National Radio Institute

The National Radio Institute-McGraw Hill Continuing Education Center was a private post-secondary for-profit school, specifically a correspondence school, based in Washington, D.C., in business from 1914 to 2002. It originally trained students desiring to become radio operators and technicians. In 1922, the term "radiotrician" was coined for NRI graduates and registered with the U. S. patent office in 1928. NRI conducted its training courses through mailed lessons, a form of asynchronous learning. The first such home-study courses NRI offered were in radio repair (transmitters and receivers) and radio telegraphy & telephony. These courses were designed to be comprehensive, covering all facets of radio technology, including: radio operation, broadcasting, manufacturing, sales, and service.

Later, a FCC license exam preparation course was added and, in time, courses were added for students aspiring to become tradesmen in the broader field of electronic equipment servicing, including: TV & VCR repair (NRI registered the term "teletrician" with the U. S. patent office in 1938), basic electronics, automation & control systems, avionic & marine communication systems, and even a very early computer technology (logic and programming) correspondence course in 1971. Later, NRI further expanded to include courses in electric appliance repair, automotive mechanics, small engine repair, building construction, home inspection, air conditioning, refrigeration, heating, & solar technology, computer repair, locksmithing, as well as bookkeeping and accounting. Nevertheless, radio-television-electronics remained its largest division. NRI was America's oldest and largest home-study radio-television-electronics school, a claim they frequently advertised. The school was an accredited member of the Distance Education and Training Council, formally known as the Home Study Council and now known as the Distance Education Accrediting Commission.

The National Radio School was established in 1914 in Washington, D.C. by James Ernest Smith (1881–1973).¹ Smith was a teacher at McKinley Manual Training School (moved in 1926 to its present location and now known as McKinley Technology High School). He held a bachelor's degree in electrical engineering from Worcester Polytechnic Institute (B.S.E.E., 1906) and began his career at Westinghouse Electric Corporation in Pittsburgh, but he took an extended leave of absence to teach what remained in the term of an applied electricity course for a colleague at McKinley whom had become ill. It went well and Smith was offered a permanent position at the school, which he accepted. After a while, students began coming to him for private formal instruction and this is how the National Radio School began, when a small classroom was set up for four students inside the U. S. Savings Bank Building at 14th and U Street N.W., now the site of the Frank D. Reeves Municipal Center. Additional students quickly began to seek enrollment.

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