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February 6, 2015

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Home » Opinion » Foreign Views

Retraining American workforce in a smarter way

By Laura Tyson | February 6, 2015, Friday | Print Edition

A HIGHLY trained workforce is a public good, crucial not only to the prosperity of workers themselves, but also to the strength of the entire economy. And, as with most public goods, the United States has been underinvesting in it for decades,

Leaving many American workers without the skills they need to get well-paying jobs. There are signs of improvement. As the American labor market tightens and a growing chorus of companies complains that they cannot find skilled workers, innovative partnerships between governments, employers, and educational institutions are beginning to fill the void.

In the US, community colleges provide the first step toward a good job for millions of Americans. These institutions are especially important for students from less-advantaged backgrounds and for displaced workers seeking new opportunities. Around the country, community colleges are working with businesses and experimenting with ways to provide practical training for high-demand occupations and to fill specialized needs. Recognizing their importance,

President Barack Obama has proposed making two years of community college tuitionfree. The proposal would benefit the roughly 9 million students attending community college at least half-time, making steady progress, and maintaining passing grades. By one careful reckoning,

Community colleges are an extremely good investment. For every dollar a student pays or gives up to attend school, his or her future income rises by about US$4.80. For taxpayers, the lifetime return on investment is better than six to one. Obama based his proposal in part on the free-tuition programs launched by Tennessee and the city of Chicago.

Drawing on the success of the Tennessee Tech Program, he has also proposed a US$200 million federal fund to expand community college programs based on their effectiveness, which is to be measured by employer partnerships, workbased learning opportunities, and student graduation and job-placement rates.

Similarly, California, which boasts a long tradition of excellence in public higher education, recently introduced a US$50 million fund to foster innovative approaches in the sector, with an emphasis on public-private collaborations that have demonstrated their ability to deliver the skills that employers need.

Community col leges are just one part of the rapidly changing training landscape. The purpose of higher education is evolving. In addition to traditional tertiary education,

Training institutions are offering targeted modules, certified by professional industry groups. The Obama administration, for example, cooperated with an arm of the National Association of Manufacturers to launch a manufacturing skills certification system based on standards established by industry groups. That program is now operating at 163 colleges and institutes.

Numerous col laborations among the public sector, nonprofit phi lanthropies, and businesses are offering innovations in worker education. Only by working together will they be able to identify the best recipes for success.

Laura Tyson, a former chair of the US President’s Council of Economic Advisers, is a professor at the Haas School of Business at the University of California, Berkeley. Copyright: Project Syndicate, 2015.www.project-syndicate.org

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