Stephen Moret Renewing the American dream

Renewing the American dream

Baton Rouge can become a place that provides equitable pathways to opportunity for everyone— no matter their starting point in life. BY STEPHEN MORET

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Stephen Moret is president and CEO of Strada Education Network, a national nonprofit social impact organization. Prior to joining Strada, he was CEO of the Virginia Economic Development Partnership. He has also served as president and CEO of the LSU Foundation, secretary of Louisiana Economic Development, and CEO of the Baton Rouge Area Chamber. GROWING UP AS the son of a single mother in rural Mississippi, I experienced a recurring sense of economic insecurity. From a young age, I saw higher education as a pathway to the American dream of economic opportunity.

A chance recommendation from my high school trumpet teacher led me to my first trip to Baton Rouge, an audition for The Golden Band from Tigerland and a full scholarship to attend LSU. I had a magical and transformational experience at LSU, which prepared me for an interesting career as well as advanced degrees at two top research universities.

Thanks to my education at LSU and beyond, treasured faculty and mentors, much hard work, and some good fortune, I largely have achieved my own American dream. Today, I lead Indianapolisbased Strada Education Network, a national nonprofit, where I am working to help others across the country to achieve their own unique version of that same dream.

Strada supports programs, policies and organizations that strengthen connections between education and employment in the U.S., with a primary focus on helping those who have faced the greatest challenges securing economic opportunity through postsecondary education or training.

My greatest hope for my adopted hometown of Baton Rouge is for the region to become a place that provides equitable pathways to opportunity for everyone—no matter their starting point in life.

Many things will be required to bring this vision to life, but the most important single element will be education. While pre-K-12 will be essential, I focus here on five key steps related to education or training after high school.

Ensure that employment outcomes are accessible and clear.

While education is about far more than employment, most people who pursue higher education do so largely to improve their job prospects. Every person who considers a higher education program should have access to clear, reliable insights about its employment outcomes. The importance of this information is especially vital when someone is considering taking time away from family and/ or using a substantial amount of debt to complete a program principally to improve their earnings potential.

Most people who complete some form of higher education earn substantially more than those with only a high school diploma, but many do not. Unemployment today may be relatively low, but underemployment (i.e., when someone has a job that doesn’t make meaningful use of their education) is relatively high—in the Baton Rouge area and across the nation. Roughly one in four full-time employed adults in the Baton Rouge area with a bachelor’s degree is not working in a college-level occupation—and that fraction is much worse for recent grads. Underemployed college grads generally earn little more than individuals with just a high school diploma. Many of these unfortunate situations can be avoided if we equip individuals with clear information to inform their higher education choices, including helping them understand how particular activities (e.g., paid internships) can improve post-completion earnings no matter what field one studies.

Some information about college outcomes already is available through the College Scorecard and other sources, but there are big gaps—especially for small-enrollment programs and non-degree credentials (e.g., certificates). State leaders can close these gaps so that people can have the information they need to make well-informed choices.

Provide quality coaching and guidance in K-12, college and be-

yond. Individuals who grew up surrounded by college grads working in high-wage occupations often have a good sense of what is required to pursue a college degree and how to navigate the job market. Those with less-privileged backgrounds usually do not. Most people would benefit from quality coaching and guidance, yet only a small fraction of people receive it.

Local and state leaders can work together to ensure that adequate coaching is available for all learners, including guidance on the full range of postsecondary education, training and career opportunities available (including the pathways that lead to particular outcomes), as well as coaching on mindsets needed to overcome challenges experienced along the way to completion of education/training and a good job.

As in most of the country, coaching and guidance in Baton Rouge often is inadequate. State and local leaders can prioritize staffing and professional

development necessary to ensure that every learner has access to the coaching and guidance they need to succeed.

Make higher ed affordable for

all. Even with the availability of TOPS and the new M.J. Foster Promise Program, many folks in Baton Rouge struggle to afford the total cost of higher education. Considering that a college degree or other credential will be required for most good jobs in the future, state and local leaders can work together to provide more needbased financial aid and targeted funding support for institutions to ensure that affordability is not a barrier to equal opportunity.

Offer universal access to workbased learning opportunities.

Individuals who complete one or more paid, work-based learning opportunities (e.g., internships, apprenticeships) while pursuing higher education have more confidence about their future job prospects, learn more about what interests them and often earn considerably more once they complete their degrees. Yet large numbers of higher ed students in Baton Rouge, like their counterparts across most of the country, don’t complete paid, work-based learning opportunities during their postsecondary studies.

A growing number of institutions across the country have committed that every student will complete one or two internship opportunities prior to graduation. While not easy to achieve, higher ed institutions and employers in the Baton Rouge area could work to ensure that every learner can complete at least one paid, workbased learning opportunity prior to completion of their studies. The payoff would be many more thousands of people with good jobs, as well as far more employers able to meet their talent needs.

Improve alignment with em-

ployers. Even with an unprecedented number of job openings across the country and in Baton Rouge, many employers are struggling to meet their talent needs. Millions of good jobs nationwide and many thousands of good jobs in the Baton Rouge area are going unfilled due to a lack of properly educated or trained individuals. At the same time, many college graduates have been unable to secure jobs that enable them to earn a good living and pay off their student loans. In short, there is a substantial misalignment between supply and demand.

As in most other metros, the Baton Rouge area faces shortages of graduates with particular specialized education or training, such as engineers, tech workers, skilled tradespeople (e.g., welders, electricians), and health care professionals and technicians. These types of jobs tend to pay relatively well. Unfortunately, because these higher-wage, high-demand programs tend to cost more for institutions to deliver, and because tuition generally does not vary by program, the state must provide incremental funding to support those programs to ensure adequate supply.

State and local leaders can work to make performance-based funding available for programs that consistently help their graduates secure well-compensated employment. For example, in order to meet the demands of its large tech sector and to enable more individuals to secure highwage employment opportunities, Virginia implemented a statewide Tech Talent Investment Program through which it is providing performance-based funding to public higher ed institutions to double the number of graduates in computer science and closely related fields. Louisiana has implemented similar initiatives on a smaller scale. A more ambitious program would help thousands more individuals secure good jobs, while enabling employers to better meet their talent needs.

Baton Rouge-area employers also can create more opportunities for individuals and better meet their talent needs by dropping college degree requirements for positions that don’t require specialized knowledge or training. As Opportunity@Work has noted, hiring based on degrees directly results in less diverse candidate pools, especially when the job in question does not require a college degree.

THE PATH FORWARD

Much good work already has been happening in higher education in Louisiana, and meaningful progress already has occurred in several of these areas. For example, the Board of Regents, through the creation of its state master plan, has embraced several of these key principles, and state leaders recently have substantially increased need-based financial aid. Nevertheless, there is much more work remaining to ensure that higher education in Louisiana consistently provides equitable pathways to opportunity.

These five focus areas—clear outcomes, quality coaching, affordable programs, work-based learning opportunities, and employer alignment—will distinguish regions in the future that provide equitable pathways to opportunity while also meeting the talent needs of employers.

These also are the things that will shape the future economic development of the Baton Rouge area, as talent-driven economic development is the future (and largely the present) of effective economic development in America.

No region or state has yet delivered on these five enablers of opportunity. That means there is an opening for inspired leadership. Baton Rouge and Louisiana can become national leaders in providing equitable pathways to opportunity, positioning everyone to have a real shot at their own American dream.