Heywood Fralin thinks that we “get it.”
According to a bipartisan poll retained by the Virginia Business Higher Education Council (VBHEC), more than 75% of Virginians believe that a college degree will provide an advantage in today’s tech-centric economy.
However, the pollsters also found that only 35% of the state’s college-aged population is enrolled in college.
It is this gap that Fralin, VBHEC chairman, hopes to address and correct with the “Grow By Degrees” campaign and coalition. Funded by the private sector, the campaign aims to secure Virginia’s economic future by investing in its young people by making higher education more accessible.
“If you want to make Virginia the economic growth capital of America, you have to first make Virginia the workforce training and higher education capital of America,” Fralin said at a June 22 press conference held at the Taubman Museum of Art.
The ultimate goal of the new campaign, initiated by the VBHEC, is for Virginians to earn 70,000 additional associates, bachelors, and graduate degrees by 2020 – a number which assumes that 50% of Virginia citizens will have earned a degree within the next 11 years.
“This is not just the same old, same old,” said Nancy Agee, COO of Carilion Clinic. “It’s not just about reform, or more funding. It is about the resources… investment, and innovation.”
As state funding for public higher education has decreased, more of the tuition burden has fallen on students and their parents, a measure which hurts “taxpayers and tuition payers alike,” according to Fralin.
At a state level, more college graduates who earn twice as much as high school graduates pay more taxes – while consuming fewer social resources. By neglecting to make tuition more affordable, “Virginia is seriously off track,” Fralin said.
For students in, or entering college, the “Grow By Degrees” program aims to open more routes to quality degrees, such as improving the quality of Virginia’s community colleges, providing more resources for high school students to accumulate college credit, and increasing flexibility of class schedules and incorporating distance learning so that students may hold a job while working toward degrees.
By making college more affordable and accessible, the program intends to reach out to lower-income families.
“We will never reach our goal if we only educate the sons and daughters of wealthy families,” Fralin said.
The vision of “Grow By Degrees” is not limited to a student’s work while in school. Much emphasis is placed on investments in the fields of science, mathematics, engineering and technology so that graduates will be able to compete in today’s “knowledge-based economy.”
Agee referred to her son, who recently graduated from a university, to illustrate the influence of technology on today’s students.
“I say he’s fluent in three languages: English, French, and texting,” she said. “It’s the texting that’s important, because today’s students take technology for granted.”
It may be the same technology that helps the educational system evolve rather than become extinct.
“Frankly, there is simply no way for Virginians to afford to pay for 70,000 additional degrees in 10 years using the traditional approach of a residential four-year institution,” Agee said. “We need models of education that meet the needs of today’s students.”
