Public Policy Institute of California releases...

Closing the Gap: Meeting California's Need for College Graduates

By the year 2025, it is projected that California will have a serious gap between its need for college graduates and the number of actual degree holders, a gap projected to be nearly one million.  The Public Policy Institute of California addresses this issue in its recent report, Closing the Gap:  Meeting California’s Need for College Graduates, discussing both the causes and possible solutions.

First, the well-educated Baby Boomer generation is currently entering retirement age, and will continue to do so for the next 20 years.  Removing this valuable asset from the work force creates an obvious need.  Second, there is an increased demographic shift towards populations that have historically lower graduation and attendance rates.

The report does put forward three possible solutions that would address this gap.  Making increases in college attendance rates, transfer rates from community colleges to four-year institutions, and graduation rates from those four-year institutions would go a long way to address this gap.  Small changes in any of these areas would garner huge gains.  For example, increasing attendance rates 5%, increasing transfer rates 20%, and a “moderate” increase in CSU graduation rates would cut the projected gap in half.

To read the full report, please go to http://www.ppic.org/main/publication.asp?i=835.