The head of the UW System says Wisconsin needs to boost enrollment among high school graduates and target residents who didn’t finish college to win the “war for talent.”
Speaking yesterday during a meeting of the Milwaukee Rotary Club, UW System President Jay Rothman warned members that critical positions in fields like nursing, engineering and data science that go unfilled won’t remain in Wisconsin.
“We know those jobs aren’t being filled in the state,” he said. “And I’ll tell you this, because I’ve seen it in my corporate life, that to the extent that those jobs aren’t being filled can be moved, they will by necessity be moved out of the state of Wisconsin. And once they move, they’re not coming back.”
Along with the demographic challenge of the state’s aging population, Rothman also noted Wisconsin’s rate of high school graduates attending universities and technical colleges is the lowest in the Midwest. That puts the state behind Minnesota, Iowa, Illinois and Michigan, he said.
“That is a population that we need to tap if we’re going to win the war for talent,” he said.
Meanwhile, he noted between 600,000 and 800,000 state residents have some level of college credits, but never completed their degree. If just 10 percent of that total could finish their college degree, that means up to 80,000 more Wisconsinites would be able to “achieve more in their career, or provide more to their communities,” he said.
“We could look at drawing international students into the state, and give them means to stay here,” he said. “We also have opportunities domestically to bring in students from out-of-state, and again, with incentives to have them stay in the state. Those are things we need to look at.”
Rothman also touted the impact of “groundbreaking” UW research that results in new intellectual property and startup companies, as well as the system’s role in preparing the state’s economy for future trends.
“We are training people for jobs that do not yet exist, and the great thing about it, a lot of those people will create those new jobs,” he said.
Watch his full remarks here: https://wiseye.org/2023/04/04/rotary-club-of-milwaukee-uw-system-president-jay-rothman/
Rothman will be the guest at a WisPolitics.com luncheon in Madison on June 22. Register now:
https://events.humanitix.com/wispolitics-luncheon-with-uw-president-rothman
–By Alex Moe
