LearnmoreMN Blog

It’s time to get serious about the skills gap

By Jonathan Blake, May guest blogger

All over Minnesota, parents and students are making one of the most important decisions of a lifetime: where to send that student to college. Everywhere you look, news stories are focusing on the dual issues of college affordability and student debt. Next to buying a house, it’s likely the biggest financial decision a family will make. As such, it is important that parents and students consider some hard facts about what the future holds for recent college graduates.

A recent report by the Federal Reserve Bank of New York found “the outstanding student loan balance now stands at about $870 billion, surpassing the total credit card balance [in America] ($693 billion) and the total auto loan balance ($730 billion).” Minnesota is unfortunately helping to lead the way. According to the Minnesota Office of Higher Education, the state is ranked fifth in the country for student debt.

College affordability and student debt should not be viewed in a vacuum. One of the most important things we can do to help alleviate the student debt burden is to equip graduates with the skills and experience they need to build successful careers. In this area, there is plenty of room for improvement.

One issue that should be addressed on the state and national level is the growing skills gap. According to the Department of Labor’s Bureau of Statistics there are currently as many as 3.5 million unfilled jobs in the U.S. because many companies can’t find qualified candidates. Here in Minnesota, according the president of the Minneapolis Federal Reserve, if qualified applicants were suddenly found for such open positions, the unemployment rate would drop by 2%. Such an impressive drop in the state unemployment rate should impress policymakers and cause higher ed administrators to take notice, especially during this prolonged economic recession.

The skills gap problem is worsened by the impending retirement of the baby boom generation. A Pew Research Center report indicates that 10,000 baby boomers will reach age 65 every day for the next 20 years. Whether the younger generation is prepared to replace these workers is up for debate. According to a recent survey of HR professionals by AARP, more than half said their older workers had “stronger writing grammar and spelling skills.”

This is not an argument for or against any specific type of educational pursuit. Rather, my intent is to show the necessity for higher education institutions to make adjustments amongst students and educators to ensure that the current and future workforce is prepared to fill the job requirements that a modern economy demands. If Minnesota is to retain its status for providing a highly trained workforce, changes must be made now to ensure that we remain up to that task.

How do we stop a workforce shortage?

By Kathy Schmidlkofer, March guest blogger

My last blog post challenged you to be an ambassador for our higher education system. But we need to do more. Our world-class workforce is one of our best regional assets, but threats to this status are certainly looming. Our region is currently experiencing a skills mismatch between our talent and the needs of our employers. This national trend is expected to continue. The big question is how do we turn this situation around so we have the right workforce prepared for the jobs of the future? I work for an organization trying to drive jobs and capital investment to our region so my sincere hope is that we can maintain the competitive advantage our workforce gives us.

The challenge of the future is two-fold in our region. We have a significant disparity in educational attainment between whites and our ethnic minority communities. In addition, while post-secondary institutions in the state are producing many graduates, they are not meeting private-sector demand in high-growth STEM fields (science, technology, engineering and math). Aligning degrees with needed skills will be critical to promoting individual success and economic growth. Site selectors tell us that the number one criterion for companies looking to place jobs is the availability, talent, and skill level of the workforce so, to maintain the economic vitality of this region, we cannot afford to ignore this workforce shortage.

Key demographic trends are disturbing given the need for a more educated workforce. The recent Compass report by the Wilder Foundation said the state’s population is getting older, more diverse, has a widening income gap, and educational disparities that start early and continue.

While more than four of five white, non-Hispanic high school students in Minnesota graduate on time, just over half of students of color do, according to the report. However, in an encouraging sign, the graduation rate for students of color has risen more than 10 percentage points since 2003.

Education levels will have a direct impact on the economic health of our region’s residents. Unemployment rates go down as educational attainment rises. As the demand for highly skilled workers has increased so has the wage premium of higher education. In 1975, bachelor’s degree holders earned 57% more than high school graduates. In 2007, they earned 83% more.

Employers need to play a key role in communicating their future needs to the higher education establishment. This is especially true of fields where they expect growth as well as the need for broader skill sets. Jobs today are demanding a more flexible skillset: Employers report that communication, reading comprehension, critical thinking, and ability to learn are key skills they seek in employees. As workforce needs change, perhaps employers also will be challenged to consider filtering students differently. Rather than filtering by the prestige of a graduate’s academic institution and specific degree, employers may need to review how they assess a candidate’s specific skills such as the ability to communicate, problem solving, leadership, and critical reasoning skills.

Educators already are aware of the challenges ahead and are working toward solutions. At GREATER MSP, our Partnership Advisory Council has made turning around the workforce shortage a priority and its members are working with MnSCU and other education organizations and businesses throughout the region to address and solve the mismatch.

Knowing that this workforce shortage could get worse without substantive action, I turn the question to you: What else should be done?

Our best and brightest: A major regional draw

by Kathy Schmidlkofer, March guest blogger

This is my challenge to you: Be an ambassador for our region’s higher education system.

As part of an organization that is working to drive job growth and capital investment in the Greater MSP 13-county metro area, one of my key messages to potential employers is that our skilled workforce is one of our greatest assets.

Site selectors tell us that the number one criterion for companies looking to place jobs is the availability, talent, and skill level of the workforce. Our region consistently ranks as one of the best-educated, most productive workforces in the country.

Greater MSP’s world-class workforce is thanks in large part to our higher education system, which falls into four main groups. Here are some interesting facts about them that should make you proud.

• The University of Minnesota’s Twin Cities campus has been listed as a “Public Ivy” in The Public Ivies: America's Flagship Public Universities for offering an education comparable to those of the Ivy League schools.
• Minnesota State Colleges and Universities (MnSCU), provide workforce training to 125,000 students annually through partnerships with employers.
• Private colleges such as Augsburg College and Hamline University offer a world-class liberal arts education with an approach that prepares students to deal with complexity, diversity, and change.
• Private for-profit schools such as Cappella, Rasmussen, and Walden, are based in Greater MSP and offer traditional and online learning environments with a global reach.

Higher education spending by all of these institutions totals more than $7 billion a year. As the demand for higher education increases, that investment already has gone a long way toward our region’s reputation. The Daily Beast calls the region “one of America’s top brainpower cities,” based on its intellectual environment and percentage of residents with college degrees. The state ranks sixth in the nation for the percentage of our population with an associate degree or higher, with MnSCU campuses granting the most degrees. Private colleges have produced notable leaders such as former U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan, who graduated from Macalester College, and Timothy Flynn, a University of St. Thomas graduate, who recently retired as global chairman of KPMG International.

Besides educating future workers, these academic institutions and their research and development focus provide our region with additional economic benefits. As an example, inventions at the University of Minnesota brought nearly $390 million to the state in the past five years and its alumni have founded 10,000 companies in the state. The importance of these institutions to private enterprise cannot be understated.

Our region offers an all-encompassing array of higher education alternatives but too few people here talk up our leading edge. Let us all be ambassadors for our outstanding higher education establishment. Please join me in spreading the word about a valuable resource that distinguishes our region amidst intense global competition.

More information about GREATER MSP

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.

Bridging the skills-credential gap

By Anne Marie Leland, October guest blogger

Minnesota faces the reality that it needs to educate adults to help meet our future workforce needs. According to a recent study conducted by Georgetown University, Help Wanted: Projections of Jobs and Education Requirements through 2018, 70% of Minnesota jobs will require education beyond high school by 2018. Yet today, only 40% of working-age adults in Minnesota have a postsecondary degree as stated in Minnesota Measures: 2009 Report on Higher Education Performance. Minnesota FastTRAC is one strategy to close the 30% postsecondary skills gap in Minnesota — it is among a set of complementary strategies the state will pursue to address the skill/credential gap.

Minnesota FastTRAC is a cross-agency initiative to increase adult postsecondary credential attainment in high demand occupations that lead to family-supporting wages. It is a pathway back-to-work strategy that integrates basic skills education, career-specific training, and support services to meet the needs of low-wage, educationally-underprepared adults. Each local FastTRAC program consists of a series of connected educational and training programs that allow low-skilled adults to advance over time to successively higher levels of education and employment in a given sector, from basic skills education to a postsecondary credential.

By addressing local skills gaps, FastTRAC programs work as effective supply chains for employers in need of skilled labor. This ensures that students have good job prospects once they finish their program. Currently, Minnesota has 27 operating FastTRAC programs throughout the state made up of partnerships of employers, Adult Basic Education, workforce development, and Minnesota State Community and Technical Colleges.

With collaboration among a wide array of public, nonprofit, and business stakeholders, the FastTRAC Initiative is beginning to change the way Minnesota approaches talent development for adults. Moreover, the FastTRAC approach is significantly more successful than traditional postsecondary education/training approaches for nontraditional adult learners: studies, such as Building Bridges to Postsecondary Training for Low-Skill Adults: Outcomes of Washington State’s I-BEST Program from the Community College Research Center, Teacher’s College, Columbia University, show that students in programs like FastTRAC are 29-35% more likely to earn a postsecondary credential.

Minnesota is already hearing from employers that FastTRAC works:

"In the health care industry where the majority of our staff are certified nursing assistants, this FastTRAC program has been a godsend. People who are unsure of their desire to do this type of work can get a feel for what it will be like. Those who perhaps have a limited job history or limited successful job history are coached and shown how to achieve success. Those who are successful now have an avenue to enter advanced training and get a taste of college courses.   

This is an indispensable program and the time, money and effort spent on it needs to be maintained. We find that those who have been through this program easily get through their crucial first year of employment, and those who have shown interest in the advanced training are usually 5 plus year employees."
—Deb Barnes, Administrator/Regional Director, Parker Oaks Communities, Elder Care of MN

What are other examples of how more Minnesota adults are successfully pursuing a postsecondary credential?

This way or the highway

By Lindsey Alexander, July guest blogger

Last week, the New York Times published an article on the challenges facing vocational education in the U.S. today. They profiled a young man, Matt Kelly, who was disinterested in school and failing several high school classes. His mother feared he wouldn’t graduate. But a counselor encouraged him to take some classes at a nearby vocational academy in his junior year. There he found himself interested and motivated by the coursework. He started getting A’s and B’s and earned a scholarship to a community college.

Mr. Kelly’s experience mirrors that of thousands and thousands of students across the country. They have a hard time taking interest or finding motivation in the current educational system and upon graduation from high school (if they make it that far) — they are essentially set adrift in the labor market.

In his 2009 State of the Union speech, President Obama spoke of a plan to increase U.S. post-secondary attainment. In his speech, he asked every American to commit to one year or more of education beyond high school adding, “this can be community college, a four-year school, vocational training or an apprenticeship.” The range of post-secondary options presented by President Obama is important. For the past few decades, the four-year degree has been touted as the ticket to the middle class. While this emphasis on the bachelor’s degree has worked well for many students, there is a significant portion of the population that it does not work for. It is critical that we find a way to train and educate all young people if we expect to meet the future needs of individuals and our economy.

According to Pathways to Prosperity, a report released earlier this year by the Harvard Graduate School of Education, 70% of high school graduates go to college within two years of graduating, but only 40% of them obtain a degree by their mid-20s. Furthermore, the U.S. has the highest college dropout rate in the industrialized world. In addressing why these problems may be occuring, the report says:

Certainly a major reason is that too many [students] can’t see a clear, transparent connection between their program of study and tangible opportunities in the labor market. We fail these young people not because we are indifferent, but because we have focused too exclusively on a few narrow pathways to success. It is time to widen our lens and to build a more finely articulated pathways system — one that is richly diversified to align with the needs and interests of today’s young people and better designed to meet the needs of the 21st century economy.

This focus on “a few narrow pathways to success” might explain a lot of the problems plaguing higher education: non-completion, skyrocketing costs, students arriving and/or graduating unprepared, unsatisfied employers, increases in student loans, barriers to access, etc.

Creating multiple pathways to careers might help young people find a connection to a future, stay interested in school and explore post-secondary options that make sense for them.

The Department of Education reports that 75% of students who start public high school graduate within five years, but this figure increases to more than 90% when students concentrate in “career-oriented courses.” As the guidance counselor of the young man in the New York Times article said, “Matt came in with zero motivation — let’s face it. [Technical courses were] a route to get him to see his future.”

As part of the Citizens League’s higher education project we’ve asked people to re-imagine our system of higher education — the institutions themselves, but also K-12, students, employers, families and society. If clearly defined career pathways are indeed what is needed, what do they look like? How might we create them? What role would the various players (employers, students, K-12, etc.) have in these pathways?

Citizens League takes on higher ed reform

By Lindsey Alexander, July guest blogger

In January, the Citizens League began a multi-phase project looking at higher education in Minnesota. Higher education, as we define it here, includes post-secondary education of any kind (certificate programs, two- and four-year programs, public, private, for-profit, etc.).

The initial research, conducted as part of the project’s first phase, has included conversations with people involved in all aspects of higher education. Through these conversations a number of issues have emerged. They include:

Preparedness
Many people are concerned that a rising number of students are not adequately prepared for college-level coursework. A 2010 study by the University of Minnesota and MnSCU found that 40% of Minnesota public high school students entering a public college or university had to take at least one remedial course in math, writing or reading, up from 30% in 2000.

How can our current system of K-12 education better prepare students for the rigor of post-secondary education?

Link to K-12
Advocates of better overlap between K-12 and post-secondary believe earlier and more effective K-12 career counseling could enable students to chart a personalized path to a career, which would allow them to more efficiently acquire training, credits and experiences in ways and at institutions most relevant to their future. Helping students to identify their aptitudes and interests early on helps them to focus on–and stay interested in–the classes and programs that are most relevant to their future.

How can we create and enhance K-12 and post-secondary connections to create a more cohesive approach?

Connection with employers
Many stakeholders interviewed said that it is important to bring employers into the discussion of any reform strategy and for employers to better articulate the skills and abilities graduates need to be workforce ready. Can employers adequately articulate what they are looking for in new employees? Can institutions — both post-secondary and K-12 — measure whether students are graduating with those skills and abilities?

Much of the growth in jobs over the next decade will be in positions that require less than a bachelor’s degree, including jobs that require little post-secondary education but some degree of on-the-job training. How can we prepare students to enter the workforce after graduation from high school?

Online innovations
Numerous stakeholders voiced concern that the higher education business model has not evolved well. Many believe online learning is a major innovation in higher education.

Advocates of higher education innovation argue there are two particularly valuable characteristics of online institutions, such as Western Governors University. First, they are separate from traditional systems of higher education. There’s no pressure to fit into the traditional model of higher education so they are freer to innovate than traditional bricks and mortar institutions. Second, online colleges and universities focus solely on teaching and learning.

Critics question the rigor of online education and whether online courses can truly impart the critical thinking skills employers value. What role could and should online education play in Minnesota’s higher education system?

***
What do you think of the above issues? Please post a comment to share your views. To learn more about this work go to www.citizing.org/projects/highered or read the full story on these issues in the May/June edition of MN Journal.

Why Minnesota needs a specific goal and a deadline for higher education completion

By Dane Smith, April guest blogger

Parents say it, business leaders and sports team coaches pound on it, and we all know this truism is true: We all perform better with goals and deadlines.

I think baseball legend and malaprop master Yogi Berra said it best: "If you don't know where you are going, you'll end up someplace else." Or as David Metzen, former director of the Minnesota Office of Higher Education under Gov. Tim Pawlenty told us last year, "You run faster if you have a goal and a stopwatch than you do if you have neither."

At Growth & Justice, a policy research organization focused on broadening prosperity in Minnesota, the goal and the stopwatch for higher education attainment is our top public policy priority. We are leading an effort to convince state leaders to establish an official goal for a 75% post-high-school completion rate for Minnesota by the end of this decade. This means that by 2020, 75% of our young adults (by the age of 25) will have acquired some form of post-secondary educational diploma or certificate.

Right now, only about half our workforce at that age has reached this goal. It's important to note that we are not necessarily talking about bachelor's degrees or even two-year associate degrees. An accredited certificate as Home Care Health Aide or in Child Development, for instance, would count as attainment under our goal-setting metrics.

And although it may seem obvious to most of us that striving for and reaching this goal is a good thing, and that knowledge improves our inherent human worth, here's the hard-headed business sense on why this is important. While Minnesota is fortunate to be home to a "smarter" and more productive economy than most states, our distinctive prosperity and quality-of-life won't continue unless we reinforce our proud culture of maximizing educational achievement and attainment. A mountain of evidence shows a strong and direct and growing correlation between education and personal income, education and productivity, education and health, education and civic engagement, and education and broad socio-economic vitality.

In a competitive global economy that is demanding smarter workers and ever greater technological skill, we have no choice. And although that 75% goal may look a little arbitrary, we know it's in the ballpark of what we need. A recent study by the Georgetown University Center on Education and the Workforce found that Minnesota will need 70% of its workforce to have post-secondary training by the year 2018. Here's a direct quote from the report: "The District of Columbia, Massachusetts, Colorado, Minnesota and Washington state will lead the nation in job openings requiring postsecondary education."

Many groups and leaders are rallying around this goal-setting, nationally and in Minnesota. President Obama, noting that the United States has lost its historic and traditional place as the most educated nation in the world, has set a goal of making us #1 again in average attainment. And making Minnesota the most educated state in the world's most educated nation is about as good as it gets for goal-setting.

STEM: Is elementary too soon?

By Tony Murphy, March guest blogger

We hear a lot about science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM), both as a K-12 education issue and a challenge to meet future business personnel needs. The Obama administration is clearly focused on this as a major initiative. Equally at the state level, there is a focus on STEM education, particularly with the introduction of engineering standards in the recently revised K-12 science academic standards. Why this focus and why now?

There are numerous reasons for this. Many reports over the last decade have pointed to the low numbers of STEM graduates in this country and the low numbers of people of color and women in particular STEM areas. If the U.S. is to maintain its economic power, then we need a well-educated workforce that can meet the demands of business in a growing technological era. In this state, one of the largest achievement gaps exists between white students and students of color in science and mathematics. As a state with many of the nation’s top STEM companies located here, we need to tackle this issue, as the students in the current classrooms are our future workforce, business leaders and policymakers. Finally, and by no means the least important is that we live in an era where technologies develop and evolve at an ever-increasing rate. Just witness the growth of the cell phone industry since the early 1980s or our almost total dependence on the internet for personal, educational and business matters. These technologies and associated developments have both positive and negative consequences on our lives, society and environment. Students in K-12, and indeed in post-secondary education, need to be STEM literate so that they have the skills and knowledge required to live in this technological age, and also the critical thinking skills to consider and decide about our growing reliance on STEM areas.

Given all this, how do we introduce our students to STEM — and equally as important — when do we start? As a high school life science teacher and university professor, I have come to realize that we need to begin as early as possible with our children, certainly in elementary school, and even possibly before that. Children, at birth, are natural scientists, engineers, and problem-solvers. They consider the world around them and try to make sense of it the best way they know how; that is by touching, tasting, probing, building, dismantling, creating, discovering, exploring and so on. Yet, by the time they reach 4th grade, a third of them have lost an interest in science and by 8th grade this has increased to almost 50%. By this point in the K-12 system, the STEM pipeline is reduced to half of what it should be. So, how do we go about reversing this? How do we encourage more children to maintain their interest level in STEM? In my next blog, I will propose one possible solution, but what do you think? Is elementary too soon or not soon enough?

Mentoring for workplace success

By Dolores Fridge, March guest blogger

Helping today's young people succeed in the workplace has never been more important. One way that more mature adults can help is to be a mentor.

There has been nothing more important to me in my various careers in very different organizations than an effective mentor. I credit four such people, who enabled me to move from one job type and organization to another — and be successful in each. In the professional arena, my mentors were David Guyot, Charles Yue, Commissioner David Beaulieu and retired Governor Arnie Carlson.

So, what were the common threads that these four mentors provided for me? Well, each of them provided me with a clear understanding of the organizational culture as well as open and honest feedback on my progress and issues.

Each organization has its own culture and most successful people learn both what it is and how to navigate within its spoken and unspoken guidelines. The culture exists as a result of the ways in which people have conducted themselves in the past and received approval and promotions. Thus, their example becomes the model for success in that organization. Those who "fit," learn and act in ways approved by the group. Operating outside those norms will create conflict and may result in one being seen as "not a fit," for the organization. This invariably ends with the person being isolated and viewed as "not a team player." Usually his or her career comes to a standstill in that particular organization.

A good mentor listens, advises and promotes the positive side of a mentee and encourages him or her to self educate and practice behavior that is appropriate for the organization. A mentor should be available to talk and meet with his or her mentee on a regular basis. These should be regularly scheduled sessions during the workday, on or off the work site. There should be a clear understanding that a mentee will call and ask for immediate help for a potential crisis situation. Mentors should be able to assess a situation quickly and provide concrete and specific feedback.

Each of my aforementioned mentors has provided me with a myriad of support over the years. I thank each for touching my life in such positive ways. Their patience, kindness, information and skill-sharing has enhanced my life and the lives of the young people to whom I have passed along my learnings. Make no mistake, mentoring is work, but it is worth it. Giving back, at what ever point and to whomever has the need, has been one of the most enriching experiences of my multiple careers.

Is there a young person in your organization who would flourish if you took the time to share, teach, listen and sometimes be harsh? You, too, could provide a positive and enriching experience for those who are coming next.