Study urges colleges to tighten focus on teaching high-demand job skills

Donna Koffski was a graphic designer at Boeing before being laid off from her $25-an-hour job in March.

Now, she's getting used to putting her hands in people's mouths, studying to be a dental assistant at Kirkland's Lake Washington Technical College (LWTC), which recently expanded its dental program to accommodate a growing demand. When she finishes next August, she hopes to make $17 to $20 an hour in an industry in desperate need of qualified labor.

A recent study contends that community and technical colleges can help alleviate what it describes as the grim irony of the state's economy: high unemployment cohabiting with industries that can't find qualified workers.

"Today, even in the midst of a persistent recession, many industries report that lack of skilled workers impedes their growth," concludes the study by Paul Sommers and Deena Heg of the University of Washington, titled "Occupational Demand and Supply by Industry Cluster and Region."

To fix that, Sommers said, community and technical colleges need to use data to react to — and even anticipate — change in the economy. They need to create vocational and training programs based on sound research on the current and future economy, Sommers and Heg concluded.

By recognizing "regional economic clusters" — areas where businesses of the same type coexist and become intertwined like species in an ecosystem — community and technical colleges can tailor their course catalogs to the employment needs of those clusters, the report recommends.

Some are already taking note. Like many of the laid-off workers they serve, community and technical colleges are trying to adapt, helping people such as Koffski move from wilting to thriving regional industries, expanding and changing some programs and dropping others.

LWTC recently renovated and expanded its dental facility because dentists will need 34 percent more hygienists and assistants over the next 10 years, according to the state Department of Employment Security.

Using $600,000 in grant money, the college expanded its in-house dental clinic, which trains students while treating indigent patients. The renovated clinic increased its hygienist capacity by 25 percent.

"When we were laid off, we were told that we weren't coming back so we needed to find a profession that is in high demand," Koffski said.

So Koffski signed up for classes, paid for by the federal government, in oral science and dental materials, among others. The year of study will cost $2,225.

Bellevue Community College (BCC) has also begun to work with business and labor leaders and government officials to find out what the regional economy needs, President Jean Floten said. When the college discovered that health care is anchoring the Puget Sound region's sagging economy and needs workers, the school expanded its capacity in nursing, radiation therapy, pharmaceutical assisting and other health-care fields.

Programs for fields showing less-robust employment growth, such as information technology, are also candidates for tweaking. The college has shifted resources in that field to areas showing the greatest demand, including computer forensics and security.

The new focus on anticipating change won't be easy, given the state's fiscal problems. The state Higher Education Coordinating Board recommended recently that the state provide more than $1.1 billion to prevent massive tuition increases, student enrollment caps and the loss of instructors and professors at the state's two- and four-year colleges.

Community- and technical-college budgets are especially stretched because of big enrollment increases as laid-off workers seek out new skills. Many schools have taken on more students than the state is willing to subsidize. Enrollment is up 4 to 5 percent statewide this fall, according to the State Board for Community and Technical Colleges, with that number expected to rise with a final head count at the end of the term. Enrollment has increased 20 percent at LWTC and 5 percent at BCC.

Koffski and her family are emblematic of this year's enrollment explosion. Her husband, whom she met at Boeing before he also was laid off, is studying construction management at Edmonds Community College, where enrollment is up 6.3 percent over last fall.

Unemployment checks are supporting the "Brady Bunch"-style family — the couple have three children each from previous marriages. For health care, they've turned to the community-college system, which offers insurance for $865 per quarter for the family.

Koffski had expected to retire after a long Boeing career, as her father and aunt did.

"You go through a series of emotions about it, but if you're going to get laid off, you can't ask for more than what they've given," she said.

J. Patrick Coolican: 206-464-3315 or jcoolican@seattletimes.com.