Burton: 65/25 Is A Call to Action

By Wayne Burton

Experts estimate that the percentage of New Hampshire jobs requiring postsecondary credentials will approach 68 percent by the year 2020. To meet this challenge, a statewide goal has been set, whereby 65 percent of the population would hold a postsecondary credential or degree by the year 2025. With competitor states ramping up their efforts to develop a workforce holding postsecondary credentials, meeting the demands of the 21st century, New Hampshire risks relegation to the economic backwater if the status quo beats back calls to action.

Forty-six distinguished leaders from both the public and private sectors have already signed onto that goal through their membership on the New Hampshire Coalition for Business and Education (NHCBE, nhcbe.org/ ).

The Coalition Chair, Tom Raffio, President and CEO of Delta Dental, who also chairs the state Board of Education, has indicated that, “The 65/25 goal will be the overarching direction for the Coalition going forward, and will include all the education stepping stones that lead to college, including early childhood learning and secondary school education.”

Adding further perspective, reaching 65 percent from our current rate of about 45%, will require adding about 95,500 people with post-secondary credentials by 2025. If we do nothing differently, our current rate will increase very little. Unfortunately, our historically strong ability to attract educated individuals from outside New Hampshire has leveled, and roughly, 4,000 of the 7,000 graduates of our public high schools seeking a four-year degree attend higher education institutions outside the state. Less than half of them return to live and work here. Of the 2,100 hundred students who attend public colleges in New Hampshire, approximately 70% will remain to live and work in their native state, suggesting a strategy to retain more residents outlined below.

For those seeking other than a four-year degree, the news is much better. Of the 3,500 NH High School graduates initially seeking other than a four-year degree, well over one-half attend a college in the New Hampshire Community Technical College System with a much higher propensity to remain here, with many transferring on to a campus of the University System of New Hampshire.

Clearly, increasing the percentage of our high school graduates attending public colleges and universities in this state offers the most promising strategy toward accomplishing the 65/25 goal.

To that end, and consistent with a major recommendation in the NHCBE draft report, “securing financial aid to keep people in-state,” I have filed legislation creating a scholarship program named for Molly and General John Stark, through whose heroism our state was created during the Revolutionary War. This program will guarantee half-tuition scholarships for three years at any public higher education institution in the Granite State to those graduating in the top 20% of their New Hampshire public high school class. This program would raise aspirations, incentivizing a larger percentage of our residents to attend college here, taking advantage of the propensity of New Hampshire natives graduating from our public colleges and universities to remain here. The legislation is intended as a starting point to spark discussion as to how we climb this mountain of a challenge. Yes, it will require a financial investment, the size of which will depend on the parameters of the final program package. But we must compare this cost with the economic loss the state faces if we choose to non-compete with neighboring and other states who are actively pursuing the same type of goal. Already our neighbor to the south has launched the John and Abigail Adams Scholarship with essentially the same purpose as the one I am proposing. Will Molly and John Stark rest quietly while Abigail and John Adams eat our economic lunch? I think not.

In summary, I have filed three bills: a Resolution which if passed will put the New Hampshire legislature on record as acknowledging the challenge ahead leaving tactics to be developed. The second bill proposes a strategy, the John and Molly Stark Scholarship program. The third bill calls for a study to ensure we are appropriately organized to meet the 65/25 goal. It also adds accountability to the initiative, possibly creating a commission with a mandate to monitor progress toward the goal of 65/25 working with the NH Coalition for Business and Education and other organizations

Make no mistake, to succeed this must be a bipartisan effort. Failure to close the looming skill deficit of 15% to 25% will negatively affect every New Hampshire resident regardless of party and political persuasion. Please view this as an invitation to join in changing New Hampshire’s future. Embracing the status quo will deny us the summit we must reach to be competitive in the 21st century and leave unfulfilled our generational responsibility to those following us.

Wayne Burton, D-Madbury, is a state representative for Strafford County, 6.