RethinkErie

The legislation was spearheaded by state Sen. Jane Earll and state Rep. Flo Fabrizio. This legislation will provide enough local funding to launch a community college and ensure that this economic and community development investment is not a burden on local taxpayers. Great job.

It is a true sign of leadership when the people who represent the community put aside their own political agendas and help the entire community make some politically tough decisions.

The issue of how much a community college is going to cost our community -- and the unfortunate misconception that Rethink Erie has plans to build a new campus -- has been used as a political hot potato. Former Erie County Executive Mark DiVecchio deserves a round of applause for setting the foundation, and current County Executive Barry Grossman deserves recognition for not wavering during a tough political race.

The time has come for more people who represent our community to join the effort to make the community college a top priority. We now need Erie County Council and our local school districts to take an active part in this initiative.

Higher education provides considerable value to individuals, the economies where enrolled individuals work and live, and to society in general. Individual earnings are strongly related to educational attainment. People who have completed high school earn more than those who have not. People with a college degree earn more than those with only a high school diploma.

While people often believe a four-year bachelor's degree is the only pathway to greater job opportunities and increased pay, recent findings reveal that an associate degree can also provide workers with similar advantages to those of their four-year graduate co-workers. In many careers, an associate degree provides students with enough preparation and experience to compete in the job market among other applicants with degrees of higher education.

Considering the high rate of poverty in Erie County and the rising costs of proprietary schools, private and public universities, many families are finding their college funds will not be enough. With low costs, small classes and easy-to-transfer credits, a community college may be the solution that cash-crunched families are looking for.

Let's look at some numbers. The average cost for a full-year of tuition and fees at a community college is just $2,076, compared with $5,100 at a public, four-year university and $20,081 at a private, four-year university, according to information from the College Board, a nonprofit membership association composed of more than 5,700 schools, colleges, universities and other educational organizations.

And you do not have to be a college student to cash in on community college classes. Many community colleges offer courses to high school juniors and seniors. With dual-enrollment classes, teens earn high school and college credits at the same time.

Across the United States, recently laid-off workers and those wanting to be retrained are flocking to community colleges in search of new skills or advanced training. Unfortunately, that opportunity does not exist for our work force.

As quiet as it is kept, we already are paying for several community colleges located in other parts of Pennsylvania. It's time for us to bring that money back home and invest a little more into the future of our Erie community.

With the passage of this legislation, our community now has four years to establish a community college. From here, we are developing a pro forma business plan to reflect the projected available revenue, the use of existing space and equipment, and the delivery of programs that meet our community's needs. We are also preparing an economic impact study to quantify the return on investment for our region.

Our leadership team is actively exploring other revenue sources, including grants and endowment funding to supplement the table games funding, and we are continuing our work on the application for local and state consideration. This will give us a full package of information to present to a potential local sponsor.

This initiative is not a gamble -- the odds have always been in favor of an educated community thriving toward the future, than in favor of an uneducated community struggling to make a decision.

It's time for each of us to take the lead from our efficacious, elected officials and unanimously support the community college initiative. The people of Erie deserve nothing less than an opportunity to succeed.

Original at GoErie.com:
http://www.goerie.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20100129/OPINION08/301299995/-1/OPINION