Technical Colleges Brace for Cuts

Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker’s budget proposal will put a squeeze on Northeastern Wisconsin Technical College (NWTC), just as educators and business leaders say the technical training it offers is more important and valuable than ever.

NWTC President Jeff Rafn said Walker’s plan for $72 million in cuts to Wisconsin’s technical college system includes nearly $4 million in each of the next two years at NWTC.

“We’re in the process of going through the budget and trying to target those cuts that will have the least impact on what we offer,” Rafn said. “When 85 percent of what you do is personnel, it’s hard to strip $4 million.”

Rafn said the cuts will probably come in the form of class offerings.

“We’ll still offer most of the programs we have now, but we won’t offer as many sessions and times,” he said.

That will cut the flexibility that many adult students rely on to continue their education and acquire new skills as they work or raise a family.

The cuts come on the heels of a February report from the Harvard Graduate School of Education that called for greater emphasis on post-high school education short of a four-year degree. The report, titled “Pathways to Prosperity,” is highly critical of the “college-for-all” approach to American education.

“College enrollment has been steadily rising over the past decade,” the report concluded. “The problem is completion: nearly half of those who enroll leave without a degree.”

Further, despite decades of efforts to send more kids to college, nearly 70 percent of America’s workers don’t possess a college degree.

The authors point to findings that show that often an associate’s degree or accreditation is just as valuable if not more so than a bachelor’s degree. Twenty-seven percent of people with post-secondary licenses or certificates short of an associate’s degree earn more than the average bachelor degree holder, the report finds, and increasingly people with bachelor’s degrees are returning to technical school to acquire job-specific skills.

“The wages of two-year degree holders versus four-year degree holders overlap by 80 percent,” Rafn said. “For every engineer, you need five or six engineering technicians. Those are quality jobs, and that’s what we do.”

Over the next seven years, it’s anticipated that 14 million jobs will be filled by people with an associate’s degree or occupational certificate, like those offered at NWTC.

“Governor Walker wants to add 250,00 jobs to the Wisconsin economy,” Rafn said. “Eighty percent of those jobs will require a technical college education. In my opinion, the decision to cut funding in light of that is puzzling to say the very least. Business leaders continually tell us that their top concern is having a skilled workforce. At a time when it’s even more important to have those skills, we’re cutting funding.”

Ron Julian, Vice President of Production at Therma-Tron-X in Sturgeon Bay, said the jobs at his company require at least a high school education, and often some type of tech school beyond that.

Therma-Tron-X employs about 125 people, 60 of whom work in the shop, where hands-on technical skills are needed. He said he couldn’t judge what kind of an impact the budget cuts will have on job training in his industry.

“NWTC is certainly important from a training standpoint,” he said. “But it’s difficult to say right now what impact those budget cuts will have until we see specifically where those cuts will be made.”

Bill Chaudoir, Executive Director of the Door County Economic Development Corporation, is worried about the impact the cuts will have, but said the current climate is tough to navigate for all sectors.

“The alternative is to raise taxes, and that’s not what the business community needs either,” he said. “But it’s certainly a tough time to cut tech school funding. The fact that we have an NWTC campus in Door County is a huge selling point when we’re talking to prospective businesses and working to keep existing businesses here.”

Chaudoir said the ability of NWTC to respond to the changing needs of the local business community is invaluable. Four years ago manufacturers said they were experiencing a shortage of welders, he said. In response, NWTC added eight sessions of welding classes, at a cost of $485,000, much of that covered with state aid. Chaudoir said the college is now on the verge of adding a Computer Numeric Control program at the behest of manufacturers.

“That’s the fastest-growing job segment in the manufacturing industry,” Chaudoir said. “Adding that will help the manufacturing community, but what’s really important is that high schools will have access for training as well. We think it’s going to go a long way.”

Rafn said that sort of response could be more difficult in the future.

“With a tighter budget it will be much more difficult to meet the next acute shortage,” Rafn said. “That’s not good for students and it’s not good for business because it will be harder for us to respond to their needs.”

Rafn said he expects the NWTC board to approve a tuition increase of 5 to 5.5 percent to cover some of the gap, but it will be three to four weeks before Rafn will know how he will handle the remaining cuts.

“This is clearly the biggest challenge since I’ve been here,” said Rafn, in his 14th year at the school. “But morale is still good. Nobody’s happy to take a 10 percent cut in pay and lose collective bargaining rights, but walking around whining isn’t going to do anybody any good. We have a responsibility as educators to do our jobs as efficiently and productively as possible.”