If baby boomers need another persuasive reason  why it’s critically important to invest more now in higher education in California, they should consider this: They’ll need more workers with college degrees,  if they want to make  money selling their homes in the next 20 years.

University of Southern California demography professor Dowell Myers made this pitch to self-interest Tuesday during the second hearing of the Joint Legislative Committee on the Master Plan for Higher Education. He and others  have warned about the coming threat to the state’s economy from a shortage of workers with college degrees.  Thirty-five percent of workers 55 to 59 years old have at least a bachelor’s degree, compared with 26 percent of workers aged 25 to 39.  Workers with a college degree earn on average 90 percent more than workers with a high school degree in California.

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By John Fensterwald on February 2nd, 2010

Comments on Protect higher ed for you own sake, boomers

In Silicon Valley, where some of the world’s smartest people live, many of the best young minds are wasting. The dichotomy is as stark as the Route 101 divide – a geographical shorthand for class and race (east, poor; west, rich) – separating them.

• A youth unemployment rate that one workforce nonprofit executive estimates at 35 percent;
• A high school dropout rate of about 27 percent;
• A minuscule number of Hispanic students in a six-county area – 182  out of 13,700 – to pass the CSU Early Assessment Program in math.

For seven hours last week, more than 100 school, business and non-profit leaders in the valley heard leaders’ pleas to reach out to disengaged youths, and discussed how to do so at a conference co-sponsored by Cisco Systems, the Silicon Valley Education Foundation, James Irvine Foundation and the Harvard Graduate School of Education. (Read more and comment on this post)

By John Fensterwald on January 26th, 2010

Comments on Silicon Valley’s great divide

By John Fensterwald on October 23rd, 2009

Comments on Part 2: President of California State School Board, Ted Mitchell, on Race to the Top