The following is a legislative update from State Senator Amanda Ragan, representing Franklin, Butler and Cerro Gordo counties:
Iowa continually has the best high school graduation rate in the country, with more than 90 percent of students graduating on time.
That’s one of the stats highlighted in the annual Kids Count Report.
This is good news that we need to build upon by ensuring Iowa students are getting the preparation they need to take on the opportunities that await them. However, the report also tells us Iowa ranks 46th in the number of people ages 25 to 34 that have earned a degree beyond high school.
Iowa businesses say their biggest problem is getting enough qualified workers to fill job openings, and 70 percent of Iowa’s workforce is projected to need education or training beyond high school by 2025.
Budget cuts to higher education have forced increases in tuition, cuts to financial aid and program offerings, larger class sizes and other challenges that make it more difficult for Iowans to further their education and job training after high school.
Student debt is already among the biggest problems facing our state, according to an Iowa Poll earlier this year. When they finish college, 68 percent of Iowans are in debt.
It won’t get better any time soon unless we act. In fact, Iowa State University is seeking to raise tuition seven percent each of next five years.
Affordable college and job training is critical to growing our economy, and we can make it happen when we Put Iowans First.
3 thoughts on “Senator Ragan: Turning Iowa schooling into career success”
This woman was, is and always will be a joke.
Just more babbling from Amanda. She doesn’t offer any ideas suggest a plan to improve this. She just states the obvious. I can tell you why she doesn’t offer her plan. It is because she wants to raise your taxes to pay for it.
The current tech world is going to fizzle one day. It will go the way of the electric toothbrush and just become part of everyday life. Like cable television it will fade as people lose interest. Right now these people are taking a big chunk of peoples spending income. The only way to pay off those student loans is to move out of Iowa. The young educated people figured that one out. Qualified for jobs means on the job training as it has always been that way. This idea that you can educate people beyond high school sounds like a noble cause but the fact is 68% of the national workforce has just a high school level of education. That’s not going to change anytime soon. So what exactly is this training people need if it isn’t advancing their training in tech understanding. It’s basically a piss poor way of managing many people. It’s also a good way of siphoning off local money and sending it elsewhere. So, people will continue to make a living by working with their hands and the small sub group of clerical workers will type away on their computers. That’s 2025!