Barrett Rainey's Second Thoughts

I graduated from Bend High School shortly after the invention of fire. In our senior year, all the talk was about which college we’d be attending. My family didn’t care if it was University of Oregon or Oregon State as long as I went.

Looking back, I think family and peer pressure were major reasons I ducked out and joined the military where I stayed for nine years. In that span, I learned far more useful information than I would have in any college and the experience put me on a career path I’ve really enjoyed.

This isn’t to say higher education is unnecessary or a waste of time. But, like so many others – then and now – I would have gotten far less out of the college experience than I did in the military where there were rules. There was discipline. There was choice. There were excellent schools for almost any vocation from pilot to chaplain’s assistant with fender welding in the middle. Learning was not an option. It was required.

For those who are ready and can profit from a college experience, that next step is both logical and recommended. I wasn’t ready.

Now, it seems, my long-held opinion college is not for a lot of kids who’ve finished 12 years of public school is becoming the new “conventional wisdom” of professional educators and leaders of business.

Jeff Immelt is CEO of General Electric and chairs the President’s Commission on Jobs. His view: government at all levels needs to undertake a major priority to train American workers for today’s labor force, not yesterday’s. To make his point, Immelt says there are more than two million open jobs in the country right now – right in the middle of our recession and high unemployment – because employers can’t find workers with the advanced manufacturing skills they need. Two million!

And there’s more. Many small companies have “help wanted” signs in their windows but can’t find the trained workers. New Jersey, for example, has 11 percent unemployment but, for nearly a year, a company called Ultra Scientific Analytical Solutions hasn’t found qualified people to fill 20 empty positions. CEO John Russo says “I honestly think there’s a large swath of the unemployable with no skills at all.”

Harvard University has a new report out on the “forgotten half” of young adults without skills to get a job beyond the nearest hamburger joint. That report says the “college for all” mentality is not realistic.

This “skills gap” seems to me the absolute right place for states like Oregon and Washington to splurge a bit by placing a higher priority on increasing support to community colleges. They’re in business solely for the purpose of conducting career and technical education programs.

Here’s just one example. Our little Oregon community of 21,000 has an excellent community college which has recently added training for workers in the wine industry. The first year teaches not only how to raise and care for grape vines but also teaches English if students need it. And some do. After only that one year, local vintners can hire someone who doesn’t need training to be productive on the first day on the job plus the old communication problem with some migrant workers is gone. That worker, knowing how to plant and prune vines, will start at about $11-13 an hour rather than $8.50. And we’ve got more than 90 vinyards just in our county.

The community college second year deals with wine making and, again with minimal time, a new worker comes to the job trained and ready to go. If someone wants to learn more, the local program feeds the Oregon university system where you can go all the way to a doctorate degree.

Reducing unemployment. Filling an ongoing local need. A source of trained workers. Improving wages for new hires who are job-ready. Solving an old communications problem among many farm workers. How many win-wins do you want?

Federal and state governments have dropped the ball for years by not putting a high enough priority on training the non-collegiate worker. A very high priority. I can’t think of many other ways to deal so effectively – and so quickly – with today’s high unemployment and the problems of an unskilled work force.

Even if we have to minimize some other government programs, this is one that needs a really BIG boost. Now!

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