Never has our future been brighter be-cause of the opportunities presented to us as a result of our unique ability to transform the spoken word instantaneously into a searchable database. Never has our future been brighter because of the growing market for qualified broadcast captioners. Never has our future been brighter because of the burgeoning market for realtime in the college classroom. Never has our future been brighter because of the expanding demand for synchronous text to video on the Internet. The greatest threat to our profession is a dearth of students coupled with the dwindling number of programs.
Some states have no court reporting programs.
Some of the existing programs do not offer a college quality curriculum. One of the biggest external factors is the incredible economic boom of the last decade. With the economy up, enrollments at all postsecondary institutions have been in decline. Unemployment rates are low and there is a growing shortage of trained professionals to meet the demand in all professions. We need to help our schools recognize that 75 percent, identify where their weaknesses are and work with them to strengthen their abilities in those weak academic areas, thereby improving t heir chances of completing their training program.