Last week, I attended a City of Phoenix Workforce Development training. It is projected that by 2020, the majority of jobs will require post-secondary training. Arizona ranks 5th in Fortune’s list of fastest growing tech markets and currently has the highest entrepreneurial activity rate of any other state. By 2020, there will be 55 million job vacancies, yet, despite the inevitable demand for educated workers only about 10% of Latinos will graduate from college. By 2020, 62% of Arizonans in poverty will be Hispanic, and 31% White.
These projections point to the conclusion that Arizona could face a serious economic crisis with an under-educated workforce, degraded revenue opportunities, a heavy financial burden of public services and fewer features to attract new businesses and entrepreneurs and to retain existing ones.
But this isn’t really news. The truth is not much has changed since 12 years ago, when the Morison Institute for Public Policy announced similar statistics in their report Five Shoes Waiting to Drop; and was confirmed again in 2012 by their follow up report, Dropped?. The facts are all the same…. Arizona has an ageing white population, a young Latino population and while the demand for a highly educated workforce continues to grow, Arizona is struggling to get Latino youth in and through its college and university system.
[pullquote style=”right”]An investment in knowledge pays the best interest. -Benjamin Franklin[/pullquote]The information has been there for years, and the goals have followed. President Barack Obama announced his American Graduation Initiative in 2009, setting a goal of restoring the country to first place by 2020 in the number of 25 to 34 year-olds with college degrees. The Lumina Foundation’s Goal is “to increase the proportion of Americans with high-quality degrees and credentials to 60 percent by the year 2025.” Even Arizona Governor, Jan Brewer, has developed state goals for 2020, including:
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Increasing to 94 percent, up from 73 percent, the number of 3rd graders reading at or near grade level
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Increasing the high school graduation rate to 93 percent, up from 75 percent
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Doubling the number of baccalaureate degrees issued by Arizona institutions of higher education.

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Jeremy Wood is the Education Director for Neighborhood Ministries. He also serves on the South Phoenix Regional Board for First Things First.
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