community colleges make their pitch to wary lawmakers

The blinding flame comes screaming out of Claire Simmons’ welding torch, stitching two metal joints together in surgical precision. 

It’s an 150-AMP welder’s MIG-Gun, wired to a 350-Watt generator, out of which fires a 6,500-degree flame – a blue beam three times as hot as lava.

And with it, Simmons believes she can forge her future.

Simmons dropped out of high school in her senior year. At 22, she enrolled at Brightpoint Community College. Today, she’s six months away from graduating and beginning a career where pay typically begins at $20 an hour and can easily triple over the course of a career.

Across the room, her instructor, Christopher Poisant, makes $150 per hour on contract jobs of this kind.

“I don’t think I’m ever going to regret learning to weld,” Simmons said.

Transformation. That’s the bet, and the promise, being made by Virginia’s Community College System.

The system, the only one in the state to negotiate for funds as a collective, is keenly aware that legislators in Richmond are wary to splash cash on higher education.

So VCCS has pitched itself as different, offering legislators the opportunity to fund fast turnaround programs that will fill the gaps in the Virginia workforce.

In Virginia, each school requests funds individually. Lobbyists for each university make requests for funds each year.

Virginia’s community colleges, a network of 23 schools, are unique in how they make one single request, or as VCCS Interim Chancellor Sharon Morrissey calls it, “speaking with one voice.”

This year, that voice is requesting money for program called HIRE Virginia. It asks for $250 million from the legislature over a period of three years, a sum several times the size of the system’s usual allotment. If lawmakers go for the plan, HIRE promises to return the favor by filling 75,000 job openings across the state.

“Strictly pay for performance programs, so the state only buys results,” said Craig Herndon, who is a liaison for the system and a vice chancellor with VCCS. “We’re seeing strong interest from our legislators and governor’s office in that.”

It’s a promise to Virginians, too. Graduates of a previous program known as Fast-Forward left community college programs with as much as a 50% salary increase, Morrissey said.

Another program, known as G3, is what helps to pay for Claire Simmons’ seat at the welding bench.

“It’s a great return on investment. They’re able to get good jobs, get better jobs and become bigger taxpayers,” said Jim Babb, a spokesperson for the college system. “When you generate a workforce that makes money, you’re helping the state.”

The request, which is a budgetary amendment, will land on a legislature wary of opening its checkbook for institutes of higher education, even as Virginia schools struggle with inflation and students increasingly take on more debt.

This session, lawmakers introduced bills designed to bring accountability to Virginia universities, which they say are largely unaccountable.

One bill introduced this month would task JLARC, the state’s main auditing body, to pull detailed accountings of how each spends every dollar, singling out salary and incentive programs for lobbyists and teachers employed by the schools.

But even with a mistrustful legislature, four-year universities still get far more than the community college system.

The state paid $9,236 per student at four-year colleges. Using the same calculation, community colleges got $5,355, more than 40% less per student.

VCCS says its per-student funding is in the bottom third of community college systems nationwide.

“There is an inequity there,” Morrissey said. “And we are keenly aware that Virginia community colleges are funded less than comparable institutions in other states.”

The bet may pay off. Virginia has a huge demand for “middle-skill” jobs. Those include industrial gigs like welding, but also jobs in health care, a sector currently in dire need of workers. The Virginia Hospital and Healthcare Association has as many as 11,000 unfilled job postings at hospitals across the state.

In 2021, state last-dollar funding from VCCS graduated around 5,200 students in health care-related programs.

“We have companies coming in every day, and we literally do not have the students,” said Dustin Bell, program head of Brightpoint’s machining department.

Bell’s students build robotic parts for complex industrial machinery. “Machining” as it’s called, is a hidden trade, and more and more in demand as companies rely on assembly lines.

Only a few months into the program, most of Bell’s are already working part time. They serve apprenticeships with Virginia companies like Amsted Rail, Philip Morris and Jewett Machine Manufacturing.

In the legislature, one of HIRE Virginia’s advocates is Sen. Emmett Hanger, R-Augusta. From nurses to truck drivers, Hanger says employers are hurting in areas where VCCS can deliver.

He thinks Morrissey’s pitch will be well-received.

“There will be significant support,” Hanger said. “If you look at things now, we’re very deficient in having these skill sets that are in high demand.”

But it isn’t a hard-and-fast promise. Several committees will discuss the budgetary proposal this coming week. Hanger estimates that by Friday, the picture will be clearer, including if VCCS may yet benefit from cuts to the governor’s budget made in the state Senate, which has left the House of Delegates with some excess cash.

“Whether we’ll appropriate them has yet to be determined,” Hanger said.