2024 State of Education and Talent Report Reactions: ‘We Have a Lot of Work to Do’

Detroit Regional Chamber> Chamber> 2024 State of Education and Talent Report Reactions: 'We Have a Lot of Work to Do'

• High school students and their parents appeared to beill-informed about the actual cost of college, including the many financial supports available to them to significantly reduce their financial burden.
• More than 300,000 individualsmust earn an associate degree or higher to meet the 60% by 2030 goal. Despite a slight increase in 2023, the number of adults earning their degree has been down eight percent since 2019.
• The business community has an immense opportunity to close the educational attainment gap and build a better education-talent pipeline through the Chamber's TalentEd program.

On Nov. 18, the Detroit Regional Chamber released its fifth annual State of Education and Talent report on educational attainment and its impact on the business community's ability to meet talent needs. The report examines trends and outcomes related to the talent pipeline in the Detroit Region and what that means for employers.

The Data Download

In alignment with the report release, the Chamber hosted a data download and reaction webinar on Nov. 18. The Chamber's Greg Handel kicked off the conversation with a handful of the report's takeaways:

• Adults returning to college will be a key factor in reaching the 60% by 2030 educational attainment goal set by the Chamber in 2015. Post-high school educational attainment in the Detroit Region has increased by three percentage points since 2018. However, more than 300,000 individuals must earn an associate degree or higher to meet the 60% by 2030 goal.
• An equity gap in educational attainment still exists, with the rate for Black or African American adults at 41.6% and white adults at 56.2%. Further, Black or African American students account for 13% of total degree completions despite making up 21% of the Detroit Region's adult population.
• Talent demand is outpacing degree completions. Industries such as accounting, IT, and nursing are particularly falling short of meeting the increased demand for qualified workers.

"The ramifications of this are very simple: Employers will grow or locate to regions that have the talent needed to fill their positions," Handel said. "If we don't have that talent, [employers] won't grow or locate here."

The 2024 State of Education and Talent report also includes content from two projects with the Chamber's polling partner, The Glengariff Group, Inc., focusing on high school students' and their parents' higher education perceptions. The Glengariff Group's Richard Czuba debriefed this portion's most shocking results on the cost of college, an understandably universal concern among parents and students.

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According to Czuba, both groups appeared to be ill-informed about the actual cost of college, including the many financial supports available to significantly reduce their financial burden.

"When these kids talk about financing, they all talk about scholarships, but they're not talking about financial aid and what's available to them," he said. "So, one of the things we found is these kids are simply in the dark when it comes to piecing together what it costs to go to college."

Experts React on How to Do Better

Moderated by Michigan Public's Zoe Clark, the reaction panel was deeply concerned with these perceptions but understood their validity and the sources of misinformation.

"[The State of Michigan has] spent millions and millions of dollars into transformational investments in scholarships and grants and streamlined these processes for working adults and youth who have a pathway to whatever they want to do in life," Sen. Sarah Anthony said. "We've communicated it, and it is still not permeating the electorate. We are doing something wrong, and I think we're at a crisis point."

"I was horrified to hear [the survey] results of how much people overestimate the cost of going to Wayne State and the debt that our students take on," Dr. Kimberly Andrews Espy said. "In fact, I couldn't agree more that we have a lot of work to do on the communication side because we have made investments, and it is true. Investing in college is an investment … because fundamentally, it's about the competencies that you bring to the workforce that's increasingly complex and increasingly complicated."