Community colleges must evolve

By William D. Green

This month, in a Detroit suburb hard hit by the decline of the auto industry, President Obama announced a major educational initiative. Speaking to students and faculty at Macomb Community College, the president detailed a new national emphasis on lifelong learning and education. He highlighted community colleges as important places where acquiring skills for new jobs and new careers will take place.

Finally we are getting it right. Community colleges and two-year institutions hold the key to not only our recovery but to our leadership on the world stage. As leader of a business community commission called The Springboard Project on education and work force competitiveness, and as a product of a two-year college myself, I am proof positive as to how critical the president’s initiative is, how urgently it is needed and the opportunity we have now to make a difference for our citizens and our country.

According to a report from the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development, the United States is the only major industrial country with a younger generation that has a lower level of high school educational achievement than its predecessor. When it comes to completion of two-year and longer college programs and their equivalents, we rank not first, second or third, but 16th. According to the World Economic Forum, an inadequately educated work force is one of the top four obstacles to doing business in the United States. It is wake up time.

During the current economic crisis, the cost of not completing a college program has become even more tragically clear. Jobless numbers tell the story. In May, the unemployment rate for those with less than a high school diploma was 15.5 percent, compared to a national average of 9.5 percent. Some say that if current trends continue, America could emerge as a supplier of low-wage labor to the more advanced economies of the world. How could this happen?

One answer is that workplaces are changing. In the next seven years, the nation will need 41 percent fewer file clerks, 32 percent fewer computer operators and 27 percent fewer electrical and electronic equipment assemblers.

But even as these relatively low-skill occupations disappear, the positions that community colleges prepare students to take will grow. These include, medical technicians, health IT workers, lab specialists and nurses, to name a few typical examples from just one field, health care. In addition, the opportunities for people to find their passion and potential — and learn how to learn — in these institutions is well known and there are thousands of success stories.

It seems so simple: Finish a two-year community-college program; land a better job. Yet as the president suggested in Michigan, we are learning that this road to success is sometimes not simple at all.

Nationally, half of all students who enter community college programs fail to finish.

One reason may be the times classes are offered. That is why some innovative schools are scheduling courses around the clock as well as online, to make class attendance easier for those who work and care for children.

Research is being done on how to increase graduation rates. Competitive grants are available challenging community colleges to develop better strategies for remedial education in basics like math and science and for job placement, too.

These are all promising approaches to making community colleges more effective. It is also important to recognize that some institutions have learned how to do this, and we can learn from and leverage their experiences.

Particularly promising is the administration’s call for closer coordination between these institutions and the private sector for curriculum development and job placement.

As the president said, “We know that the most successful community colleges are those that partner with the private sector.”

From investing in better community and two-year college facilities to developing innovative online courses and making them easily available, the president’s proposal includes a number of steps in the right direction.

As I have seen in my own life and in the lives of so many young men and women, there are few better steps to insuring America’s future than strengthening our two-year institutions.

William D. Green is chairman and CEO of Accenture and chairman of Business Roundtable’s Education, Innovation and Workforce Initiative. He started his academic career at Dean College, a two-year college in Franklin, Mass., before receiving a BA and MBA from Babson College.