despite having significant budget cuts during the last three years. In that time it has had to cut $3 million and is anticipating another $1 million cut next year.

RTC President Steve Hanson estimates there will be a nine percent reduction to the budget next year.

Even with budget cuts looming, some students are finding remarkable success with job placements out of the college. Two RTC departments, among many, are attracting large numbers of students and graduating them into fields with bright job forecasts.

The Allied Health and Nursing programs and the Major Appliance and Refrigeration Technology program are experiencing a rise in popularity and an ease in securing graduates jobs.

“Each year we’ve been bringing in more and more people, the demand for our health programs has been strong and consistent,” said Tami Rable, associate dean of the Allied Health Department.

In fall 2008 there were more than 1,200 students enrolled in the program and that number shot up to just under 1,400 by fall 2010.

Popular programs include anesthesia technologist, dental assistant, medical assistant and pharmacy technician. For some programs, like the nursing and the surgical technologist program, enrollment has now moved to a lottery system.

Not only is demand up, but the demographics are changing. Approximately two-thirds of the students are unemployed and half have families, with one quarter of them being single parents.

Moses Mathu is studying to be a licensed practical nurse. He is now a certified nursing assistant and decided to pursue the higher certificate because he liked what he saw of his friends in that field who are mostly male nurses.

“After watching them it’s something I want to do,” Mathu said. “It’s my passion, helping other people.”

He represents a growing trend at the college of males pursuing a traditionally female-dominated profession.

“We have seen about a five percent increase over the past five years with now on average 30 percent male nursing students,” said Heather Stephen-Selby, dean of Allied Health and director of nursing. “Only four percent of all nurses are male nationally.”

That interest is due in part because the job outlook for nursing looks promising. Based on her estimates, Stephen-Selby says demand for registered nurses is likely to increase steadily due to an increase in and the aging of the state’s population. Also there is a large number of nurses retiring or of retirement age that will add to the demand for more.

With all that interest, RTC is still hard-pressed to deliver quality instruction with ever shrinking budgets.

“RTC has always been a lean organization, so there are very few places, if any, to cut,” said Stephen-Selby. “Last year the college had to cut vital support services to students which supported tutoring and writing for example. As the budget decreases, so do student services and program options.”

Those sentiments are echoed in the Major Appliance and Refrigeration Technology Department.

“Students come in and they pay their tuition and that tuition’s always increasing and they expect quality education,” said instructor John Campbell. “And, we need to have the resources to be able to provide that. It becomes difficult to offer more people that same quality education with less resources.”

The department has still managed to be successful at placing students in jobs. Between March 2008 and December 2010 it graduated 37 students and placed 33 of them into jobs. For the last year and a half it has had a waiting list for the program. And the job outlook appears promising for this field.

“According to the latest Bureau of Labor and Statists findings, they have estimated in our industry and also in the HVAC (heating, ventilation and air conditioning) industry, a 40 percent shortage of technicians by the year 2016,” said Campbell.

Graduates are finding success today.

Philip Merriman graduated in August of 2010 and says his transition to appliance repair man and HVAC technician for Olson Appliance Service was seamless.

“It was definitely a positive experience, no regrets there,” said Merriman of his decision to go to the school and pursue his major.

He said it is rewarding to work on something new every day, using his skills to fix things and comforting knowing the information about the day-to-day work situations he was instructed on was accurate.

Both programs encounter a large number of English as a second language learners and instructors and deans fear what will happened if funding for those training programs is cut.

“In addition, we have a large population of adult students who are multi-lingual speakers but are challenged to go through English as a Second Language classes and then seek training; as funding in this area is cut we will not be able to assist them to make the transition into workforce training programs,” Stephen-Selby said.

For the Major Appliance and Refrigeration department funding cuts would also affect its ability to do hands-on learning.

“So specific examples would be when we teach refrigeration and we don’t have all the tools and consumables that we need,” said Campbell. “Instead of everybody having their own equipment to learn on, they have to share it and it cuts down on the hands-on training time that they need to get.”

Despite the challenges, educators are still training the masses that show up expecting a brighter future.

“This program has been here since 1972 and I imagine that if you had a technician come to your home, it would probably be a 50/50 shot whether he had been trained here over the years,” said instructor Paul Baeder of the Major Appliance and Refrigeration program.

“For me it’s been a very rewarding career here to help people retrain into a new career that just helps people change their lives for the better,” Campbell said.