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When Louisiana Workforce Commission Executive Director Curt Eysink said Louisiana had a “surplus” of university graduates, several members of the Postsecondary Education Review Commission were more than a little skeptical. Louisiana is too educated? Really?

Eysink says he didn’t mean to imply that Louisiana has too many college graduates. He was trying to call attention to a severe shortage of qualified skilled workers, those people who need more than high school but less than a four-year degree, in hopes that money needed to train those workers is protected.

“When resources are limited, you should put those resources where you get the greatest bang for your buck,” Eysink says. “I think the place to invest money is in the two-year schools.”

Eysink isn’t calling for cuts to the state’s universities. Figuring out how to restructure Louisiana’s system of higher education, while dealing with a billion-dollar budget shortfall, is the commission’s job, not his. Eysink’s job is serving his customers, who are Louisiana’s businesspeople.

Folks like Dan Schuessler, who manages ExxonMobil’s chemical plant. Schuessler says he doesn’t have trouble finding qualified university grads from LSU, Southern and other state universities. His issue is with machinists, welders, instrument techs and other skilled crafts—workers who don’t always need an associate’s degree but certainly need training beyond high school. One of the best ways to meet those needs is by working with the community and technical colleges to design the right programs, he says.

“When you talk to the workforce commission, money is not the issue,” Schuessler says. “The funds are available. It’s getting the right focus from community leaders to tackle these issues.”

Perhaps Schuessler is right. Maybe Louisiana’s higher-education system can be all things to all people, beefing up the technical- and community-college system without cutting universities. But Gov. Bobby Jindal has instructed PERC—also known as the Tucker Commission—to find $146 million in savings. And if the state shifts more students into two-year schools and away from four-year schools, as Jindal says we should, that means fewer bodies on university campuses. Fewer bodies usually means fewer dollars.

In Louisiana, the student split between four-year and two-year schools is roughly 75% to 25%, while the southern regional average is closer to 56% and 44%. The workforce commission says Louisiana will produce about 10,000 more university graduates than there are jobs needing a four-year degree in the state, while at the same time there are about 4,000 more jobs needing technical certification or an associate’s degree than there are people to fill them, assuming current trends hold over the next several years.

In other words, Louisiana is spending increasingly scarce resources to train university graduates to fill jobs in Texas or Georgia. The state hopes to create more jobs for highly educated people, but that’s a long-term project. Workforce-development legislation that was supposed to align higher education with the needs of Louisiana businesses passed last year without a dissenting vote, Eysink says.

“When we weren’t faced with budget cuts and everybody could look at this rationally and nobody was thinking that they have to protect any particular area, I think there was widespread recognition that we need a demand-driven system,” he says.

“Nobody believes that you can have too many four-year degrees,” says Blake Chatelain, chair-elect of the LSU Board of Supervisors. [Chatelain is also a nonvoting member of the PERC, although he stressed that he was speaking for himself and not for the commission.] He did say universities might need more graduates in high-demand fields; state schools currently produce more general-studies degrees than any other kind.

In a perfect world, the state would spend more money on education, since we’ve underinvested in that area for decades. But Chatelain acknowledges the current budget squeeze could force some hard choices.

The average graduation rate at Louisiana’s universities is less than 40%. So in theory, the state could steer some of the 60% into two-year schools, perhaps through tougher admissions standards, without affecting the total number of university graduates. Mike Gargano, LSU System vice president of student and academic support, calls that a “God-awful idea.” Higher admissions standards tend to force out low-income and first-generation students, who actually perform better at four-year schools than community colleges thanks to the better support system, Gargano says. The average graduation rate at two-year schools in Louisiana is only about 5%.

Those people who argue students can be educated more cheaply at two-year schools often don’t account for the extra costs associated with growing those schools, he says. Meanwhile, shifting students would create excess capacity at four-year schools, which have bonds to pay off, debt service to manage at residence halls and dining-service contracts based on enrollment. If more associate’s degrees are needed, he says it might be a better idea to let the universities issue them.

Gargano argues discouraging students from going after university degrees is counterproductive for the state and the student. A highly educated workforce attracts economic development, and while a welding certification might help you get a job today, a bachelor’s degree prepares you for a lifetime. The state should increase support for education and fully fund LSU’s flagship agenda, he says.

The Louisiana Community and Technical College System is only about 10 years old. Baton Rouge Community College, to pick one campus, achieved full accreditation in 2004. The state only recently created a seamless credit transfer process from two-year to four-year schools, and many students take just enough classes to get qualified for a good job, but don’t stick around to get the sheepskin. All of those factors contribute to the low graduation rate, system president Joe May says.

But LCTCS is growing up, maybe just in time, as greater attention to workforce needs puts more focus on two-year schools. May says the community-college system is flexible, and can quickly ramp up to accommodate more students, assuming the schools get the money to lease more space and hire more instructors.

“It would be my hope that we would all [in higher education] look at our core missions and focus on meeting those missions,” he says. “Just like you would in business, when things get a little tighter, you really look at what you need to be focusing on, and you put your energy there.”