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Report puts priority on higher education in Maine

The Maine Compact aims to ensure that the next governor will help Mainers get degrees or certificates.

By Kelley Bouchard kbouchard@mainetoday.com
Staff Writer

Maine's next governor must take steps to increase the number of people who continue their education beyond high school if he or she wants to improve the state's economic future, according to a public policy report released today.

The Maine Compact for Higher Education says it wants to increase the percentage of working-age adults who have postsecondary degrees or certificates from about 37 percent today to 56 percent by 2020.

The compact issued its report, "An Educated Workforce for a 21st Century Economy," to outline challenges facing higher education and secure support from candidates in the Nov. 2 governor's race, said Henry Bourgeois, the compact's executive director.

"We want to make sure that helping Mainers attain higher-education degrees or certificates is one of the candidates' top priorities," Bourgeois said. "We see a direct connection between the education level of the work force and long-term economic growth in Maine."

The report says more than 15,000 jobs will be created in Maine in the next decade for people who have postsecondary education, while only 2,200 jobs will be created for people who have a high school diploma or less.

The link between higher education and sustainable economic development will be the subject of a statewide symposium and a gubernatorial candidates' forum hosted by the compact on Sept. 28 at Unum in Portland.

Republican nominee Paul LePage, Democratic nominee Libby Mitchell and independent candidates Eliot Cutler, Shawn Moody and Kevin Scott plan to attend. They will be asked to describe what they would do, as governor, to increase educational attainment.

The compact's report outlines several potential areas for change, such as aligning higher education with the needs of the work force, eliminating financial barriers to college, increasing state support for higher education, and developing multiple pathways to postsecondary degrees.

In Maine today, about 268,000 of 729,000 working-age adults have an associate degree or higher, according to Lisa Plimpton, director of research at the Sen. George Mitchell Scholarship Research Institute in Portland.

The working-age category includes all Mainers ages 25 to 64, Plimpton said. The percentage of degree holders increases about 0.83 points each year.

At that rate, the number of certificate- or degree-holding Mainers is on track to increase to about 388,000 by 2020, Plimpton said. That will be about 51 percent of the working-age adults in the state.

The compact has set a goal to boost the number by about 40,000 more than expected in 2020. That would push the total of college-educated Mainers to about 428,000 – about 56 percent of the working-age population.

The symposium's keynote address will be delivered by Anthony Carnevale, director of the Center on Education and the Workforce at Georgetown University in Washington, D.C. Several Maine business leaders will discuss steps they have taken to increase the education and skills of their employees.

The panel will include John Witherspoon, president of Skowhegan Savings Bank; Kevin Gildart, vice president of human resources at Bath Iron Works; Pete McAllister, human resources manager at Mid-State Machine Products in Winslow; and Deborah Whitworth, managing director of Lebel and Harriman, an insurance and investment firm in Falmouth.

The compact is a nonpartisan, independent organization created by the Maine Community Foundation and the Maine Development Foundation. Its report is expected to be posted on its website, collegeforme.com.

Staff Writer Kelley Bouchard can be contacted at 791-6328 or at: kbouchard@pressherald.com