Vail Valley Partnership’s board of governors has identified workforce development as a key strategic priority area. The reality of our rural resort economy raise a variety of important questions, including can we compete for best and brightest employees? Can we maintain and grow our economic and amenity advantages despite inherent challenges? Can we proactively manage growth with a bifurcation between high and low skill/wage service jobs? How does disparate growth across the state impact us? Are we set to cope with opportunities and challenges of an aging population?
Nationally the high school graduation rate is 83%, with an average of 63% matriculating directly from high school to college. From there, graduation rates from four-year institutions hover near 60%. Essentially, for every 100 students in high school, only about 31 will go on to complete a four-year degree. Said differently, currently only 31% of the population has access to what Americans believe is necessary to be a competent employee in the industries that drive the nation’s economy, and have a reasonable standard of living.
Eagle County Schools graduation rate is 77.1% (compared to a state average of 73.9%). Of the graduates, the percent of students who plan to attend college is 77%. Extrapolating this further, the national graduation rate for 4-year institutions is 60% (while difficult to isolate to an individual county, the best guess is that we are fairly consistent with the national numbers).
So, of 100 local students:
- 77 graduate high school
- 60 go on to college
- 36 graduate with a four-year degree
Only 36% of the population achieves that we traditionally believe to be the ticket to the middle class – a four-year college education.
Related to the high school graduation rates and our future workforce needs, Eagle County’s population is currently one of Colorado’s youngest – but is rapidly aging. While the youth, 18 to 25, and 46 to 60-year-old segments of the population remain constant at 25%, 8%, and 19% of the total population, respectively, state demographers are predicting a decline in the “family age” group of 26 to 45-year-olds, from almost 40% of the total in 2005 to about 24% by the year 2035. The older population, 61 and above, grows markedly, forecasted to comprise 22% of the total by 2035.
These facts and projections beg the question: is it time to develop meaningful career pathways and workforce programs to help redefine success for our students (and our businesses who will increasingly rely on these students to meet our workforce needs)?
We believe a concerted, coordinated, and collaborative community approach to workforce development efforts and future business growth are required in order to meaningfully address our impending demographic shifts, the increasing demand for skilled workforce across industry sectors, at the same time creating opportunities for students.
Vail Valley Partnership is focused on the economic vitality of the valley, and strives to lead collaborative efforts for community success. Workforce development efforts are in many ways the epitome of collaboration. The Partnership is actively involved and engaged in a variety of workforce efforts, including serving on the Rural Workforce Consortium board, Northwest Colorado Council of Governments economic development district, and Colorado Mountain College advisory council. We engage and are involved in these efforts because we believe workforce development is important to our business community.
We are also increasingly focused on workforce development through our new director of community development, Erik Williams. In this position Erik will be responsible for providing collaboration to work across public and private sectors to develop professional development and workforce development programs. Erik will also responsible for driving business community engagement via developing, implementing, and analyzing programs and community engagement in alignment with the Vail Valley Partnership strategic plan.
Eagle County Schools, Colorado Mountain College, YouthPower365, and Vail Valley Partnership (among other community groups) have been engaged and involved in numerous efforts to date including job shadowing and internship programs. Moving forward, an intriguing opportunity exists with CareerWise Colorado; CareerWise coordinates apprenticeships among businesses, students, and educators that create opportunities for long-term impact.
Today, the burden of educating the newest members of Colorado’s workforce falls directly on our schools, and that is something that needs to change – moving forward, this must be a joint effort that includes not only the education community but also the local nonprofit and business community.
Stay tuned for more information as we work on innovative and impactful programs to provide new pathways to students while at the same time addressing our significant workforce challenges.
Chris Romer is president & CEO of Vail Valley Partnership, recently named “Chamber of the Year” by the Association of Chamber of Commerce Executives. Learn more at VailValleyPartnership.com
Column sources:
https://nces.ed.gov/fastfacts/display.asp?id=40
http://www.higheredinfo.org/dbrowser/index.php?measure=32
Online learning: