Suggestions from a Jindal administration official today that Louisiana has a “surplus” of four-year college degrees rankled members of a commission looking at ways to overhaul the state’s public college systems. Curt Eysink, executive director of the Louisiana Workforce Commission, the state’s labor department, told the commission that Louisiana needs more students enrolled in—and graduating from—vocational training and community college programs.
Eysink says there are more graduates with four-year college degrees than the state can employ in their fields, while the state has a shortage of workers needed for skilled labor jobs. He presented occupational forecasting data that showed the top growth jobs projected for the state included ticket-takers, home health aides, retail salespersons and nurses. “We do a great job of producing four-year graduates. We don’t do a good job producing two-year completers,” Eysink says. “We’re producing a workforce that we cannot employ in Louisiana.”
Members of the Postsecondary Education Review Commission says that means Louisiana needs to do a better job of attracting companies to employ those college-educated workers. “If I saw the strongest growth area was ushers, lobby attendants and ticket-takers, I’d leave Louisiana too,” says Belle Wheelan, a commission member and president of the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools.
Commission members say while community and technical college enrollment needs to grow, they don’t think that needs to come at the expense of four-year university degrees.
