Helping adult learners be successful

By Anne Marie Leland, October guest blogger

As Minnesota State Economist Tom Stinson said earlier this month, “Focusing just on expenditure cuts may be short sighted — productivity growth and long term cost saving may require investments which increase short term expenditures.”

Suggesting that the state consider expenditures that don’t have a “right now” economic impact may be considered difficult in light of the current Minnesota budget woes. There is ample data and rationale to suggest otherwise when we consider the population of Minnesota adults who are low-wage and educationally underprepared.

As discussed in my first post, postsecondary education is critical for our economic competitiveness. By 2018, 70% of all jobs in Minnesota will require some postsecondary training beyond high school. Currently, 40% of working adults have no high school diploma, only a high school diploma or have some postsecondary education (no degree or certificate). Current demographics make it impossible for this need to be filled solely from new high school graduates. Minnesota FastTRAC aims to be a key strategy to help close that gap by creating adult career pathways for low-wage, low-skilled Minnesotans.

According to the 2008 US Census — American Community Survey, Minnesota has a significant population of working learners, ages 18-64, who may not have the basic skills required to enter and succeed in postsecondary education. Of these working learners,

• 251,210 have no high school diploma or GED
• 892,744 have a high school diploma but have not entered college

Adults with basic skill needs entering postsecondary and career and technical education (CTE) programs are often at a disadvantage. Adult working learners face a myriad of other challenges — the need to work, support a family, upgrade digital literacy skills — that make persisting in education difficult. Typical challenges for some of these adults include lack of:

• affordable childcare
• transportation
• knowledge in enrolling in postsecondary education
• study skills compared with expected college behavior
• time to enroll in education due to economic and family constraints
• successful experiences in traditional education settings
• stable housing

According to the 2010 US Census, there are now about 544,000 Minnesotans in poverty, comprising 10.8% of the state's population. About one million or one in four, are considered near poor with incomes less than 200 percent of the poverty threshold. When set in the context of Minnesota’s poverty rate hurdles that face low-wage, low-skilled adults present a challenge when addressing the skills gap.

For some, it is difficult to think about investing in adult education when there are comparable issues facing our youth. Yet, there are very strong linkages between investing in parents’ education and positive outcomes for their children.

FastTRAC partners see at least three promising connections between the Minnesota FastTRAC initiative and the state’s early education efforts:

1. As the evidence shows, increasing parents’ educational levels is good for their kids, and FastTRAC is based on nationally promising career pathway models to assist low-wage adults in particular to access education, good jobs, and family-sustaining careers;
2. Possible connections between existing early childhood education programs and FastTRAC adult career pathway programs to systemically pursue “dual generation strategies” and provide the quality child care/supportive services adult career pathway participant need; and
3. FastTRAC adult career pathway programs in the early childhood education field to help prepare quality early education practitioners (who can really relate to the low-income parents of the children in these programs).

As noted by Tom Stinson, increasing productivity — especially among our state’s working adults — is a prudent and wise investment. The FastTRAC model fits this paradigm in that it has the potential to greatly increase productivity for the target population of low-skilled adults AND the investment can be made through the proven use of re-directed existing funds and collaborative partnerships.

For an up close look at a local FastTRAC program in Southern Minnesota, please watch this video and hear from students, service providers and employers.

Comments

[Dane Smith]

From Dane Smith, president of Growth & Justice (growthandjustice.org): Thanks to Anne Marie Leland for this fine post, lots of compelling new stats in there. It’s powerful to actually list how many adults in Minnesota lack any kind of post-high-school credential. We can’t DO a modern economy with a million adults lacking the basics.