The Senate higher-education chairwoman wants the state to help establish apprenticeships in three key industries. During her recent tour of Minnesota state campuses, Minnetonka DFLer Terri Bonoff said, many students expressed anxiety over whether they’d find a job after they graduate. “In addition,” she said, “I hear from the businesses in the area that there’s Read more →
Pine Technical College‘s attempt to become Pine Technical and Community College is part of a long-term change among Minnesota’s technical colleges. A handful of technical colleges have become comprehensive campuses in the last decade or so, leaving another handful with a purely technical orientation. Pine’s bid to become a comprehensive campus comes a workforce development Read more →
Northwest Technical College in Bemidji is expected to undergo a major restructuring next year. Declining enrollment has created a deficit of $300,000, or just over 3 percent of the school’s budget. President Richard Hanson wants to close that gap. But he has also called for a re-examination of the school’s educational mission, academic programs and Read more →
Minnesota State Colleges and Universities (MnSCU) system Chancellor Steven Rosenstone appears to have impressed the Pioneer Press with the big workforce-training initiative he has launched since taking office. The paper doesn’t get into specifics of what Rosenstone has pushed — such as employer listening sessions, more internship programs and training equipment, and an overhaul of how Read more →
This announcement just in: Sens. Klobuchar, Franken and Reps. Peterson, McCollum, Walz, Nolan Announce $20 Million to Help Minnesota Community & Technical Colleges Grants Will Fund Development and Expansion of Innovative Training Programs for High-Demand Fields Today, U.S. Sens. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.) and Al Franken (D-Minn.) and Reps. Collin Peterson (D-Minn.), Betty McCollum (D-Minn.), Tim Walz Read more →
As I mentioned in a previous post, the head of MnSCU’s workforce development program seemed impressed with what she saw while checking out Germany’s dual-education program in June. Mary Rothchild and other members of the Minnesota delegation were trying to see how Germany mixes education with vocational training. After all, workforce development and hands-on Read more →
In June, I noted a trip that Minnesota education officials, politicians and others were taking to Germany to check out its dual-education system. Now that they’re back, I sat down with Mary Rothchild, who was on the eight-day trip. She’s the director for strategic partnerships and workforce development for MnSCU, so this is right up Read more →
Owner Darlene Miller of Permac Industries in Burnsville tells the Twin Cities Business Journal how the disappearance of vocational education has harmed students: “I don’t think it’s coincidental that when our [high school] dropout rate increased by 30 percent was when all of our technical classes in our high schools ended.” She helped start the Read more →
Over on the NewsCut blog, MPR’s Paul Tosto discusses an element that he finds disturbing in the 3-year graduation rate trends, as laid out in a report by Minnesota Compass. He expected grad rates to be higher for the flood of students and laid-off workers seeking shelter from the Great Recession: Many were dislocated by Read more →
As you may know, the Minnesota State Colleges and Universities (MnSCU) system is in the middle of a large workforce-development program. The goal is to revamp curricula to get Minnesota employers the workers they need. Last year, it teamed up with the Minnesota Chamber of Commerce as well as state Department of Employment and Economic Read more →
Alex Friedrich