A recent paper published by the Education & Employment Research Center (EERC) at Rutgers University confirms that community colleges, at their best, are crucial partners in regional economic development, driving a state’s economic growth and competitiveness. This premise underlies the bold new six-year plan to revolutionize the commonwealth’s community college system.
The paper suggests colleges should “…view their work in a larger regional context and partake in collaborations that provide this larger perspective and more intentionally, seek to meet economic development goals.” This is the vision Virginia’s community colleges are embracing with full support from the Virginia Chamber of Commerce.
Virginia confronts a widely acknowledged skills gap, with about 249,000 unfilled jobs in the state. The Virginia Chamber’s 29,000-plus members, many of them small businesses, struggle daily to hire people with the right skills for those jobs. This labor gap is worsened by Virginia’s consistent net negative out-migration for the last nine years, alongside a looming decline in K-12 populations for years to come. The question is, where are the workers going to come from?
The answer lies with the 3.2 million Virginians lacking postsecondary credentials. The absolute best path for millions of Virginians to prepare for good jobs is accessing one of Virginia’s 23 community colleges to earn a valuable credential. Notably, at least 81% of community college graduates remain in the commonwealth, strengthening its workforce. Our colleges can help build the workforce talent pipeline, but the most in-demand programs are also the costliest to develop and maintain.
To fulfill their dual role as both workforce and economic development engines, Virgina’s community colleges are realigning and revitalizing themselves on both fronts to leverage resources and address critical regional business needs by:
- Aligning to the nine GO Virginia regions;
- Using real time data from the Virginia Office of Education Economics to scale high-demand programs;
- Convening statewide industry summits to deepen partnerships;
- Strengthening partnerships with school divisions to ensure high school students graduate with a meaningful postsecondary credential; and
- Increasing graduation and transfers, reducing student borrowing (from $138 million in 2017 to $56 million in 2022), and increasing completion rates for underrepresented students.
Virginia’s community colleges served 230,000 students last year through both traditional college and accelerated workforce development credentialing programs. As the only system of higher education in Virginia, our 23 colleges enroll approximately 46% of the undergraduate public student population in Virginia. While our community colleges are best positioned to prepare Virginians to fill today’s open jobs, and the state’s most affordable higher education option in Virginia, the colleges are the lowest-funded. For every dollar supporting a student at a public university, Virginia invests only $0.57 in a community college student. Moreover, in many of the most expensive programs aligned to high-paying jobs with the largest economic impact (e.g., healthcare, advanced manufacturing, heavy construction), our colleges have reached their financial capacity.
To compete effectively with states like Texas, Tennessee and North Carolina that are making record investments in their community colleges, Virginia must make similar investments. A recent study of Virginia’s community colleges by Lightcast, a national leader in labor market data and employment outcomes for higher education institutions, confirmed this.
The unbiased study found for every $1 spent on community college education and training, a VCCS student gains $5.70 in lifetime earnings. Taxpayers benefit with $2.70 in added revenue and public sector savings.
Lightcast noted, “Altogether, the social benefits of VCCS equal a present value of $18.7 billion. These benefits include $12.6 billion in added student income, $4.7 billion in added business income, $1.1 billion in added income from college activities, as well as $319.7 million in social savings related to health, the justice system, and income assistance in Virginia.”
Virginia businesses understand investing in our community colleges makes business sense. In fact, the Virginia Chamber was instrumental in advocating for the creation of the VCCS in the 1960s to ensure every citizen had access to postsecondary opportunities within an hour of their home.
This positive impact has been proven on a small scale with the undeniably successful FastForward program. Launched in 2016, FastForward has put 53,900 high-value credentials into the labor market in some of the most in-demand fields, boasting a 95% course completion rate and a 72% credential attainment rate. Students average $11,746 in wage increases within 12 months after earning their credentials.
With additional funding, Virginia’s community colleges can build on this success by expanding state-of-the-art programs, increasing the supply of skilled workers, and meeting business and industry needs across in-demand sectors. Community colleges are among Virginia’s most efficient and successful economic development drivers. Investments in Virginia’s community colleges have consistently yielded positive returns for taxpayers and they will continue to do so well into the future.