THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Saturday, April 20, 1996 TAG: 9604200007
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A12 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Editorial
SERIES: THE STATE OF THE SOUTH
Part Two of Three
LENGTH: Medium: 65 lines
The Southeast, including Virginia, will grow from 64 million people to 74 million by 2010, says a new report, ``The State of the South.'' It's by MDC Inc., a 29-year-old nonprofit research firm.
The report sees education as the salvation of the Southern workforce - but not just any education. A special effort will have to be made to further train workers ages 45 to 64, if the South is to prosper.
The reason is simple demographics: Of the 10 million more Southerners expected in 2010, 8 million will be 45 to 64 years old. The number of workers in the category we traditionally think of training, people 20 to 45, will drop by 800,000
``Largely on the economic backs of these 8 million,'' says the report, ``will rest support for 2 million more children and 3 million more elderly.''
If Southerners 45 to 64 years old lack the education to compete for good jobs, the region's prosperity is in jeopardy.
At a time when a high-school diploma is required for jobs that high-school dropouts used to get, 30 percent of Southerners over the age of 25 have never completed high school. That is a huge improvement over the past - 45 years ago only a quarter of the South's adults had completed high school, and by 1970, only half had.
Virginia does better. Among Southern states, it has the highest percentage of people over age 25 with high-school diplomas. In 1970, 48 percent of Virginians 25 or older had earned high-school diplomas. In 1990, 75 percent had, matching the national rate. Still, more than 1 million Virginians 25 or older lack high-school diplomas.
``The South's lingering deficits in high school graduation rates,'' says the report, ``are most prevalent among older adults, those who were reared in times when jobs required little education, when teenagers were encouraged to quit school and collect a paycheck and when segregated schools limited opportunities for black Southerners.''
More bad news from the report: ``Almost half the South's adults haven't entered a college or community college classroom. Most of these poorly educated workers can be found in the expanding bubble of Southerners between 45 and 65 years old. Only Texas and Virginia in the South have a higher percentage of adults with bachelor's degrees than the United States. And only Virginia has a higher percentage with advanced degrees.''
Most future jobs, says the study, will require more than a high-school diploma or the skills traditionally taught at vocational schools, but less than university education.
``The states that prosper,'' the study says, ``will be those that educate and train the 75 percent of the population who do not receive university degrees.''
Community colleges will be key. Schools primarily serving older students, like the Old Dominion University/Norfolk State University Virginia Beach Higher Education Center, will be sorely needed.
In this hypercompetitive, ever-changing world, education and training cannot end at any age. Virginia's already large, effective community-college system, has got to gear up to train millions of older people.
To survive, they have to learn. by CNB