by Armando Vázquez-Ramos
These dreary economic times seem to get gloomier by the minute in California, as the news from Washington is that the Obama Administration turned down emergency funding June 15 that could help the state stave off an economic collapse that would cost $24 billion.
The future seems even worse when you couple this with a recent study by the Public Policy Institute of California (PPIC) that projects a major shortage of professionals in California by 2020. But there may be a silver lining through these dark clouds. While the PPIC’s “California’s Future Workforce: Will There Be Enough College Graduates?” accurately predicts this phenomena, it reaffirms the reason why the future of California’s economy depends on Latinos.
According to the study, the number of college-educated workers in the state grew from 28 percent in 1990 to 34 percent in 2006, but due to California’s fast-changing demographics, the state will need four out of every 10 workers to have earned at least a bachelor’s degree by 2025.
At the same time, the bulk of the baby-boom generation will retire and the Latino population in the workforce will grow from 29 percent in 2006 to 40 percent by 2020.
As of 1990 only 7 percent of Latinos had a bachelor’s degree. The study predicts that just 12 percent will attain that level of education by 2020.
California’s policymakers and educational leaders need to recognize that the state’s economy depends on the quality of education it offers K-12 students. It needs to fund fully its universities, with targeted spending focused on the fast-growing Latino student population, which represents 48 percent of the state’s 6.3 million public school students.
The collapse of California could also be detrimental to the entire U.S. economy. With an even greater shortfall in the state’s budget by 2010, as the PPIC study predicts, it’s hard to see how the United States can get by without the 8th largest economy in the world.
Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has already proposed an estimated $1.4 billion in cuts to education that may only get worse with the economy. Without a substantial investment in the preparation of Latinos during the next few years California will not move from its current 49th place national ranking of high school graduates who go on to college and per capita student spending.
Coincidentally, the same scenario is playing out throughout the United States since Latinos already make up 20 percent of all students in the nation’s public schools, and today 66 percent of all kindergarten pupils in the Golden State are Latino.
Thus, California needs to lead the way with steps that will reflect how the next generation of students will be prepared, in order to retain its competitiveness as the eighth largest economy of the world.
Not surprisingly, State Superintendent of Public Instruction Jack O’Connell has stated that graduating more children of color through college is the state Department of Education’s top priority, and that “it’s more critical than ever to have a well-skilled, educated, critical-thinking workforce…that will come from the subgroups who continue to lag behind their peers.”
Undoubtedly, this challenge will test the ability of our political and educational leaders to recognize the state’s changing face and the inevitability of funding the educational infrastructure.
While the PPIC study on the future of California’s workforce is utterly revealing, the data on Latinos is not new. This is not the first alarm bell that has been rung. Will the message be heard this time, regardless of the condition of the economy?
For California, Latinos are the silver lining in its economic future. Hispanic Link.
(Professor Armando Vázquez-Ramos is a lecturer in the Chicano and Latino Studies Department, California State University, Long Beach, and coordinator of the California-Mexico Project.) ©2009
