College grads dwindling in state, study says HIGHER EDUCATION

Even though the economy has taken a nose dive and job hunters are out in force, researchers say that by 2025 California will be starved for college-educated workers to fill available jobs.

In fact, the state will need about a million more college-educated workers than it's expected to have - a shortage that will lead to a lower standard of living in California and more people needing social services, according to a new report by the Public Policy Institute of California.

The report predicts that 41 percent of workers will need a college diploma (4 in 10 jobs will require one), but only 35 percent of working-age adults will have the necessary degree.

"We know the demand for college graduates will go up, and if we don't improve educational outcomes, we'll have an economy that produces less income, and a population that will require more social services," said Hans Johnson, a senior fellow at the Public Policy Institute who co-wrote "Closing the Gap: Meeting California's Need for College Graduates."

The problem is that well-educated Baby Boomers (those born between 1946 and 1964) will be retiring over the next two decades, say the researchers. Expected to take their places in increasingly complex jobs will be younger, less-educated workers.

The researchers urged state lawmakers and California colleges to take steps to encourage more students to attend college and graduate.

Right now, they say, too few students attend, much less earn a diploma, from California colleges.

California ranks 18th among the 20 largest states for high school graduates who enroll in college, they found. (New York is first.) And only about half of incoming freshmen at its public colleges graduate within six years, Johnson said.

California's public colleges award about 110,000 diplomas per year, and private schools about 40,000, says the report. To meet the demand by 2025, the colleges need to graduate almost 60,000 more students annually.

"This is a daunting task, of course, and in the near term very unlikely to be achieved," the report says. And current budget shortfalls across higher education make it even more unlikely that graduation rates will rise any time soon.

But Johnson identified some solutions he called "low-hanging fruit":

-- Make it easier for students to transfer from community colleges to four-year colleges by aligning courses among the three systems. More than 70 percent of community college students don't bother transferring to a four-year school.

-- Design programs at California State University campuses and the University of California system to help students stay in school.

-- In 1960, when just 10 percent of the workforce had a college degree, California's Master Plan for Higher Education was "forward-thinking" because it allowed one-third of high-school graduates to be eligible for UC or CSU. It should now be updated so that more high school graduates are eligible for enrollment.

"It's going to happen. Out of crisis comes opportunity," said state Sen. Gloria Romero (D-Los Angeles), who chairs the Senate Education Committee. Romero said she agrees with the report and intends to focus on course alignment and reinvigorating the Master Plan. "We are not going to race to the top if we don't produce the graduates in a new economy that demands degrees."