Educational talk
College plan key to spur job, business growth in RI, says Gov. Raimondo
WOONSOCKET – After stopping in a local manufacturing company, the Brickle Group this week, Gov. Gina Raimondo spent some time with staffers at The Call promoting her Rhode Island Promise college scholarship program and other job building programs she hopes will boost the state’s work force in the coming years.
The Governor’s local visit included a tour around the city with Mayor Lisa Baldelli-Hunt to get a look “at what’s really going on,” in the community as well as talks with local legislators about her jobs programs.
When asked if she believed the RI Promise free college tuition program would also boost the local job force, Raimondo was firm in offering her belief that it would.
“100 percent, yes, that is the reason to do it,” Raimondo said. “The whole reason to do the RI Promise program is to make sure that every Rhode Islander has the job training or education that they need to start a business or get a good job,” she said.
“And this is something that would benefit Woonsocket tremendously,” she added.
The governor explained how there had been a time in the past when most
Rhode Islanders could easily find a job in a textile mill or manufacturing company with just a high school degree.
“So you could graduate from Woonsocket High on Friday and start working in a mill on Monday. And if that didn’t work out, you could go to another factory,” she said.
That is no longer the case today and the jobs that are available to young people entering the work force require much more than just a high school diploma, according to Raimondo.
“The economy is changing in ways that are really challenging and the brutal reality is that almost every good job being created now requires a degree past high school. And so the problem that is the biggest barrier is affordability,” Raimondo said.
“If you go to Woonsocket High School right now, I bet you almost every student will want to get a degree past high school but they often can’t afford it. Many of them can’t afford it. And for a very small investment, the state can make sure that we increase the number of people with skills,” Raimondo said in support of her proposal to provide all Rhode Islanders starting out in the state’s colleges two years of free tuition if they meet qualifying requirements.
The idea is to encourage more high school students to get started in college and once acclimated, stay with it and graduate with a college degree.
“Those people will start businesses. Those people will go and get a job,” she said.
During the tour at the Brickle Group, Raimondo saw the company’s new manufacturing operation on Privilege Street and noted “that’s pretty high tech stuff. It’s pretty slick, I mean you need to know how to use a computer, you need have your math skills, you need to know a little chemistry. Now that is cool, that is entrepreneurial and I want more of those jobs in Woonsocket and the only way they are going to come here is if a higher percent of your population has a degree past high school,” the Governor said.
The success of higher education has also changed to a degree and Raimondo said she learned during a recent visit to Rhode Island College that when new students start there full time in the fall, by the next year “less than half of them are still there going full time.” Jobs and other responsibilities prompt students to start taking fewer classes and when students are only attending part time they are more likely to drop out, she explained.
“And these students are dropping out because they can’t they can’t find $700, $800. So for a small investment we can change Rhode Island’s economy,” the Governor said in support of her scholarship proposal.
When asked whether that initiative would compete with the state’s support for k-12 public school education, Raimondo suggested the overall picture for school funding is a challenging one.
“It breaks my heart to go to these high schools and see so many students who are very smart, very hard working and very talented and the only reason they won’t go to college and get through college is because they don’t have enough money,” she said of college motivated high school students.
“They just want to have a shot, and to have a shot, to have a chance to get a decent job these days, you need a degree past high school,” she said.
Raimondo said she believes it is “totally unfair” that students who are willing to work hard at getting a post secondary degree can’t afford to take that step after high school.
“I go to RIC, I go to CCRI and I see these people are willing to work. They work all day, all night, weekends, they are the employees you want to hire. But you’ve got to help them get the degree and so they need a scholarship,” she said.
As for how her initiative is fairing in the current session of the General Assembly, Raimondo said she has found “a lot of support in the senate,” where Senate President Dominic Ruggiero has indicated he likes the proposal and other senators have as well.
“A lot of the rank and file Representatives have told me they are for it,” she said while also noting that House Speaker Nicholas Mattiello is “definitely on the fence, so there is work to be done on that but it is popular.”
“People want it, other states are doing it, New York just passed it,” Raimondo offered. “To any Representative who is think- ing about it, a vote for this is a vote for jobs, a vote against it is a vote against jobs. So if you are a Representative in Woonsocket and you want people in Woonsocket to have jobs you have to be for this as far as I’m concerned,” Raimondo said.
When it comes to funding elementary and high school education, Rhode Island is in the top ten of states in America, Raimondo noted. But we are in the bottom ten in how we fund higher education, so we have work to do,” she added.
“And we are living in a time where higher education matters more than ever. Even when I was in high school and I am not that old, the majority of jobs in Rhode Island went to people with just a high school degree. In only the time since I graduated high school, it’s completely flipped. So if we don’t do more and help people get these degrees, we are just never going to get ahead,” she said. Raimondo also projected that the cost of the new scholarship program, less than a half of one percent of the state’s overall budget, would be a worthwhile investment in higher education in the state.
Raimondo also spoke about the role the Community College of Rhode Island under its new president, Meghan Hughes, is taking on the role of serving as a “work force development engine,” for older residents in need of job retraining or degrees for a new career as another job creation support.
“So we are working hard to make those programs at CCRI because we think that is the right place,” she said. The state also has a jobs support program through its Department of Labor and Training called Real Jobs RI that offers jobs seekers or mid-career employees new job opportunities.