News Article

Administration investment meshes with college goals

Jul 17, 2009

From the News Press

Edison State College, Obama agree on higher ed

Administration investment meshes with college goals

Obama is proposing a $12 billion investment into the nation's community colleges, injecting money into new workforce training programs, online learning and upgraded facilities.

All three are key pushes at Edison, which still is classified as a community college even though it offers four-year degrees.

"President Obama seems to be very friendly toward workforce initiatives and restarting manufacturing," said Noreen Thomas, Edison's district executive vice president and president of the Lee County campus. "He wants to reinvest in the workforce."

In Lee County, that means more health care, environment and education careers. Those are the jobs of the future, Thomas said, and Edison will roll out programs in those high-growth fields.

This summer, Edison initiated a Rapid Recovery education program that retrains unemployed or underemployed workers for entry-level jobs in fields that are hiring. Victoria Meyers, 57, was working in Silicon Valley in technology management, but the dot-com bust led her in 2003 to Naples. She changed careers and became a mortgage broker, a hot job at the time.

"We reinvented ourselves then," Meyers said Wednesday. "We picked something that was booming here, but then that bottomed out, too."

Now, she's training for a new career, pursuing an associate's degree in accounting at Edison through Rapid Recovery, which uses federal stimulus money to defray education costs.

In 2008, Edison began a quest to shift traditional courses into online formats that are well-suited for today's generation. The 47-year-old college continues modernizing its facilities one building at a time.

Next week, Edison's Charlotte County campus President Patricia Land and director of governmental relations Matthew Holliday will travel to Washington, D.C., on a previously scheduled lobbying trip, but the duo also plan to inquire about Obama's new program. The government still is developing a formal application process, but Edison likely will apply for federal assistance for new training programs, online learning and facility improvements. 

Obama unveiled his plan earlier this week at Macomb Community College in suburban Detroit, the same institution where Thomas served as provost from 2001 to 2006. Obama called the $12 billion in spending over the next decade "the most significant downpayment" yet toward achieving his goal of having the highest college graduation rate of any nation. Obama said jobs requiring at least an associate's degree are expected to grow twice as fast as those where college education is not required.

"We will not fill those jobs, or keep those jobs on our shores, without the training offered by community colleges," Obama said. "Community colleges are an undervalued asset in our country."

Thomas said an associate's degree often isn't the pinnacle of a student's college career, but it allows graduates to secure a good job before taking their education to the next level.

"Once you start a two-year college degree, you are very likely to continue on with a bachelor's degree," she said. "But people need to earn a living first, and we can get them out into the workforce."

Obama's plan would be paid for as part of a package that cuts waste from the student loan program, administration officials said. Some of the money could be available by the 2010 budget year that begins Oct. 1.

Last Updated: July 17, 2009