Two-Year Colleges Critical To State’s Economic Future

Arkansas’ two-year colleges hold the key to economic development in the state, and they’re mobilizing their resources to meet the work force needs of business and industry.

That’s according to several leaders in the trenches, who are working to ensure that if large companies come knocking, Arkansas will have workers waiting at the door.

“Community colleges are the greatest economic development engines ever invented by a democratic society,” said Glen Fenter, president of Mid-South Community College in West Memphis. “They invest in the most important resource that any economic development engine will require, and that is human capital.”

Arkansas began its push a little behind the curve, Fenter said, but the quick success in state work force training programs so far, coupled with greater emphasis on two-year college programs by competing states, finally has officials in the state on the same page.

Ed Franklin, executive director of the Arkansas Association of Two-Year Colleges, said when he took his post 11 years ago, most of the state’s two-year colleges didn’t have business outreach or work force training programs. Only five full-time employees served work force training efforts for all 22 schools. Nowadays, more than 54 full-time employees and 400 part-timers are involved in work force training in Arkansas, some with the AATYC but most through the colleges.

“There is no doubt about it: The biggest economic development tool, especially in rural areas, is the state’s two-year colleges,” Franklin said.

Gov. Mike Beebe is showing signs that he gets it, according to Fenter. Beebe has played a large role in helping the Delta region’s two-year colleges secure more than $28 million in grants in the past 18 months alone, Fenter said.

More evidence of Beebe’s commitment to preparing the state’s work force came recently when he told The Associated Press that it was largely the fault of Arkansas’ work force that Toyota Motor Corp. chose a site in Tupelo, Miss., last spring rather than a site in Marion. As a result, Beebe said, the state now has in place a system to weed out employees not serious about working in newly arrived industries.

Regional Strategy

Falling in step with some other states, Arkansas is putting an emphasis on regionalizing its two-year college efforts. That includes identifying specific economic development needs in Arkansas and teaming two or more of the community colleges to train workers to meet those needs. For example, in the Delta, automotive manufacturing and transportation needs are being met, while training in Mississippi County focuses on its large steel industry. And at NorthWest Arkansas Community College, Wal-Mart-intensive programs are offered, such as one that offers training on how to become a trusted vendor of the world’s largest retailer.

“More and more we’re going to see this regionalization in terms of developing a regional strategy,” Franklin said. “The places that you see getting ahead around the country are doing that, and that’s how we’re attacking it.”

A shining example of that is the Arkansas Delta Training & Education Consortium, a partnership of Mid-South Community College, Arkansas Northeastern College, Arkansas State University at Newport, East Arkansas Community College and Phillips Community College of the University of Arkansas. The consortium is the framework for meeting emerging automotive and manufacturing needs in the Delta by taking a group approach to training and educating a work force for both current and emerging jobs.

One of the benefits of the regional effort and the grants it has secured, Fenter said, is that his school’s computerized numeric control program houses the largest center of training equipment in the Southeast. The program trains students on a system that controls nearly every piece of automated robotic machinery in every high-tech plant in the world.

“We are seeing a huge demand coming from companies in the Memphis region, particularly for employees who are just beginning to become trained,” Fenter said. “They walk into very good jobs with just a semester’s worth of training starting at $15 to $20 an hour; while four semesters of training yield jobs that pay between $50,000 and $70,000.”

Business Needs

Though much of the curriculum is standard across the board, all two-year colleges in Arkansas gear their many programs toward meeting the needs of businesses in their region.

Black River Technical College in Pocahontas has supplied one company with so many workers it decided to expand part of the firm and locate in the area.

That firm is Universal Asset Management Inc. of Memphis, a company that buys old airliners, dismantles them and refurbishes their components to sell to airlines and repair facilities. It relies heavily on Black River’s Airframe & Power Plant Aviation Program for training. More than 80 percent of its workers at its 80,000-SF Pocahontas facility and the hangar it occupies at the Walnut Ridge Air Base were trained at Black River.

“Their CEO has told us several times that he wouldn’t know what to do if it weren’t for the training programs we provide,” said Richard Gaines, president of the school. “We’re one of only two schools offering that kind of training. But we’ve supplied them with graduates that do everything from secretarial work to office managers to highly skilled technical workers.”

Steve Manley, CEO of Universal Asset Management, offers a new car every year to one lucky Black River graduate.

“I just wanted to find some way that might give students a little extra encouragement or incentive to graduate, and I thought this might help,” he said.

At ASU-Newport, Chancellor Larry Williams said the school offers commercial driving and diesel engine technology training for some of the state’s – and the world’s – largest trucking firms, including J.B. Hunt Transport Services, USA Truck and Maverick Transportation.

“Some companies from all over the United States bring new hires to Arkansas for orientation and training,” he said.

The two-year college also provides the Arkansas Electric Cooperatives Corp. plenty of high-voltage electric linemen. Williams said the one-year program is in its fourth year and has a job placement rate of nearly 95 percent.

Breaking Barriers

One way to boost economic development and training in the state is to try to motivate Arkansans who never gave higher education – or even high school, in some cases – a thought, Franklin said.

The key to doing that, he said, is breaking down the barriers that often prevent potential students from attending, like child care, transportation and the money to pay for schooling.

The Arkansas Career Pathways program, a federally funded program that’s funneled through the state, is doing that. Its goal is to get Arkansans off welfare by breaking down barriers so they can get the training necessary for better jobs.

But providing transportation, child care and money for classes is only one way two-year colleges are improving work force education. Most of the state’s 22 two-year colleges offer programs tailored to attract those who can’t drop their current jobs to attend classes – like Arkansas Northeastern College in Blytheville, which offers training to the area’s large steel industry by working around plants’ shifts of four days on-four days off and four nights on-four nights off.

“We see it as our job to go out of our way to bring students in, and many of those potential students have real-world issues that get in the way,” Franklin said.

Use the Force

Franklin said a recent study by the nonprofit Southern Growth Policy Board indicates that Arkansas could be in for a surprise come 2025.

The study, based largely on birth rates, shows that the nation will have an 11 percent increase in prime age workers and the South will have a 1 percent decrease. Arkansas, however, will experience a 7 percent decrease, according to the study.

“The key for us in Arkansas right now is that we’re at a crossroads, where if in fact we do things to regionalize, to provide specific training for specific industries in those areas as identified by that region, then Arkansas can move ahead quickly and overcome some of those things,” Franklin said.

“If we don’t have the work force, then the businesses won’t come. I don’t care how good everything else is, but the reality is that it begins with work force, and that’s where we come in. In a perfect world, we’d have the most skilled work force you can imagine first, and then the businesses would just trickle right in.”