By John Austin

John Austin

Aspirants for Michigan's Governor have an opportunity to propose a bold and needed platform - then win with a mandate to implement it.

Michigan has a lot of big problems, from roads to water infrastructure. When the leading Democratic and Republican candidates join to debate next week at the Detroit Regional Chamber's Mackinac Policy Conference - I will be looking for specifics around what I consider our biggest challenges: Creating new, good jobs and helping Michiganders get the education to both create jobs and fill them. Looking at the plans offered to date by the contenders, you'd think we had plenty of jobs and if we only brought back vocational education everything would be OK. This doesn't begin to address the economic reality most people are experiencing - nor what to do about it.

On jobs, let's face it, Michigan has too few good high-paying jobs. People know it and are anxious and upset about it. We aren't a high-income state anymore. Which simply means most families and individuals aren't making enough money at their jobs. Our much heralded "comeback" and low unemployment rate is mainly a function of a revived auto industry and all the other businesses and jobs that rely on it. And despite all the jumping up and down about "talent" - particularly after losing the Amazon headquarters sweepstakes - Michigan has nowhere near an ambitious enough strategy on how to build it.

Look at high income states in the nation--and the higher education attainment levels that drive that dynamic.

Most high income states "win" with highly educated talent. They also have more diversified economies. You can't ask the question of the work is in Massachusetts or Minnesota and get a simple answer. These states are leading in emerging sectors--not just the industries that first made them great. Massachusetts was once shoes and textiles. Minnesota was the world's flour-milling capital. They've changed.

And while we should look to help our auto industry evolve so we become the new mobility capital, our economic base is still much too narrow.

And, as discussed at a recent Automation event sponsored by the University of Michigan, the jobs we do have in Michigan are at tremendous risk. Michigan has more people than most other states who have lost their jobs due to robots and automation, and many more standing to lose their job --soon. We have the nation's 5th highest share- over 20 percent of the workforce--of adults already working without a postsecondary degree or credential (making them the most vulnerable to dislocation). We also have more people than other states who work in occupations that are 90 percent likely to be obliterated by automation in coming years. No wonder folks are anxious.

What can be done? The next Governor can't just wring their hands or propose small-bore solutions. No candidate to date is talking about creating new, good jobs at scale. But as our recent Michigan Economic Center report, Jobs, Michigan, and Leadership in the Economy of Tomorrow suggests we actually have what it takes to create tens of thousands of new jobs in all the fast-growing sectors.

Michigan has an unrivaled innovation base in our people, companies and universities to lead today's economic transformation (as we led the industrial revolution 100 years ago). Today the action is around solving the world's problems and creating new products and services in the sustainable "green and blue economy" and high social impact fields of clean energy, clean water, new mobility, food, health care, information and connectivity solutions. The size of world markets in these fast-growing sectors is staggering: energy solutions ($1.35 trillion), water solutions ($1 trillion), food systems ($5 trillion), transportation ($7.5 trillion), IT ($3.8 trillion), health and well-being (1/5 of US economy).

To help create tens of thousands of new jobs and create hundreds of businesses exploiting these markets, the next Governor can set goals for Michigan's leadership in these arenas; pull together our great universities, companies, and philanthropy to make sure the global centers for R&D in all these areas are located in Michigan; and develop and commercialize the new technologies innovations being created in Michigan, rather than bringing out in out-of-state firms.

The Talent Agenda that ensures Michiganders can both take and create these jobs must also be more ambitious and specific. One foundation stone is a desperately needed K-12 funding fix, reinforced by dozens of studies, including the most recent. To fix flagging student performance, it requires an adequate level of funding that differentiates between student needs, and provides support, training and resources for educators.

But getting the funding piece right won't fix the damage unless we ensure quality control of all schools, including the hundreds of new for-profit charter and cyber schools. One fix I proposed last year was a certificate of need system, similar to what governs new hospitals, so quality schools are assured and every community has a say in who gets to operate a school in their jurisdiction.

Finally, education today -- given the way the workplace is changing -- has to be about preparing people with the skills and the postsecondary credentials that allow them to succeed. With estimates that as many as 30 percent of current occupations will disappear entirely by 2030 our "talent" has to be prepared to adapt.

To succeed in a labor market defined by change, higher levels of postsecondary education are needed. Higher formal learning is better for the individual, and better for the economy. Forty-three of today's high-paying, high demand occupations in the Hot 50 jobs promoted by the Governor and his Marshall Plan require some form of postsecondary credential; 36 of these jobs require a bachelors' degree or higher.

Fifteen years ago 60 percent of jobs that paid more than $35,000 a year could be found with less than a bachelor's degree. Today it is only 45 percent of those decent jobs. The higher your level of postsecondary education, the more you earn, the more likely you are to have and keep a good job (even in recession) and the less likely you are to be replaced by a computer or robot.

I note the Democratic Candidates for Governor all have some proposal around "College for All" alongside their vocational training proposals - but what specifically must Michigan do?

Today in Michigan, the higher education institutions that deliver the talent employers want and the skills and credentials individuals need, are being undermined. Community Colleges are being defunded. These institutions can't afford to reach out, draw in and help Michigan's adult workers without post-secondary education to earn a needed work-world valued credential.

Michigan's colleges and universities that provide higher levels of education and credentialing are being priced out of reach of working families --thanks to the state's gutting financial aid and cutting direct investment in higher education.

Michigan families once had to pay only 30 percent of the true cost of a Michigan higher education degree, now it is 77 percent of the price tag. Debt burdens are spiraling and the costs of high-quality higher education has shifted - now borne by individual students and families - versus all Michigan taxpayers, businesses and corporations (who say they need talent). We should not be surprised that so many people are discouraged and can't even conceive of getting a higher education.

The next governor has to say specifically how he or she is going make Michigan the job leader in the industries of tomorrow -- and to ensure everyone young and old, irrespective of family income--can get the advanced education essential to ward off the robots.

John Austin Directs the Michigan Economic Center and is the former President of the Michigan State Board of Education