It may come as a surprise to know that in higher education circles around the country, Colorado is known for what is called the "Colorado Paradox" — that the state ranks among the highest in the proportion of the population with a college degree, but among the lowest in the proportion of state residents who complete college.
The reason is that Colorado — particularly the Denver area — is such an attractive place to live and offers a lot of opportunities to college-educated people from around the country.
For a long time, the Colorado Paradox meant that increasing higher education opportunity was, frankly, not a priority. Now, however, there are clear signs that this attitude is breaking down in the face of a changing economy that demands skills and higher levels of education for many more people than in the past. Relying on other states is no longer a viable strategy, so graduating a lot more residents from college is vital for Denver's and Colorado's economic future.
The most important reason is this: jobs. Recent estimates show that by 2018, more than 60 percent of American jobs will require some form of postsecondary education. Unfortunately, only 45 percent of adults in Colorado have an associate or bachelor's degree.
To deliver more college graduates, we believe that a keen focus is needed in a few key areas including: making college more affordable, closing the skills gap between what employers need and what employees can do, and engaging employers and civic leaders more fully.
Streamlining costs and reducing tuition in higher education are essential. The cost of tuition has outpaced inflation for nearly three decades and the price of obtaining a degree is now prohibitive for far too many. Colorado must find a way to use scarce public funds to produce more highly qualified college graduates, and there are ways to do just that.
For example, several states now use performance funding to increase college completion for underserved populations, shorten time to degree or credential, and reduce the cost of delivery. Tennessee is distributing 70 percent of its higher education appropriations based on results and quality rather than enrollment. And student performance incentives, such as the strategic use of tuition and financial aid to encourage students to stay in school and complete their programs as quickly as possible, are also proliferating.
Introducing business efficiencies like joint purchasing of products and services can also help produce savings that are used to graduate more students at a lower cost. In Ohio, more than $900 million has been saved by public colleges and universities over the last few years.
Closing the skills gap is also critical to Denver's future success. Manpower's latest Talent Shortage Survey found that 52 percent of U.S. employers are experiencing difficulty filling mission-critical positions within their organizations. That's up from 14 percent in 2010 and local employers are feeling the same pain.
A scan of Denver-area classified ads reveals that there are more than 700 job openings in the fields of engineering, medical and technology alone. Those jobs are open today, but they require college degrees.
In the past, if employers could not find the talent that they needed locally, they would go looking for it elsewhere. But today, the vast majority of new jobs require higher skills, which means people are much less likely to make it into the middle class without a college degree. Earning power, or lack thereof, makes postsecondary education attainment an important quality of life issue and a critical piece of Denver's long-term economic growth plans.
Today, like Denver, every major America city is grappling with the challenge of how to grow jobs, investment and individual opportunity. It's a big hill to climb, but it's a critically important one too. There is a lot of work to do, but one piece of the puzzle that is absolutely essential is to graduate more people from college.
Jamie Merisotis is president and chief executive of Lumina Foundation, the nation's largest private foundation focused on increasing the number of college graduates.