How do you kill a state's vitality and economy? Put your boot on the neck of its educational infrastructure.
If and when Wisconsin Governor Walker's budget is passed -- corporate tax breaks or not -- businesses will trip over themselves abandoning a state that does not bother to develop a valuable workforce. Vocational schools provide opportunities for a wide array of potential taxpayers, and creates a crucial labor/creative resource for business and industry.
Wisconsin is about to shutter its windows and go dark....
State funding for Wisconsin's 16 technical colleges would drop to a dollar level not seen since the late 1980s, despite enrollment growth of 40% over the last decade, if cuts in Gov. Scott Walker's proposed budget ultimately gain approval, college officials said last week.
That could lead to longer waiting lists for classes, more limited access to courses and programs, and ultimately, challenges for Wisconsin manufacturers, health care providers and other employers looking for skilled workers as the state's economy struggles to recover, officials said.
"We had to turn away a lot of students last year because we had filled classes," said Lee Rasch, president of Western Technical College in La Crosse. "We easily turned away a couple thousand students. The jobs are here, but we don't have the funding to increase capacity. If the goal (stated by Walker) is to create 250,000 jobs, these are the kinds of jobs we need."
Read the rest at: Technical schools say they're in a vise grip - JSOnline
See also The Death of the Covenant:
Radomski says what the state would lose is a unified effort to promote college planning in the state. Most states, he says, have now implemented some kind of “pledge” program for students exchanging state assistance for meeting some academic standard.
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