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Vocational technical training.

The jobs are hard to outsource.

Demand for workers far outstrips supply.

Wages are competitive and there are gateway to entrepreneurship.

But barriers exist, especially for some populations that struggle even with the relatively low cost of community and technical colleges.

Tonight, we're discussing a call for free community and technical college as we head into the next legislative session.

That is next on Northwest.

Now.

Washington already has one of the most generous financial aid programs in the U.S. but the old need grant frequently ran out of money.

So now the three year old Washington College grant covers more middle class families.

Another feature of the Washington College grant is that it's not a so-called last dollar program.

That means needy students can layer on other grants like Pell Grants, private scholarships, or any other type of financial aid.

So money can go toward other cost as well, like fees, food, rent, transportation and books.

So Washington has a form of tuition free college right now, but it's not universal, and not all costs are covered for every student, which means that students with access issues or whose families have high expenses still cannot afford school.

On the face of it, a family of four with an income of $65,000 or less will pay zero tuition grants for that theoretical family of four are reduced until the family income hits $107,000 a year.

But again, the issue isn't just tuition.

There are other costs as well.

And not all families fit into the mold sufficiently to make it affordable.

A nice feature is that registered apprenticeships are also covered, which is a big part of how community and technical colleges integrate with private industry.

That's what Jill Biden was looking at during a recent visit to Bates Technical College in Tacoma, where she toured some of the programs, talked about the Biden administration's continuing efforts to pass free community and technical college legislation, emphasized the importance of robust technical school programs, and encouraged public private partnerships like apprentice ships.

Local voices are involved in this, too.

Joining us now is Bernal Baca, the executive director of Mi Centro in Tacoma, who recently wrote an op ed calling on the upcoming legislature for Free Community and Technical College in Washington State.

Bernal Thanks so much for coming in Northwest now.

Start with a little bit of a discussion about Mi Centro.

What is your role in the community?

Who are you working with?

Well, Mi Central's an organization that's been in the community for about 34 years.

It does a lot of outreach to the community and with social services ranging from small businesses of the Latino businesses, we have probably really about 152 businesses that we work with.

We have a great program around domestic violence.

We just got refunded for that.

So we're looking to put together a statewide initiative on 911 responders to domestic violence.

Our emphasis is Latino and indigenous people and that everything we do has that lens.

So right, which is a nice segway into your ideas about free technical and community college.

You've got this underserved communities that you're dealing with and that the with businesses that you're dealing with.

And there's an intersection there with preparing the workforce, which we're always talking about here in Pierce County.

We need workforce.

We need people who can take jobs.

So talk a little bit about free technical and community college and how this plays into your your group's role and your vision for it.

Well, my vision at Central, I the last piece of it was the dollars where they institute, which is education and training.

And so it's always been my passion to incorporate education somehow into our services and coming out of the community college.

I was a professor for 30 years.

I really understand the community college and the students I serve.

And I think that I what I noticed, the barriers that they had were always came down to money and college.

You know, it requires to have money to go to college.

And so I see this as a way of free college, of course, would be the for a community college well over would be the best, which people forget is how it used to be in a lot of cases in California, in the Washington state legislature, robustly funded post-secondary education, but in particular, Bates Technical College is obviously our licensee when it comes to community and technical colleges.

You're they talk all the time, the administration here does about retention and completion and engagement.

And it seems that taking down those barriers, not just tuition, but some of the other costs associated with it as well, is a way to do some of the things we've talked about in terms of feeding workforce, getting people not commuting up 167, but staying here to do jobs.

Do you see that piece also as your years as an instructor being instrumental to making some of those things happen?

Well, yeah, I you know, you just hit on another point.

You know, wraparound services are really important for students.

I'm really interested in retention.

I think recruitment is something that comes naturally, especially for community colleges.

But I'm always concerned about once we get students there, how do we keep them there?

And that's where the wraparound services come in.

And this could be life changing for people to.

Correct.

Correct.

How so?

Well, you know, again, I have seen thousands of students going through the community college I worked at, coming back out and having meaningful employment and being able to take care of their families.

So there's a direct connection between going to school and getting a job.

Yeah.

And I think that also speaks to to the calculus.

And I'm sure you're going to hear it if this thing moves forward in the legislature.

Your recent you possibly heard this after your recent editorial and in the News Tribune and the op ed that you wrote, you know, questioning somebody's got to pay for it.

It's cost the benefit.

How do you weigh that cost of benefit in the end?

Does this actually pay for itself to some degree?

Well, I you know, I think eventually it's going to pay for itself because these are people that are going to come back and work and plow that money back into the into the system.

I know initially it's going to be a lift of where's the money come from?

And, you know, I think we we as a community in general should all look at that and say, where can we all pitch in?

Because there's different places and different pockets.

We could put a quarter of a cent here and a quarter of cent there to be able to justify doing this kind of work.

Yeah.

To enhance that funding to to accept increased student loans.

But at the end of the day, to collect more taxes probably from working people, which nobody likes.

But that's part of the game.

Right?

Get a job, isn't it?

Exactly.

We've got to pay taxes.

So here's a question that will probably come up in this, too.

And because you work with disadvantaged communities, you probably going to hear this.

Well, what about undocumented people?

Do they get free community and technical college?

You're probably going to hear some of that pushback.

I'm sure it will come to.

How do we view that?

What is your thinking about how to handle undocumented?

Where does that stand?

Well, I. I don't I don't see why we should put a restriction on just allowing them to have free college.

I mean, what's the alternative, right?

Not work.

Not working and have a putting that burden on our system.

All the people I know that are undocumented want to work.

They, you know, they're hard workers, our people.

That's what we're known for.

We're known for having strong families and hard working strong families.

So I, I, I think it's just important to include them in the mix and important thing to, I think Tuesday end up being taxpayers.

You may be undocumented, but if you're getting a paycheck, a, if you're getting a paycheck, chances are your employer is still withholding from that paying taxes.

Exactly.

And you know, people I think that I'm glad you brought that point up, because I think that a lot of people think that these are that undocumented people are not paying taxes.

But every time they buy anything, they're paying taxes.

They have the same tax burden that we do when it comes to, you know, paying those taxes.

So that part about it, they don't get that money back.

Yeah, we do, though.

Yeah.

Yeah.

There is some issues with employers when it comes to, you know, documenting SSI and some of that kind of stuff too.

But but I also know that I've looked at some of the research, too, that says that taxes are paid.

They just and there are other ways that that that ends up getting collected.

And like you say to some of the expenses go away associated with a person here under any circumstance not having a job and not being productive.

Yes, I think just the misinformation about how that all works with the tax and and people that are undocumented.

But bottom line, they pay taxes.

What do you feel like the chances are as you look at the legislature, Democrats have the triple play in this state.

What do you feel like the chances are of this idea going forward?

Does it have a shot?

Are you going to be out advocating for it?

What's the plan going forward?

Well, in talking to folks that I know, I think I think there's a good chance.

I think that people want to do it.

We I think the state has been moving towards that.

I mean, you can just kind of look at the history of where we've been with in community colleges in area.

And I think that that they've been moving towards how how do we fill fill that financial aid need that students have.

Right.

Because the Washington College Grant has gotten better and better over time.

In 2019, they really threw a lot of money.

Exactly.

Yeah.

And I think just it's just a matter of time.

But I think our legislators are are pretty good at figuring out how to do it, too.

I mean, we just need a little time to massage that last 30 seconds here.

How to folks get involved with be central if they want to.

Where do they find you?

Well, they can.

We're online at MI Central dot org.

And you know where it's really easy.

We're down the street here at 1208 South 10th Street in Tacoma.

All right, Burnell, thanks so much for coming in Northwest now.

All right.

Thank you.

A quick note, Bates Technical College is Kbc's licensee.

Joining us now, our state board of Community and Technical Colleges, director of business operations Troy Halliday at Bates Technical College, vice president of Finance and Administration, Nick Lutes.

Nick and Joy, thanks so much for coming to Northwest.

Now this discussion of free community and technical college.

It's been written about a couple of op eds that have been published recently.

I think observers can maybe see it coming a little bit down the road when it comes to legislative action.

So the first question is the most basic one.

Nick, I'll start with you.

Is free technical and community college a good idea?

Well, I certainly think the concept of higher education is a good idea.

I think that when we get into the concepts of free, you start to determine who for whom are you speaking of to?

Who is it free?

And I think many of the programs in the way that we have our financing set up now, we focus on the students and rightfully so.

They are the folks that are coming to us and trying to get that boost in in their quality of life through education and in improving their skill sets.

So the more we can help them pay for tuition, that is a good thing.

But there are a lot of complex issues around the financing of higher education that really, depending on how you flip it over, you say, okay, well now we have to look at it from this angle, but that certainly is one of them, that the idea of free needs to be settled, and that usually is the policy discussion that people like to talk about.

You know, Nick makes a good point that money has to come from somewhere.

Troy didn't.

It always used to come from the taxpayer.

I mean, the university of California system.

UW Back in the day, they were pretty much free, or at least extremely inexpensive, just in-state residents.

Why is this even controversial now?

You know, I think the controversy has been, you know, established over several decades as the cost of education, higher education has been shifted more towards the student, with the assumption that the student is the one who's getting the majority of the benefit of that education rather than thinking through the larger picture of the employers who benefit society, who benefits from having a more educated workforce.

But you're correct, that percentage really has shifted much more onto the student over the last several decades.

We talk in Pierce County all the time about we need workforce.

We need people not to get on 167 and go north, but to stay in Pierce County and to have the jobs here.

I deal with this issue all the time with the Chamber of Commerce.

Nick, I know you do as well when you're talking about recruiting and retention at places like Bates Technical College.

So who does this help?

What are the benefits?

When we weigh cost and benefit, it can't just be cost.

Well, gee, it costs money.

What are the benefits?

What is the fruit that could come from something like this?

I think if if the policies are thought through properly, I think really what we want to do is try to in with every investment dollar that we lower barriers for students to gain access that when the classes they need to progress through.

For us we work on a lot of certificates and they are hours in the seats that they have those spaces available to them.

A welding class or electrician electrical construction class.

They have an x number of hours that they have to hit.

He can only have ten guys, 15 guys in the lab or students in the lab at the same time.

And they if you don't have enough faculty members to cover that, then you really are limited in what you can kind of churn through the system.

So balancing that access, but also lowering the barrier for students and trying to make it as easy or one of my goals as an administrator is trying to make it as easy as possible for the student to experience their education without bureaucratic obstacles.

Nick talked about this earlier, and Troy, I want you to hear it as well.

We're not just talking about tuition, though, too, when it comes to retention and completion.

We've got rent and books and a lot of other, particularly in the community and technical colleges because of some of the time on advanced machinery and things that's needed.

We also have a lot of fees.

So is the Washington grant program that really got beefed up in 2019.

Is that enough?

Does it need to be supplemented?

What are some of the unique things that SB KTRK deals with in this area?

You know, there are a lot of different financial barriers as well as other barriers for for students to overcome as they as they contemplate a higher education career for us.

And it includes things like, as Nick was mentioning, about the cost of, you know, heavy duty equipment, all these other things that students then pay for through fees, through to the college.

So, yes, those are definitely things that we look at as well as things like the cost of of childcare, the cost of, you know, many other kinds of services that those students need separately in order to to make the best of their their higher education career as well.

So there are certainly a lot of needs.

The Washington College Grant is actually a really great program.

It you know, I do think that our colleges are very, you know, grateful for the foresight that the legislature has had over the last several years and how that program has moved.

You know, a lot of of our population doesn't even know that it exists.

And we're doing some work.

And the legislature has asked us to do a lot of outreach work on making people aware that it exists.

And the other part of that is that unlike so many of the programs similar to it throughout the country, it is a what we call a first dollar a program.

And so based on your income level for your family, it provides a certain amount of money.

As long as you're registering in college.

And that money comes to you regardless of how much federal financial is right.

It's not being reduced if you get a grant or a scholarship or anything before that, something good comes your way.

You're not getting punished for it.

And for better, for better or worse, again, the financing elements that we have to deal with, they're out there and they're real.

The federal investments, we can't ignore that.

They exist.

And when you say we're just going to pay for higher education or at least, you know, make it kind of universal for the CTC system, you don't want to lose those investments.

You can't just discount them out of hand.

And it is complex, but that first dollar element is very important to the student.

And we were lucky during COVID that there were investments that helped us help students pay the rent.

But we are look more and more because we serve over 200,000 students across the state.

The Social service side of providing services to students has grown and grown over the years, at least in my experience in administration.

And I know that in the state, investments have grown as well.

The access and retention pieces, which I've been in, enough based technical colleges meetings to hear that all the time about, well, it's recruitment, yes, but it's retention and completion is a real challenge.

And and how do you how do you see this kind of an idea impacting that, Nick?

Oh, I think it can be very positive.

And again, if it's the policies are thought out to say, well, you can't just say, well, we're going to pay for your tuition, but make you live on the margins of a sort of a living experience that doesn't make it possible for you to feed yourself or to house yourself or or whatever the situation may be for a student.

And there are lots of programs out there that we interact with annually on a regular basis to help students.

But the more that you can recognize that, that needs to be provided to a larger sort of breadth of students, especially, again, the students that come to us are are again looking to change their situation by improving their skill sets and getting into that job that can pull them into not just working it, being working poor, but maybe even having a good middle class lifestyle.

Troy, you are down in Olympia, so I'll ask you this question.

What do you what do you sense the spirit of the legislature is toward this?

I know at the federal level, the Biden administration has openly advocated and really wanted to get in a piece of legislation free two year schools didn't happen.

But do you think state legislature will step in and do this by itself?

Do you think we'll wait for the feds?

How do you read the tea leaves?

I do see that the legislature as a whole, you know, and obviously there are members on both political parties who have differing views on this.

But overall, as a whole, sees especially the Washington College grant and maybe some expansion of that as a key for expanding access to higher education in our state.

So I do see that that that is something that they're at least contemplating over the next couple of sessions.

Nick, this is something that's weird.

And just doing a little background on this, there's a Brookings Institution study that says free to your school actually reduces participation in and completion in four year programs.

And I know you guys work a lot on articulation, agree agreements with four year programs, but but how do we read that?

Does that mean well, gee, the two year students have had so much success and they get such great jobs, they don't need to go to four year programs or is it?

No, that's not necessarily a good thing.

We want them to I don't know how to interpret it.

How do you read?

Well, it certainly would be information in the weeds that would help us interpret that.

But I would say as a technical college, we do experience that.

If you come to one of our programs and you develop a skill set that says you can pass a welding certificate for a business if you don't see and get the certificate that counts for our completion in the council, that helps us at the federal level, thrive heads, etc.

That is a challenge for us.

The articulation agreements to a four year you would be thinking of a comprehensive community college.

It's offering a transfer agreement and I'm a humanities major, I've got a two year degree.

I go and continue that elsewhere.

I do stem through a program at a community college and those that sort of tilted biased towards a four year degree conception and the technical college world and also the comprehensive college we have our four year degrees as well are applied baccalaureate programs of applied science.

You know, you can take those degrees and stack them on and get four years worth of experience, you know, get the four year degree experience and move on into the workforce with a baccalaureate program.

So the environment of higher education is changing and certainly our system is taking advantage of those opportunities to provide students more and again, at a lower cost to get that.

But I think your point is well taken though, too.

It doesn't really matter where they decide to get off the train.

The barriers have been reduced and that's the key is what we're really aiming for.

I mean, the kid ultimately has the choice about what they want, what they want to do and and how far they can go with that.

A choice question for you specifically related to Nick addressed this briefly, but with technical colleges, and I'm not criticizing for your schools, but if somebody says I'm going to double my student count, I'm going to put some more textbooks in the bookstore and make sure that they book that class into a larger lecture hall there.

I've addressed my capacity problem.

That's so and technical college.

You may have another million dollar CSC machine to build.

You may have a new piece of work down in South Campus.

I need new truck to drive or new frame.

DEPAUL There's a major investment.

And not only do you have to make that investment, you have to make it in advance trying to anticipate the needs of industry, which I think is very difficult.

So how do how do you work that in?

When it comes to funding, you can't just double your student load without some big investments.

So there's a capital piece to this as well, isn't there?

There is.

It's a more comprehensive way of looking at the financing and it's also true because the one size fits all version of a financing model really breaks down with so many things when it comes on to our hands on professional technical kinds of programs.

So an example of that is you end up with programs where you have students who have very low experience level in pretty dangerous situations.

You mentioned ACNC machine or you mentioned some of the other kinds of of programs like that, which means that they need a lot more observation and a lot more supervision.

And so that automatically lowers the student faculty ratio, right?

So that doesn't work very well with some of our, you know, sort of ones that, like I said, one size fits all kinds of finance.

So you think about a lecture hall with 300 students in it and one faculty person teaching that the the the dollar per students ratios are, are definitely tilt towards the university.

Well it actually improves the record.

Oh, absolutely.

They're getting tuition on those dollars on an average as well.

But when you have an electrical construction class and you can only have 15 students per faculty person, if you want to expand your program, you need to make another investment in a faculty member that can provide the same level of education.

You can't just say, Well, we're going to we're going to do this a scale now to have 400 students in here for this one faculty member.

Just it doesn't work.

Yeah, and it certainly we don't want it to work that way.

I don't what we're talking about building our homes and our and our infrastructure.

Okay.

It sounds like good idea.

Just need the money to do it.

You got to be able to put your money where your mouth is for.

Good.

Well, good conversation, guys.

I'm glad you were able to come and shed a little light on this, because like I said, I do think I see it maybe coming down the road and it's it's a big piece of what we need in western Washington when it comes to workforce development and retaining students, especially in places like Pierce County.

So great conversation.

I'm glad we were able to lift the lid on that a little bit.

Thanks for that.

Thank you, Jim.

Thank you.

I know there's a lot of criticism of a culture that wants free stuff.

The bottom line, people have short memories.

A generation or two ago, college was almost free for in-state residents.

Back in the days when state legislatures fully funded post-secondary education, before colleges embarked on a campaign to capture a glut of federal loan dollars that did nothing but explode the cost of school and shackled millions of people under crushing debt loads.

Free community and technical college is not that far out of reach.

I hope this program got you thinking, talking to watch this program again or to share it with others.

Northwest now can be found on the web at kbps dot org and be sure to follow us on Facebook and Twitter at Northwest.

Now a Streamable podcast of this program is available under the Northwest Now tab at KBTC dot org and on Apple Podcasts by searching Northwest Now.

That is going to do it for this edition of Northwest now until next time I'm Tom Layson thanks for watching.