Connecting the Higher Education Act to jobs

Amidst the debate over the merits of the president’s budget for Higher Education, there is one thing we should all agree on, and one thing that will enhance HEA’s viability. It’s time to modernize and directly connect the Higher Education Act to jobs.

The next decade is going to be an especially monumental one for jobs, and all one has to do is look at the numbers to appreciate the incredible opportunity and corresponding responsibility to ensure the nation’s workforce is ready. It’s a stat I tell audiences wherever I travel on behalf of the nation’s Career Education Colleges and Universities. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, by 2024 the United States is going to need 46.5 million new workers to fill new jobs and replace scores of retiring Baby Boomers. And to dig a little deeper, 65 percent of all replacement jobs and 85 percent of all new jobs will require some level of postsecondary education. In essence, the Higher Education Act is now the nation’s workforce preparation program!

{mosads}Our colleges and universities have responded to the changing face of our emerging workforce.  Our student bodies are more diverse than ever before. We have also modernized the delivery of our academic programs. The one glaring problem is that our federal policy has not kept pace. We still count only high school students entering college for the first time on a full-time basis, resulting in flawed and unhelpful data. Our financial aid programs fail to serve the adult student returning to school, the part-time student working and raising a family, and the student who needs just one more course to graduate. We can do better.

As Congress and the Trump administration prepare to reauthorize the Higher Education Act, Career Education Colleges and Universities have prepared a first-of-it-kind set of landmark policy recommendations to modernize and directly connect the HEA to jobs. We are currently converting these thoughtful recommendations into two distinct bipartisan bills – a higher education jobs bill and a bill to modernize federal higher education policy for the 21^st century.

The nation’s Higher Education Act is positioned to become the nation’s workforce investment policy, and our recommendations will ensure the nation is ready to meet the workforce challenges of the coming years.

Congress recently took a critical first step in restoring the Year-round Pell Grant. But more must be done. Among our innovative proposals, we call for the enactment of a new Workforce Pell Grant. We seek to provide those adult students returning to school the ability to fund career education programs that prepare them to succeed in today’s workplace. We propose the Kaine-Portman JOBS Act to make Pell Grants available to the shorter-term programs that do not qualify today such as credentials. If they qualify economically, they should be able to use this program to prepare their future.

With accountability and outcomes now defining higher education, we propose that all schools with career-focused academic programs must provide current and prospective students with the right information to make their career decisions. We also recommend that all schools provide graduation rates, placement rates in their field of study, and the total cost per graduate. We also recommend that the controversial Gainful Employment regulation be modified to become a source of information for all career programs showing both the BLS regional average occupation salary, combined with the school’s average debt load for recent graduates in their program.

If we seek to raise the economic well-being of all Americans we cannot forget those on the front-end of this ladder. We recommend revising and restoring the Ability-to-Benefit program. And for the first time we connect the Apprenticeship program to higher education in ways that enable graduates of an apprenticeship to use accredited programs as part of their future academic record. 

We also address one of the greatest challenge facing students in today’s mobile society – the transfer of credits. Unable to transfer credits students must pay more and expend more time in repeating courses. This must change. Our first, small yet important step is to require that all colleges accredited by the same accreditor must accept same-level programs from other institutions with the same accreditation.

Last year our schools announced a Campaign to Create 5 Million Career Professionals in the next decade. If all goes well, we might reach 8 million. These recommendations build upon that effort and serve as a road map for success.

Setting politics aside, there is a universal recognition that our private sector must grow. But to achieve any real growth in our annual GDP, we must prepare students with the skills essential for success. If we do, all our institution’s graduates can obtain real jobs, with real wages, and a real chance for a place in America’s middle class. This goal has no partisan edge. But, it can’t wait either. We need to do it now. Learn more about our plan at www.Career.org/HEA. It’s time to modernize and directly connect the Higher Education Act to jobs!

Gunderson is a former 8-term U.S. Representative from Wisconsin and currently serves as President and CEO of the Career Education Colleges and Universities.

The views expressed by this author are their own and are not the views of The Hill.