How Washington can stimulate a quicker economic recovery

WASHINGTON'S community and technical colleges are bursting at the seams. This fall they enrolled 267,000 students, marking the third straight year of record-breaking enrollments.

This is no surprise. When the job market declines, community- and technical-college enrollments always spike because people seek opportunities to upgrade their skills and prepare for the new jobs that economic change creates.

But the scale of enrollment growth is surprising. The Worker Retraining Program, which serves laid-off workers, increased 70 percent this past fall to 9,000 students. Colleges expect another 16,000 people will become eligible for the program next year.

Every program — from English as a Second Language and basic education to university transfer preparation — is facing growing demand as well.

The students who enroll in our colleges are overcoming many obstacles to pursue better careers. Many are unemployed and many more are working parents who juggle the demands of family and work with school. These students see the economic reality that should be obvious to all: To get out of this recession, Washington residents need to retrain, re-educate, and refocus on the jobs of the 21st century.

Even with unemployment levels at heartbreaking highs, a recent skill-gap analysis by the state Workforce Training and Education Coordinating Board shows the state faces shortages of trained people for jobs that require the type of education that two-year colleges provide — jobs like nurses, lab technicians and accountants. After factoring in those currently training for these jobs, the analysis still reports more openings than qualified applicants.

Washington is facing a major collision between what local employers and the economy needs to recover and what our higher-education system can produce with record budget cuts. This is the reality for two-year colleges and four-year universities. Multiple rounds of cuts have our whole higher-education system struggling and this year's state budget shortfall threatens even deeper cuts.

But higher education in Washington is a good investment for two reasons.

First, we have an efficient system. A recent National Center for Higher Education Management study ranked Washington's community and technical colleges fourth in the nation in the number of degrees and skill certificates awarded relative to the amount of funding the colleges receive, while Washington's four-year universities ranked first in the nation in comparison with their peers. Our whole higher-education system gets more done with less funding than nearly any other state in the country.

Second, preparing people for the jobs of tomorrow can stimulate a faster economic recovery and long-term prosperity. As Washington emerges from this recession, employers will need people who are prepared for new green jobs, high-value export-related jobs, and jobs in increasingly high-tech fields such as manufacturing and agriculture.

A lack of investment in higher education could easily cause a bottleneck, slowing economic recovery and employment for Washington citizens. Cutting access to education and job training now will deny Washington's ability to recover, compete and prosper in the global economy.

The thousands of people knocking on the doors of higher-education institutions know what is needed for a brighter future. We hope our state policymakers will make funding decisions that keep those doors open.

We also hope Washingtonians will write or e-mail state legislators to let them know how important this is to our future (1-800-562-6000 and dlr.leg.wa.gov/memberemail).

Jim Bricker is chair of the Washington State Board for Community and Technical Colleges. Debra Lisser is president of the Trustees Association for Washington's Community and Technical Colleges. Pamela Transue is president of the Washington Association for Community and Technical Colleges and president of Tacoma Community College.