Is College the Answer for Unemployment?
If you're a travel agent, bank teller or a file clerk; if you run a printing press, answer a switchboard or work at a sewing machine; if you repair watches or cameras; if you make anything that can be made more cheaply elsewhere, or do anything that can be done by a robot or computer, then you may feel history is against you. An old vision of the post-industrial future — that work could be done by machines but nothing would take work's place — is being realized with a vengeance in the second decade of the 21st century. Although most economists expect the U.S. job market to register at least small gains this year, many Americanswho have a job still fear losing it. Many who don't have a job fear they never will find one. And many in both camps worry that the recession, which officially ended a year and a half ago, speeded up inevitable changes in the workplace. Learn more…
Industry clusters could raise the bar on Tampa Bay jobs.
By Robert Trigaux, Times Business Columnist, St. Petersburg Times. In Print: Sunday, January 23, 2011. Tampa Bay's economy can become much more robust with "industry clusters" of like companies. Building a specific group of industry clusters to raise Tampa Bay's pay scale will demand a better trained work force. That is exactly the goal of our regional economic developers at the start of 2011. Of course, that's the same premise of better jobs and more competitive regional economies pursued by many metro areas. In recent weeks, Pittsburgh's talked of pursuing a water industry cluster. Milwaukee's bragging about a creative services cluster. And Denver's all about a clean-tech cluster. Learn more...
Minorities in Higher Education 2010: Twenty-Fourth Status Report American Council on Education. Young Hispanics and African Americans have made no appreciable progress in postsecondary attainment as compared to their older peers, and attainment rates have dipped for the youngest group (ages 25-34). Each generation of younger women in the United States continues to reach higher levels of postsecondary attainment, while the attainment levels of younger men are falling. Younger whites (ages 25-34) also have made strides past their older peers. However, their gains are not only smaller than those of Asian Americans but also attributable only to women. Among all racial/ethnic groups in the U. S., Hispanics - the fastest growing population - continue to exhibit the lowest educational attainment levels. Lear more...
Six Pillars of Effective Dropout Prevention and Recovery and Reinventing Alternative Education Jobs for the Future. These two reports outline model policy elements for dropout prevention and recovery as well as policies that would drive alternative education as a pathway to college for struggling students. The reports assess the extent to which recent state policy aligns with model policy elements, and feature states that are exemplars for their implementation of each policy. They contain checklists of dropout and alternative education policies that states can enact in order to prevent at-risk students from dropping out, help returning dropouts recover credits, and reinvent alternative education programs as a pathway to college for struggling students. Learn more: Dropout Brief and Alternative Education
Debating the Causes of Joblessness.
By David Leonhardt. January 21, 2011, 3:00 PM. The New York Times. The relative performance of more educated and less educated workers over the last few years has not been the typical pattern for a recession. Less educated workers, by many measures, are faring worse than they ever have. The ratio of the typical four-year college graduate’s pay to a typical high-school graduate’s pay hit a record in 2010 — 1.56. Since 2007, the inflation-adjusted median weekly pay of college graduates has risen 1.6 percent. The inflation-adjusted pay of every other educational group — high school dropouts, high school graduates and people who attended college but did not get a four-year degree — has fallen since 2007. The same is true over the last decade; amazingly, only college graduates have received a raise. Learn more…
