‘We need more communities to follow Ivy Tech’s lead’
Visit by first lady Jill Biden highlights energy tech program
First lady Jill Biden visited the Valparaiso campus of Ivy Tech Community College Monday to help highlight the school’s Energy Technology Program that is currently training 80 students as early as their sophomore year in high school for high-paying union jobs in the energy sector.
Biden, who is herself a teacher at a community college, told a crowd of college officials, local leaders and Ivy Tech students that such career-connected learning beginning in high school is the future of the American economy. “These aren’t a Democratic idea, or a Republican idea. They’re American ideas championed by people from both parties,” she said. “It’s how we grow the economy from the bottom up, and the middle out.”
Those in attendance didn’t need any convincing. Sandy Strilich Daly was working in landscaping before receiving her certification and associate degree in electric line construction in the energy program and getting hired by NIPSCO 12 years ago.
Now she’s a working foreman heavy equipment operator for NIPSCO’s gas construction department. “Twelve years ago I knew I needed to find a job that paid well, that had benefits,”
Strilich Daly told Biden.
She was one of a handful of current and former students at three stations set up to give Biden a snapshot of the electric line, renewables, and gas programs offered at the college. After one year in the program, students can earn technical certification, and after two years they can earn an associate degree.
High school students as young as Chesterton High School sophomore Oliver Wood can achieve the certification and then continue on for their associate degree after high school graduation. Ivy
Tech Energy Department Chair Majid Mohseni said apprentice linemen earn a starting wage of $45 per hour at NIPSCO and that the school has an agreement with NIPSCO that its students will be first in line for interviews off the street if they hold a certificate or associate degree.
NIPSCO retiree Mike Jones helped start the Energy Technology Program at Ivy Tech and now serves as an emeritus professor at the school. He said the average graduate earns $25 per hour fresh out of school.
“High school education just isn’t enough for the jobs of the 21st century,” Biden told the crowd. She was accompanied by U.S. Deputy Secretary of Labor Julie Su and U.S. Deputy Secretary of Energy David Turk. Su gave a shoutout to the union steelworkers and International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers in attendance while explaining that good union jobs like theirs are dependent upon good community pathways.
“Community colleges are the on-ramp to that entire system,” Su said. Turk said the United States will need over one million more electricians before the early 2030s.
He said over $74 billion in private and public funds are being invested in over 100 new battery plants in the U.S. “You can have a great job and you can be secure in expansion and you can save the planet while you’re doing it,” Turk said.
Ivy Tech in Porter, LaPorte, Starke and Jasper counties serves over 10,000 students, including over 4,500 high schoolers. At its 90 locations throughout the state nearly 170,000 students are enrolled; 75,000 of them are high schoolers earning dual credit. Ivy Tech Valparaiso Chancellor Aco Sikoski said over 80% of the school’s graduates have no debt upon graduation.
Ivy Tech President Sue Ellspermann said nearly two million Hoosiers have no credentials beyond high school. “These are the jobs that are most vulnerable to automation,” she said of the roles those workers fill.
U.S. Rep. Frank Mrvan, D-Highland, said it’s crucial Indiana starts educating its students at a very early age so high school students understand the pathways available to them for these quality jobs.
“We need more communities to follow Ivy Tech’s lead,” Biden said. “Together we’re going to be able to transform what it means to make a living and make a life here in America.”