Jessica Ruhle of Marysville faced an uncertain future after she was laid off from her job working for a local home builder.
She searched for a new job, but couldn’t find one.
Worried about her family, she turned to the worker retraining program at Everett Community College. The program is helping more than 200 laid-off workers like Ruhle learn new skills and return to the workforce.
Ruhle is now training to become a nurse.
“Everett Community College is giving me a fresh start,” she said. “Without worker retraining, I don’t know that I would have been able to go back to school, ever.”
Ruhle isn’t alone. EvCC’s enrollment surged more than 7 percent this fall and winter as unemployed workers, recent high school graduates, those seeking new job skills, and others struggling to find employment turn to higher education.
EvCC and the state’s 33 other community colleges and technical schools are needed now, more than ever. The colleges are essential to Washington state’s eventual economic recovery.
In our community, EvCC serves more than 18,000 people every year, providing education leading to family-wage jobs, worker retraining and crucial services to help the state during an economic crisis.
As EvCC’s enrollment grows, the state is reducing the college’s budget. The governor’s proposed reductions for EvCC would trim $1.1 million this year and cut another $1.5 million next year.
We understand the need to cut back to close the state’s budget deficit. Everett Community College’s Board of Trustees supports the governor’s budget proposal and is asking state legislators not to make deeper cuts.
Deeper cuts could further damage the economy by eliminating training opportunities that lead to good jobs — and greater government revenue.
At the peak of the state’s last economic downturn in 2002-03, 17,000 laid-off workers statewide turned to community and technical colleges for retraining. Within a few months of completing college, 80 percent of those workers had returned to employment — and nearly half of those were hired into jobs that paid higher wages than the jobs they lost.
A 2005 economic impact study of EvCC found that the college returns more to taxpayers than it costs. For every dollar state and local government invests in EvCC, taxpayers will get more than $6 in return over the next 30 years or so.
Students will see their annual income increase, on average, by about $82 per year for every credit completed at EvCC, according to the study.
Despite the economic downturn, some industries continue to seek employees. For example, 100 percent of EvCC’s recent nursing graduates are employed. Employers are still calling for graduates from the college’s welding and fabrication program — offering jobs that cannot be outsourced.
Sixty percent of today’s jobs require education or training beyond high school, and that percentage is rising. EvCC is an affordable, effective way of meeting the need.
Our future depends on opportunities for students like Jessica Ruhle. Without higher education and retraining, Snohomish County’s economy — and the state’s — cannot recover.
Tom Gaffney is a member of Everett Community College’s Board of Trustees and a retired partner of Moss Adams LLP. EvCC’s Board of Trustees includes Nancy Truitt Pierce, Carlos Veliz, James Shipman and Gene Chase.
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