If you haven’t seen it (or all of it), much has been written over the past several days about the widening gap between workers with degrees and the jobs that require those degrees. On Monday, Georgetown University released a report that found that the United States is “on a collision course with the future” because the future economy will have jobs for workers — but there will be too few workers with degrees. Specifically, the report found that by 2018 the U.S. will need 22 million workers with college degrees, but will come up short by 3 million workers.
On Sunday, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel bluntly asked the question, “does Milwaukee have enough college graduates to thrive?” The answer seems to be, right now, no. In fact, Wisconsin lags behind the national average of citizens that hold a bachelor’s degree. UW System’s Growth Agenda aims to greatly increase the number of graduates in Wisconsin over the next several years. Specifics on how to achieve these goals are being developed and will be included in the Regent’s budget request to the governor later this summer.