Based on a report recently released by the Public Policy Institute of California (PPIC), the state is facing a serious shortfall in it supply of college-educated workers.

The report titled, Closing the Gap, indicates that the state is continuing along a trajectory of steadily increasing demand for a highly educated workforce. Unfortunately this is a need the state is likely not to meet given its current policy decisions affecting the amount of students able to enter higher education institutions.

According to PPIC, “If current trends persist, California will have one million fewer college graduates than it needs in 2025—only 35 percent of working-age adults will have a college degree in an economy that would otherwise require 41 percent of workers to have a college degree.”

The report goes on to show that this increase in demand for college graduates is due to several forces such as expected jump in retirements of the large and relatively well-educated baby-boom cohort which should occur over the next twenty years, as well as demographic shifts toward groups that have historically low rates of college attendance and graduation.

The full report gives three scenarios for improving the future outlook and to assist in closing the gap. The scenarios include increasing college attendance rates, increasing transfer rates from community colleges to four-year institutions and increasing graduation rates among four-institutions. Relatively modest improvements in each of these educational pathways would dramatically reduce the education skills gap. For example, if the state were to gradually raise college attendance rates from the current levels of 56 percent to 61 percent by 2025, increase transfer rates by 20 percent over the next 15 years, and modestly improve CSU graduation rates, California could close about half of the projected education gap, adding more than 500,000 new college graduates to the state’s population.

The report advocates changes need to be made at the policy level and states:

“State policymakers have a vital role to play in ensuring the future prosperity of this state, and the state’s three public higher education systems are central to that prosperity. Together, those systems account for over 80 percent of higher education enrollment in California and three-fourths of all bachelor’s degrees awarded annually. Currently planned reductions in funding to the state’s colleges and universities will only exacerbate the skills gap. Without concerted effort to improve college attendance and graduation in California, the state’s economic and fiscal futures will be much less bright. Even modest improvements in college attendance, transfer, and graduation rates have much to offer. It is incumbent on state legislators and decision makers in higher education to work together, planning and implementing strategies that will strengthen and revitalize the higher education system in California.”

For more information or a copy of the full report visit the PPIC website.