The 2007 Update to the Indicators Report is available online at prosperitypartnership.org. The complete file includes the 2008 Action Items.

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Prosperity Partnership Salutes Legislative Action on Higher Education

The Prosperity Partnership Co-Chairs: Brad Smith, Senior Vice President at Microsoft; Charles Mitchell, Chancellor of the Seattle Community Colleges; Mark Emmert, President of the University of Washington; Rick Bender, President of the Washington State Labor Council; Tomio Moriguchi, Uwajimaya Chairman & CEO; Rita Ryder, President emeritus of the YWCA; Scott Carson, Boeing Commercial Airplanes CEO; and John Ladenburg, Pierce County Executive.

Leaders at the Prosperity Partnership's annual luncheon thanked Governor Christine Gregoire and the 2007 Legislature for their historic investments in Washington's higher education system. The effort to add 10,000 more bachelor's degrees to our state's annual production by 2020 has begun and focused its first steps on the high demand, high impact degrees the state's employers need most.

The important next step in improving Washington's competitiveness in higher education is to ensure students are prepared upon High School graduation to participate in Washington's economy. Essential to this effort is the development of a pilot communications initiative to help middle and high school students understand the types of family wage jobs available, the types of high demand degrees available to land those jobs, and the prerequisites needed to get into these types of degree programs.

University of Washington President Dr. Mark Emmert explained the issue and opportunity in depth at the luncheon. "Over the past ten years, nationally we've seen a pretty sharp decline in science, math, and engineering interest across the nation, just at the same time we've seen our competitor nations are shooting up in the other direction," said Dr. Emmert, a Prosperity Partnership Co-Chair.

Washington is poised to buck this trend. "If you look at the U.W. in that same ten year time frame, we've seen a 30 percent increase overall in science technology and engineering degrees," Dr. Emmert continued. "And looking at the survey data that we get from our entering freshmen… their intention and interest in majoring in the high demand degrees has spiked, so they are hearing the message you are delivering, they may not be as prepared as we'd like them to be, but they hear that this is important.

"We need to work in collaboration in recruiting students to think about higher education…and eliminate the access issues, especially the financial ones, so they know in the eighth grade, because that is when they really drop out of school, that this [higher education] is going to be waiting for them," finished Dr. Emmert. "It's getting the students to think about and understand and realize that they are naturally going to higher education and it's a regular part of the process."

The Prosperity Partnership's Higher Education Working Group is gearing up to team up with the College and Work Ready Agenda to develop the pilot communications initiative and succeed on this effort.

For more information, contact Bill McSherry at 206-971-3269 or bmcsherry@psrc.org

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