Two year colleges are solution to nation's economic woes

We recently learned that Wisconsin had the 42nd worst job creation record in the nation last year. Unemployment and underemployment remain unacceptably high.

At the same time, area employers are facing a skilled labor shortage. They simply cannot find the middle skilled workers they need to grow their businesses.

According to New York Times columnist Joe Nocera investing in two year colleges like MATC is the solution.

He writes: "Community colleges can be our salvation...and approvingly quotes Eduardo Padrón, the President of Miami Dade, the nation's largest two year college, “'Community colleges are the great American invention in terms of education. Their raison d’être has always been to help grease the wheels of social mobility...with the skills gap such a pressing problem — and a high school education so clearly inadequate for the modern economy — the task of teaching those skills is falling to community colleges. There really isn’t another institution as well positioned to play that role.'"       

Unfortunately Nocera says: "Many state governments have ravaged the budgets of their community college systems..." Wisconsin, for example, slashed technical college funding by 30% in its last biennial budget. the largest cut in the Wisconsin Technical College Systems' history.

Nocera concludes: "Given what’s at stake, it would be hard to imagine anything more shortsighted than paring back support for community colleges."

His entire column is linked here.      

Two-year college students blocked from enrolling

Colleges and universities are experiencing unprecedented cuts in public funding.

In Wisconsin Governor Walker's budget slashed technical college funding by 30% for each of the next two years. As a result, technical college state funding has returned to a level not seen since the 1980s. The state's investment in the Milwaukee Area Technical College, the Wisconsin Technical College Systems' (WTCS) flagship institution with more than 50,000 students,  has dwindled to a measly 7% of total funding. The state's contribution is suppose to be 33%..

At the same time the University of Wisconsin system was cut by $250 million and more cuts are being contemplated.

Across the country similar draconian cuts are undermining access to higher education as colleges and universities cut back on classes and sections and increase tuition to make up for the loss of state funding. The cuts are also undermining the ability of two-year colleges like MATC to address the skills gap by training the  the next generation of skilled and technical workers at the very time that large numbers of veterans and dislocated workers are enrolling to acquire new skills of upgrade existing ones.

The Latest issue of the Chronicle on Higher Education reports:

A weak job market has brought a wave of applicants to community colleges in search of job training, but those same students are finding it difficult to gain access to courses they need, says a report released Thursday.


Nearly four in 10 community-college students responding to a national survey commissioned by the Pearson Foundation said they were unable to enroll in at least one class they wanted this fall, and 20 percent said they had trouble enrolling in the courses they needed to complete their degree or certificate.
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Students who had the most difficulty with course enrollment were those attending part time and taking remedial courses.


Pearson's first survey of community-college students, conducted last year, found similar results, with one in five students feeling squeezed out of classes they needed.

The Chronicle of Higher Ed article is linked here.

Wiconsin's tech college grads have higher employment rate and starting salaries than 4 year grads

The New York Times reports that only half of four-year college grads are landing jobs that require a four-year degree and that starting salaries have fallen from $30,000 in 2006 to 2008 to only $27,000 in 2010-11.

And these are the lucky ones. Only 56% of four-year college grads even held a job.

These results makes a Wisconsin technical college education look quite attractive.

The Wisconsin Technical College System’s Graduate Follow-up Report indicates that 88 percent of  2009- 2010 technical college graduates were employed within six months of graduation, 71% in fields related to their field of study.

The median starting salary for all technical college grads was also higher than salaries earned by four-year college grads at  $31, 198.

Associate Degree	$35,676
Two-Year Technical Diploma	$31,198
One-Year Technical Diploma	$29,118
Short-Term Technical Diploma	$24,568

And, of course, technical college students graduate with significantly less debt than their four-year counterparts.

The New York Times article is linked here and the WTCS Grad report is linked here.

Cuts to tech college funding undermine economic recovery

At a time when technical college enrollments are soaring, Governor Walker is proposing to slash Wisconsin Technical College System (WTCS) state funding by 30% and freeze the property tax levy at its current level.

In an analysis of these proposals, Wisconsin Budget Project warns that Walker is jeopardizing the state's fragile economic recovery by asking Wisconsin's technical colleges to take a disproportionately large cut especially following years of declining state aid.

The WTCS was established in the early 1970s with three equal sources of funding, one-third state aid, one-thrid property taxes, and one-third other sources.

As recently as 1990 the state contributed 30% of the sixteen college system's' funding. By 2010, however, state aid had fallen to a record low of only 8% despite enrollment increases of 36% between 2001 and 2010. Walker proposes to slash another $70 million in his 2011-2013 budget.

This combination of declining state aid and increasing enrollment means that state aid per student has tanked, dropping from about $2,900 (in 2010 dollars) in 2001 to about $1,700 in 2010, a decline of more than 40 percent. As result, WTCS's students have the largest unmet financial need of all of Wisconsin's college students.

Since the early 1990's Wisconsin's business leaders have argued that the biggest obstacle to business expansion and economic growth was the state's shortage of skilled workers.  As recently as last week, Badger Meter, Inc. CEO Rich Meeusen, an avid Walker booster, acknowledged that having "a pool of talented employees" was more important to business expansion decisions than low tax rates.

Wisconsin's technical colleges have a stellar one hundred year track record of training the state's "pool of talented employees." 

At a time when firms like Marinette Marine, Oshkosh Truck, Bucyrus Erie and their Wisconsin-based supplier chains are struggling to hire hundreds of skilled workers, cutting WTCS funding and the state's supply of skilled workers is the wrong thing to do. It will undermine the Wisconsin's fragile economic recovery, the prosperity of its citizens and businesses and Governor Walker's campaign promise to create 250,000 new jobs.

When the Committee on Joint Finance convenes on Thursday to discuss Walker's WTCS budget proposals it should restore the WTCS's state funding and remove the property tax levy cap.

The Wisconsin Budget Project analysis is linked here.

Wisconsin State Journal says invest in MATC

A recent Wisconsin State Journal (WSJ) editorial in support of MATC entitled "MATC deserves priority this fall" was in sharp contrast to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel's (MJS) over the top coverage of MATC a week ago.

The catch-the WSJ piece was about Madison Area Technical College, while the MJS's was about Milwaukee Area Technical College, the Wisconsin Technical College System's large flagship campus with 55,000 students and 125 associate degree and diploma programs.

The MJS recently ran two front page, above the fold articles that inaccurately claimed MATC was facing a "looming financial crisis" and implied that bloated faculty salaries were the cause. The WSJ, in contrast, editorialized about the important role Madison Area Technical College is playing in providing dislocated workers with retraining and reviving the Wisconsin economy and endorsed a $131 million investment in the college.

Differences in Madison and Milwaukee faculty compensation, however, are minimal.

Madison's instructional cost per full time equivalent (FTE) student was 7th lowest in the 16 district system at $9,416, while Milwaukee's was 6th lowest at $9,485.

Madison total costs per FTE was 9th at $12,921, while Milwaukee's was 8th at $13,367.

Both have exceptionally high and stable bond ratings.

So if faculty compensation and fiscal management don't explain the differences in editorial tone and analysis, what does?

Perhaps the MJS's hostility to pubic employees and their unions explains their coverage. The former is evidenced by its on-going series of front page articles on public employee pay without a similar focus on exorbitant CEO compensation and or corporate corruption. The later is demonstrated by the papers treatment of its own employees who have experienced layoffs and salary cuts and the MJS's universal support for concessions.

Over the last five years from Harley Davidson to Mercury Marine, from the auto industry to the County, from MPS to MATC, the Journal Sentinel editorial Board has never editorialized about an employer demand for concessions it didn't support. In the case of MATC it proposes them even after acknowledging that the faculty union has given major concessions including voluntarily giving up a negotiated salary increase and agreeing to health care concessions.

The MJS's skewed coverage of MATC was also in startling contrast to its coverage of recent Public Policy Forum reports on the City and the County's budgets. Both studies documented real financial challenges, much more challenging than MATC's. In fact, the County's financial situation is so perilous that the Greater Milwaukee Committee says it is on the verge of bankruptcy and has proposed dissolving the County. The MJS has endorsed that proposal. Yet, its articles on the City and the County were buried on the third page of the local section.

While the Great Recession has intensified financial pressures on all units of local government, the single biggest cause of their structural financial problems is the rapid decline in state support. The City of Milwaukee's shared revenue has declined from 46% of its budget ten years ago to only 34% today. MATC's state aid has declined from 30% in 1990 to 13% today. Yet the MJS's articles fail to even mention unfunded state mandates and declining state revenues.

The WSJ editorial in support of a $131.7 million referendum begins:

Madison Area Technical College is on the front lines of putting people back to work and helping others keep their jobs in this challenging economy.

The community college is training — and re-training — tens of thousands of workers in south-central Wisconsin each year. And a slew of them are well past the age of traditional students.

It concludes:

...no unit of government is in a better position to address those needs than the local community college.

Vote “yes” for MATC on Nov. 2.

The entire editorial is linked .

Wisconsin Jobs Initiative is crucial for economic recovery

Wisconsin’s unemployed workers are enrolling in the state’s 16 technical colleges in record numbers, stretching the Wisconsin Technical College System's (WTCS) capacity to the breaking point.

Milwaukee Area Technical College (MATC), the WTCS's largest institution, is currently experiencing a 27% increase in enrollment.

The states other 15 technical colleges have experienced similar record enrollment increases, led by Blackhawk Technical College in Janesville, home of the a closed GM manufacturing plant, which led all tech colleges last year with a 21.5% increase and an astounding 42% over the last two years.

Record enrollments are being driven by dislocated workers and veterans seeking retraining and because the relatively low cost of technical colleges is attractive to all students.

On Saturday the Milwaukee Journal Journal highlighted MATC's work retraining laid off Midwest Airline pilots.

With unemployment projected to remain stubbornly high into 2012 and a record number of long-term unemployed, tech colleges anticipate that enrollment increases will continue. This year, 14 of the 16 colleges are estimating increases of over 10 percent and half of the colleges are estimating increases of 15 percent or more in FTE enrollment.

In an effort to accommodate the influx of students, technical colleges have added increased sections, expanded evening, weekend and on-line courses, increased student pupil ratios, relaxed enrollment deadlines and waived application and other fees for dislocated workers

Many programs at MATC and other tech colleges are now at capacity, despite running day and night and on weekends. Waiting lists are growing.

The Obama administration recognized the key role tech colleges play in helping the economy and the nation's workers recover when it appropriated $12 billion for two -year college education and training.

But there is a catch. Federal training dollars in the America's Graduation Initiative require a local match. Once the bill passes the United States Senate early next year, it will be up to Governor Doyle and the democratically controlled Wisconsin Legislature to appropriate additional funds so that Wisconsin qualifies for these federal training dollars.

State Representative Cory Mason (D-Racine) has authored legislation, the Wisconsin Jobs Initiative, that would appropriate $145 million and generate a $135 million federal match. The bill provides enough funds to train an additional 40,000 Wisconsin workers. Milwaukee's Tamara Grigsby (D-Milwaukee) is the second lead on the bill which has been endorsed by 18 additional legislators and the Wisconsin Technical College Boards Association.

When the Legislature reconvenes after the holidays it is critical that it pass this legislation. Otherwise, the doors of opportunity will begin to close on Wisconsin's dislocated workers.

Interest in hands-on education soars in Wisconsin

Nearly one thousand more students transferred from Wisconsin's public universities and colleges to its technical colleges (3,850) than the other way (2,903) according to the most recent data.

It turns out that the Wisconsin Technical College System (WTCS) is the state's largest graduate school.

Students are voting with their feet for a more focused and practical education despite a major push by University and elected officials to increase Wisconsin's percentage of baccalaureate degree holders.

Students are transferring to the WTCS because its diploma and associate degree programs provide students with hands-on education and marketable skills utilizing a pedagogy that integrates thinking and doing. These one and two-year programs enable students to secure family supporting employment and provide employers with the skilled workers and technicians they need.

It also doesn't hurt, especially in this depressed economy, that technical college tuition is lower than UW's.

The appeal of hands-on education is not limited to the WTCS. It also helps explain the extraordinary success of the Milwaukee Public Schools Project Lead the Way. MPS currently has more students of color participating in STEM (science, technology and math education) that any school system in the country.

Project Lead the Way students get exposed to cutting-edge technology, science and math through integrated, hands-on learning. But there's one more benefit that trumps all the rest, according to Lauren Baker, coordinator for career and technical education at MPS, "They learn these incredible problem-solving skills - the kids learn how to think," Baker said.

A recent New York Times article by Matthew B. Crawford makes the same point when he writes:

If the goal is to earn a living, then, maybe it isn’t really true that 18-year-olds need to be imparted with a sense of panic about getting into college (though they certainly need to learn). Some people are hustled off to college, then to the cubicle, against their own inclinations and natural bents, when they would rather be learning to build things or fix things. One shop teacher suggested to me that “in schools, we create artificial learning environments for our children that they know to be contrived and undeserving of their full attention and engagement. Without the opportunity to learn through the hands, the world remains abstract and distant, and the passions for learning will not be engaged.”

The trades suffer from low prestige, and I believe this is based on a simple mistake. Because the work is dirty, many people assume it is also stupid. This is not my experience. I have a small business as a motorcycle mechanic in Richmond, Va., which I started in 2002. I work on Japanese and European motorcycles, mostly older bikes with some “vintage” cachet that makes people willing to spend money on them. I have found the satisfactions of the work to be very much bound up with the intellectual challenges it presents. And yet my decision to go into this line of work is a choice that seems to perplex many people...

For me at least there is more real thinking going on in the bike shop than there was in the think tank.

The article is linked.

Legislature should maintain its investment in technical colleges

On Friday the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel argued that "...the legislature's Joint Finance Committee should at the very least maintain its small increase in state aid for technical colleges."

The editorial board noted the critical role the Milwaukee Area Technical College (MATC) is playing in the Great Recession:

Milwaukee Area Technical College plays a key role in training workers for jobs during an economic downturn. This has never been clearer than during this recession. As unemployment numbers go up, students flood to MATC to sharpen current skills or learn new ones....

MATC is different from a traditional four-year college, but just as necessary. Most of the students at the school just take a class or two. But these classes may be just what they need to earn or keep a job.

In other words, MATC helps the community roll with the economic punches by helping workers and those laid off to reinvent themselves and adapt to new economic realities.

Technical college state aid has fallen from more than 30% of revenues in 1990 to a measly 13% today. This precipitous decline in state investment has shifted the burden of financing workforce education and training to property tax-paying homeowners and students, undermining the legislature's intent when it created the Wisconsin Technical College System (WTCS) in the 1970's with a three-legged funding model of one-third state aid, one-third local property taxes, and one- third other sources.

The Joint Finance Committee restored proposed cuts to WTCS general aid (totaling $3.37 million) and approved a 1% increase in general aid (totaling $1.84 million). It was the first increase since 2001. The vote was 12-4 on party lines with Democrats in favor and Republicans opposed.

The Journal Sentinel editorial in support of increased investment in technical education was its first since 1999.

Unemployed workers turn to technical colleges

The Times has an excellent article on the impact of GM's plant closing in Janesville. 2500 autoworkers have lost their jobs and another 1500 have been furloughed as supplier firms close.

Many of these workers are enrolling at Blackhawk Technical College whose enrollment has increased by 33%.

The college has responded by adding more basic skills courses and instructors, providing extra classes at night and on weekends, hiring a limited-term mental health counselor, borrowing staff from other colleges — and, in so many cases, just digging in and working extra hours. It even had to rent additional class room space and build a new parking lot.

Wisconsin's 16 technical colleges are emerging as the state's safety net for the growing army of dislocated workers. As the recession intensifies and layoffs escalate, technical colleges will be under increasing financial pressure to respond to the needs of the state's unemployed workers.

State policy makers need to recognize this surge in demand in the next budget by increasing their investment in the Wisconsin Technical College system.

Investment in higher ed crucial to affordability and prosperity

Wisconsin received an F for the affordability of higher education in a new study by the National Center for Public Policy and Higher Education.

College education was more affordable in Illinois and Minnesota, two states that have higher per capita incomes and a larger percentage of four- year graduates than Wisconsin.

For several years Wisconsin's political, education and business leadership has made increasing the number of four-year college graduates a public policy goal. But the state has not made the investments necessary to accomplish this goal.

According to a New York Times article on the report: "The rising cost of college — even before the recession — threatens to put higher education out of reach for most Americans..."

The report found that published college tuition and fees increased 439 percent from 1982 to 2007 while median family income rose 147 percent. Student borrowing has more than doubled in the last decade, and students from lower-income families, on average, get smaller grants from the colleges they attend than students from more affluent families.

The increase in costs has been particularly hard for middle class and poor families. Last year, the net cost at a four-year public university amounted to 28 percent of the median family income, while a four-year private university cost 76 percent of the median family income.

Among the poorest families — those with incomes in the lowest 20 percent — the net cost of a year at a public university was 55 percent of median income, up from 39 percent in 1999-2000.

Even at two-year colleges the cost was 49 percent of the poorest families’ median income last year, up from 40 percent in 1999-2000.

The cost of attending Wisconsin's public colleges has risen rapidly because state support has declined precipitously. As recently as 1990, the state provided the Wisconsin Technical System's colleges (WTCS) with about 30% of their funding. That contribution has fallen by 50% to less than 15%. WTCS students, who pay 20% of the costs, now contribute more than the state! And the state contribution to the University of Wisconsin's total operations budget has fallen to below 20%.

As the state's investment in higher education and occupational training has declined, the University of Wisconsin System and the Wisconsin Technical College System (WTCS) have raised tuition and fees, shifting the cost of post-secondary education to students and their families.

The WTCS's adult basic education tuition has increased 54.6% over the last ten years; collegiate transfer tuition by 57.3%. Two-year UW college tuition increased by a whopping 82.6% and UW Madison by 83.8%.

These tuition increases are making higher education less accessible for middle class and low- income students. Recent studies conducted by the University of Wisconsin System concluded that students from lower income families were increasingly under-represented in the state’s public baccalaureate education institutions. Between 1992 and 2002, the percentage of freshmen reporting family incomes in the lowest quintle (less than $30,000) fell by nearly one-fourth, from 14.5% to 11.0%. At the same time, the percentage of freshmen reporting family incomes in the state’s top quintile (greater than $87,000) rose by nearly one-fifth.

The WTCS/UW Committee on Baccalaureate Expansion concluded: "...Wisconsin students from lower income families have less access to a college education than in the U.S. as a whole."

Wisconsin's continued disinvesment in higher education makes a mockery of the goals of increasing the number of four-year college graduates and training a skilled labor force.

If these trends are not reversed, higher education and occupational training, keys to competitive advantage in the global economy, will be increasingly inaccessible for Wisconsin's middle and working class students.

State leaders, faced with a $5.4 billion deficit, need to resist the temptation to reduce Wisconsin's investment in higher education. It is a strategic investment that is essential to Wisconsin's long term growth and the prosperity of its businesses and citizens. It is particularly crucial now as dislocated workers and returning veterans flock to tech colleges.

In these hard times, the state needs to increase its investment in tech colleges and public universities so that when the economy begins to grow again we have the the skilled and technical workforce and the innovative ideas that a growing economy requires.

Wisconsin's prison costs crowd out higher education

Wisconsin policy makers have made increasing the number of four-year college graduates a strategic objective. Yet, the state's aggressive policy of incarceration is crowding out investments in higher education, undermining its ability to accomplish this goal.

Between 1987 and 2007, Wisconsin actually cut its support for higher education by 6%. Only 6 states reduced their investment in higher ed by more. During the same period, Wisconsin increased corrections spending by 251%, 8th highest nation, despite a declining crime rate.

Wisconsin's incarceration rates are higher than the neighboring states of Minnesota, Illinois and Iowa and the state's African American incarceration rate is the nation's highest.

A recent study released by the Pew Center on the States reports that the U.S. prison population has tripled over the past 20 years. The United States now holds the distinction of imprisoning more of its own citizens, both in total number and share of the adult population, than any country in the world.

In 2007, the United States had a record-breaking one out of every 100 adults in prison. Policy changes in sentencing and parole revocation, rather than increases in crime, have largely driven the increase in incarceration rates.

States, like Wisconsin, shoulder the vast majority of the costs associated with these policies. While states struggle with gaping budget shortfalls (see the recent report by the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities), incarceration rates and costs continue to escalate, consuming growing portions of state general funds and forcing cuts in high education and other programs.

As Wisconsin's higher education funding has declined, the University of Wisconsin System and the Wisconsin Technical College System (WTCS) have been forced to raise tuition, shifting the cost of post-secondary education to students and their families.

The WTCS's adult basic education tuition increased 54.6% over the last ten years; collegiate transfer tuition by 57.3%. Two-year UW colleges have increased their tuition by a whopping 82.6 and UW Madison by 83.8%. Rapidly rising tuition costs have made it even more difficult for lower income residents to pursue post secondary education.

Recent studies conducted by the University of Wisconsin System concluded that students from lower income families were increasingly under-represented in the state’s public baccalaureate education institutions. Between 1992 and 2002, the percentage of freshmen reporting family incomes in the lowest quintle (less than $30,000) fell by nearly one-fourth, from 14.5% to 11.0%. At the same time, the percentage of freshmen reporting family incomes in the state’s top quintile (greater than $87,000) rose by nearly one-fifth.

The WTCS/UW Committee on Baccalaureate Expansion concluded: "...Wisconsin students from lower income families have less access to a college education than in the U.S. as a whole."

Unless Wisconsin addresses its escalating incarceration costs, it will not be able to meet its objective of increasing the number of four-year graduates or train the next generation of technical and skilled workers.

Dave Obey stands up for Wisconsin's workers!

Early last week, President Bush vetoed a bill that financed education, health care and job training. On November 15th, Congress failed to get the two-thirds vote (277-141) needed to override the veto.

The $150.7 billion legislation would increase our nation's investment in education by$3.2 billion including an additional $25 million for the Carl Perkins Basic State Grant, one of the only sources of federal support for adult vocational education.

The Carl D. Perkins Vocational and Technical Education Act provides federal grants to community colleges, including Wisconsin's technical colleges, and high schools to train students from low-income families for jobs. Educating these students is the key to solving the Wisconsin's growing shortage of skilled workers, broadly recognized as the biggest obstacle to the state's economic growth, as well as one strategy for tackling Milwaukee's high poverty rate.

At the Milwaukee Area Technical College(MATC), the state's largest two-year college with over 50,000 students and 125 associate degree and diplomma programs, Carl D. Perkins funds the bilingual, multicultural and special needs offices. Computer labs, academic support centers, pre-college instruction necessary for entry into skills training and English as a Second Language classes are also financed through this program.

In 2004, fully 32.3% of MATC's grads received services provided by Perkins while over 20% of all MATC students received support services and instruction through these funds.

Perkins was last reauthorized in 1998, and President Bush has repeatedly tried to kill the program. Last year, states received about $1.3 billion from the program, with about 40 percent going to two-year colleges. The proposed increase was the first in six years for this program whose real value (adjusted for inflation) has fallen to $950 million.

Wisconsin's David R. Obey, chairman of the House Appropriations Committee, nailed it when he denounced Mr. Bush for rejecting the bill:

“The same president who is asking us to spend another $200 billion on the misguided war in Iraq and is insisting on providing $60 billion in tax cuts next year to folks who make over a million bucks a year” is “now refusing to provide a $6 billion increase to crucial domestic investments in education, health care, medical research and worker protections,” Mr. Obey said.

In an editorial today the Journal Sentinel mischaracterizes President Bush's action by suggesting that his veto may have been based on a principled opposition to earmarks. If that was the case, he would never have signed similar bills laden with almost twice as many earmarks when his Republican allies controlled Congress.

The President is hiding behind fiscal responsibility to promote his costly agenda of high end tax cuts (1.6 trillion) and military adventurism (projected cost of $2 trillion).

Congressman Obey is right. We need to make strategic investments in the nation and Wisconsin's labor force. The education and training bill should be passed and Carl D. Perkins increased.