Community colleges pushing skilled trades, but students aren’t buying

Cadets in the maritime program at Northwestern Michigan College perform a safety drill. Vocational programs are not uniformly popular with students at the state’s community colleges. (Photo courtesy of Northwestern Michigan College.)

Nearly everywhere he goes, Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder talks about well-paying, but unfilled, welding, carpentry, machining and other skilled-trades jobs, as well as technical occupations in health care.

Snyder has said Michigan and the country “messed up” by telling young people that the only path to a well-paying career is getting a four-year degree at a university.

But helping the state fill “middle-skill” positions through post-high school training or a community college degree is proving as vexing for the state’s 28 community colleges as it has been for the governor.

On top of declining enrollment, community colleges are finding it difficult to entice students to pursue a technical, manufacturing or vocational job, despite assurances that they will yield solid careers that could eventually pay up to $100,000.

Students wary

Students’ reluctance is based on a variety of factors, including fresh scars from Michigan’s recession. For instance, many young people are reluctant to pursue manufacturing careers because of parents and other family members who were laid off as the industry shed 335,000 jobs in the state during the past decade.

The recession created other hurdles. Some employers went into survival mode, abandoning apprenticeship and training programs that dried up the pipeline for skilled trades workers. Likewise, some Michigan K-12 schools abandoned vocational education, citing the state’s more rigorous curriculum requirements.

Community college leaders say other students remain unconvinced that they can get a well-paying job with a credential or an associates degree from a community college.

“We’ve done a great job of convincing kids to go to college, but we’ve left the skilled trades out,” said Michael Hansen, president of the Michigan Community College Association.

Just 4.5 percent of Michigan community college students were enrolled in technical or industrial programs in the 2012-13 academic year, according to the state Workforce Development Agency. Another 7.7 percent were enrolled in health occupation programs.

The popularity of these middle-skills programs is also impacted by a shift in the motivations of students to attend community college. With an eye toward making college affordable, more than half of Michigan community college students enroll to accumulate credits at a lower cost so they can eventually transfer to a four-year university.

“For the most part, it’s hard to interest people in the 18-to-24 age group in occupations like welding and CNC (computer numerical control) machine operators,” Hansen said.

Questioning job numbers

It’s also unclear how many technical jobs requiring less than a four-year bachelor’s degree are truly available in Michigan.

Data prepared for Bridge Magazine by the Workforce Development Agency showed that in mid-August, just 5,773 jobs of the 73,097 jobs posted by employers on the Pure Michigan Talent Connect website required some college or an associate degree.

More than double that number – 11,589 available positions – required a bachelor’s degree or above.

Nearly 17,000 posted jobs did not list an educational requirement.

But those figures might not provide an accurate gauge of the need for workers with technical skills because many employers don’t advertise on the Talent Connect website.

A new report by the Workforce Intelligence Network of Southeast Michigan found there were 106,927 online job postings in the eight-county region in the second quarter of the year ending June 30.

Of those, 33,745 were in skilled trades, design, engineering, information technology, other technologies or health care. Most of those jobs required at least some college or a bachelor’s degree.

A 2013 study by Georgetown University’s Center on Education and the Workforce predicted 562,000 job openings in Michigan between 2010 and 2020, nearly 36 percent of all openings in the state, will require some college or an associate’s degree.

Michigan community college officials say skilled trades workers can eventually make between roughly $50,000 and $100,000-plus annually.

Employers come begging

Joe Petrosky, dean of engineering and advanced technology at Macomb Community College in Warren, said the auto industry’s resurgence has resulted in the college being deluged with employers seeking skilled workers.

“We’ve seen the demand for worker training come roaring back,” he said.

Tight funding has community colleges scrambling to update their labs and equipment to stay up with changing technologies used in the workplace.

“There are always financial challenges,” Petrosky said. “For the past 10 years, times have been very lean.”

The Snyder administration and the Legislature have boosted community college funding every year since 2012. But fiscal year 2015 funding of $365 million is flat compared to the $294.3 million appropriated in 2005 when adjusted for inflation.

In 1980 the state provided nearly 50 percent of total community college revenues. That fell to 19.5 percent in 2013, according to the Workforce Development Agency.

Of course, four-year universities have seen a similar decline in state support. State appropriations as a percentage of total university revenues fell from about 60 percent in 1984 to less than 25 percent this year, according to the House Fiscal Agency.

Innovative programs

With revenues far tighter, community colleges are banding together to find new sources of funding and provide useful job training.

Last year, Macomb Community College won a four-year, $24.9 million federal grant that will allow it and seven other community colleges in the state to upgrade facilities and train more than 2,700 workers in machining, production, welding and fabrication, and multi-skilled technical positions.

Those targeted for training include displaced workers and employed workers who need skills upgrades, and military veterans.

Macomb also is among four community colleges in the state participating in the new MAT2 apprenticeship program, a three-year training program for engineering technician, information technology and technical product design jobs.

High school seniors and recent graduates entering the program get paid for on-the-job training from employers who also pay tuition costs. Those who complete the program get an associate degree and a guaranteed job.

Mottt Community College in Flint, Oakland Community College in Bloomfield Hills and Henry Ford College in Dearborn also are participating in the program with 18 manufacturing employers.

But connecting talent with available jobs that require less than a bachelor’s degree isn’t all about money and boosting the number of community college graduates in technical fields.

Employers’ recruiting practices also can hinder them from finding the workers they need, said Christine Quinn, director of the Workforce Development Agency.

Quinn said the agency has found that some employers are giving job applicants skills assessment tests that are so difficult even their best employees can’t pass them. Other times, employers need more workers because they’re experiencing lots of employee turnover.

“We keep asking questions about why employers can’t find workers,” she said. “We try to truly understand the problem.”

Getting on students’ radar

Greg Handel, senior director of workforce development at the Detroit Regional Chamber, said high school and college students need more up-to-date information about jobs that are in demand.

The chamber is working with the Workforce Intelligence Network of Southeast Michigan in implementing a program, called Career Cruising Inspire, in K-12 schools throughout the region.

Among other things, the program allows students to ask employers questions about available careers online.

“There’s a big gap in getting information about careers, and making it real and tangible for students,” Handel said.

Petrosky, of Macomb Community College, said one way of getting more young people interested in skilled trades and other technical jobs is by further encouraging pathways to a bachelor’s degree, or beyond.

Macomb and other community colleges have expanded agreements with four-year universities that guarantee students’ community college credits will transfer to those schools.

“It’s important for students to have those opportunities,” Petrosky said. “And it’s important in changing the minds of parents and high school counselors about the value of a two-year technical program.”