POLITICS

Success by degrees
N.H. colleges, lawmakers must take real-world approach to strengthening the work force

It is almost axiomatic that education equals jobs for a state. The better educated the work force, the more businesses a state can attract and, of course, more businesses equate to more jobs.

New Hampshire has been ahead of the curve on this issue for a long time. In fact, along with a highly favorable tax structure, an educated work force has been an integral part of what has been termed "The New Hampshire Advantage," which has brought entrepreneurs in all fields to the state.

However, now the Granite State is falling behind in economic growth, some say because of its inability to hold on to that educated work force. Economic growth has slowed all across the country, but while New Hampshire remains ahead of the rest of New England, this entire region is falling behind the rest of the country.

A lot of that has to do with the decision by approximately 50 percent of recent college graduates to pursue careers in other parts of the country where they can earn more money in their chosen fields. The state's university system has recognized the problem and has come up with a plan it feels will keep an additional 5 percent of its graduates in state.

Whether that plan ultimately succeeds remains to be seen since there are two factors involved. The first, of course, is the state's contribution to higher education.

It is the first "Catch-22" of the jobs issue.

Because of the tax structure that has brought so many businesses here, New Hampshire government operates on a shoe-string. There are choices that have to be made that don't exist in many other states. Among them are whether to adequately fund kindergarten through 12th grade education, whether to deal with the needs of the state's poor, whether to appropriately fund drug and alcohol prevention programs or whether to put money into its universities.

Traditionally, New Hampshire's institutions of higher learning have come out on the short end of the financial equation. Granite State colleges and universities have consistently been nationally ranked at or near the bottom in state funding.

The results are some of the highest land-grant college tuitions in the country and students who must shoulder some of the highest educational debt upon graduation. That forces these best and brightest of New Hampshire graduates to leave the state for higher paying jobs elsewhere in order to pay off their college loans as quickly as possible and get on with their lives.

The other problem is that in this "Live Free or Die" state, the university system operates almost autonomously from the government and there is often a disconnect between the goals of the system and the job needs of the state. In its attempt to develop a world-class university system, New Hampshire's land-grant colleges have not always taken into consideration the needs of the industries that have chosen to make this state their home and that, too, forces graduates to pursue their careers elsewhere in the country.

The state's job needs have been better served by the Community Technical College System, which actually works with local employers in an effort to produce workers who will be hired by New Hampshire firms. For example, the community colleges have increased their course offerings in the area of health care, a specialty that is growing in the state. Certificate degrees medical assisting and surgical technology are being offered by these two-year colleges.

The community colleges are closer to the state's employers than the university system is and can fill at least some of the needs, but with the state coming up short in funding for its land-grant university system, there is even less money available for the smaller, two-year technical colleges.

Recognizing the problem, lawmakers during the last legislative session discussed making the technical colleges part of the university system. However, internal concerns about the increase in the number of students attending the community colleges in view of the available facilities, as well as where the smaller colleges would stand in the funding hierarchy of a consolidated state university system, prompted the technical colleges' board of trustees to push to remain separate.

These concerns are certainly understandable, but the decision deprives the university system of a direct link to the needs of New Hampshire employers and continues the cycle of university graduates having to leave the state to find jobs. As a result, it threatens the economic future of New Hampshire and cuts into what once was a virtually unbeatable New Hampshire Advantage.

So, to halt the exodus of its educated work force and renew the strength of the state's economy, two things must be done. The first is for lawmakers to see making the New Hampshire University System more affordable as a priority, and the second is to incorporate the attitudes of the community technical colleges as they apply to supplying workers for the employers in industries that are projected to grow in this state, part of the mentality of the university system.

It is appropriate for the university system to attempt to produce well-rounded students who have been exposed to the best and worst of modern civilization, but it must also take into account the viability of the economic future of the state in which it is located. More emphasis must be put on developing graduates who can fill the needs of the employers currently in the state, as well as those who will come here in the future, in order to maintain that educated work force that has been such a boon to the Granite State's economy in the past.

Shir Haberman is the business and political writer at the Portsmouth Herald. He can be reached at shaberman@seacoastonline.com