Partnership plan urges degree boost

It isn’t a new thought that something must be done within Rhode Island’s higher education system to provide easier, more-affordable access to post-secondary education to create a workforce matched to the state’s available jobs.
“But the novel approach [now] is that we are making an effort to work across sectors, around the table, and I think it’s the power of our community working together that will help us get some traction on some of these very difficult issues,” Deborah Grossman-Garber, R.I. Department of Higher Education associate commissioner for planning and policy, said last week.
On April 16, the office of higher education was scheduled to present “Rhode Island Partnerships Project: Increasing Post-Secondary Degree Attainment to Support Economic Development in R.I.” The report will introduce four initiatives designed to improve college-degree attainment for adult residents who have not completed or begun a post-secondary education.
Grossman-Garber said there are between 80,000 and 125,000 Rhode Island adult residents who have some post-secondary education but have not earned a certificate or degree.
“So they are not able to benefit from those credits that they’ve accumulated. We’ve got a workforce that is underprepared for the level of jobs for the 21st century that is going to be available in Rhode Island,” she said. “We as a state are looking at mechanisms to get adult students back into structured programs that will benefit them and by extension benefit the state economically.”
The Rhode Island Partnerships Project was established in September 2012 to address the state’s so-called skills gap by creating concrete action plans. It was initiated by the R.I. Office of Higher Education and is a group of more than 40 Rhode Island business, higher education and government leaders.
The group’s work over the last five months has resulted in an assessment that the highest-priority action the state can take to improve its economy is to increase the number of residents who hold a bachelor’s degree, associate degree or a post-secondary certificate.
The group is announcing four initiatives aimed at making that happen: Internships/Apprenticeships; a One-Stop Shop; Loan Mitigation; and Adult Learners. “[We’ve made] it possible for a variety of individuals from the business, the legislative communities and agencies and institutions to come together to share what they’ve been doing or are concerned about and then talk about integrative responses and mechanisms that would serve the needs of students and of the individual agencies and institutions that are dealing on a daily basis with students,” Grossman-Garber said.
The partnership plans to help launch a statewide campaign to increase knowledge for businesses of internship programs and to seek tax credits for companies establishing internships and apprenticeships.
The One-Stop Shop is meant to create one place for current, returning and potential students with physical and virtual presence in Rhode Island communities.
The goal of the loan-mitigation program is to address the funding issue that many Rhode Islanders face in earning a post-secondary degree. The partnership plans to define and implement an expansion of the RISLA loan-forgiveness programs to include college students who participate in internships for college credit and to explore creative funding strategies, including social impact bonds, to assist returning noncompleters with debt burden.
“There is already work under way by [Rhode Island College, the University of Rhode Island, and Community College of Rhode Island] in contacting former students who within a certain number of credits of finishing,” Grossman-Garber said.
The partnership plans to design and implement a “Statewide Gateway Experience” for adults looking to enter or re-enter post-secondary education that will offer personal advising, diagnostics and placement exams, instruction in portfolio design, and cohort-based instruction on lifelong learning skills and documentation.
“One of our issues in Rhode Island is that we are an exporter of degrees. We should be utilizing [professionals] as mentors for Rhode Island students to connect with the community, to learn the art and craft of a particular occupation,” Grossman-Garber said. “There is already work being done. This effort is to scale it up and look at what a systematic response might require.” •

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