New Applicants Increase, Renewals Taper Off

Over the last 8 or 9 months, I have noticed that even as my new-applicant classes have been consistently full (and occasionally, I have to turn away potential students), my renewal classes have been getting smaller. There were two changes in the law that could affect this, one of which hasn’t really kicked in yet.

The change that is already having an effect is that after your 2nd renewal, you only have to get a new TR100 every 10 years (you still have to renew and pay the fee, but you only have to take a renewal class every other renewal).

The change that will kick in next year is the extension of the renewal period from 4 years to the current 5 years. I expect renewal classes to shrink substantially for a while after the last of the 4 year licenses come up for renewal, then slowly come back up over a period of several months.

I recall at the last instructor re-certification that there were a lot of grumbles about both of those changes, and speculation that it would reduce the incomes of CHL instructors. So far, I have not found that to be the case, since the surge in new applicants has more than made up for the lack of renewals.

And, fortunately, I don’t do CHL classes for a living.