Washington education expert predicts future work-force shortage

BREMERTON — Too few young people in Washington are earning college degrees, and if nothing is done the state will suffer big social costs, including increased incarceration, warns a top education leader.

Bill Grinstein of the Washington Higher Education Coordinating Board said to avoid that undesirable outcome, college must be made more accessible to more people.

The board is in charge of planning for the state's public institutions of higher learning. Grinstein made his remarks Friday to a meeting of some 100 members of the Kitsap Economic Development Alliance.

Washington ranks 38th in the nation in the number of bachelor's degrees awarded per capita, he said.

This state is not even close to producing enough college graduates to replace aging baby boomers in its work force, he added.

Some of that has to do with too little state funding for higher education and too few places to learn, he said.

Apparently, some of it has to do with a negative mind-set, too.

Often, students even as early as middle school come to believe they can't get into college because they don't have the grades or the money.

That has to change, he said, especially in this state, where financial aid is doled out more generously than in most other states.

Adding to the problem is that many Washington school districts have low graduation rates and low rates for re-entering college.

The answer, he said, is to "build a larger pipeline" funneling students into college, including not just those still in kindergarten through 12th grade but working adults who want to retrain in the classroom.

And that must take place now, even as the state suffers under an enormous budget crisis, he said.

Grinstein made several recommendations, among them:

• Expand the capacity to grant degrees at the state's community colleges, public universities and university centers.

• Bring higher-education opportunities to remote areas of the state and also to underserved populations.

• Expand Internet-learning opportunities.

Research shows the quality of Internet learning environments is equal to traditional classroom learning, he said.

Grinstein had little to say about Kitsap leaders' desire to expand four-year learning opportunities locally, but congratulated Olympic College, a community college in Bremerton, for its ongoing work to partner with WSU for more four-year degrees.

"You're on the right path here," he said.