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Commentary: Path to middle-class prosperity  runs through Ohio colleges — maybe

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By William Hershey, Staff Writer Updated 7:14 PM Monday, May 10, 2010

LORDSTOWN — Elections are supposed to be about the future, but who could blame Gov. Ted Strickland and his sidekick Lee Fisher, the lieutenant governor, for taking a trip down memory lane?

They were here last week in the Mahoning Valley, pumping up Fisher’s U.S. Senate campaign at a UAW union hall in Lordstown, site of a GM plant where the success is much more representative of Ohio’s mighty industrial past than of the state’s struggling present.

Close your eyes, and you could once again see Youngstown’s steel mills breathing fire, tires rolling out of Akron’s rubber shops and even trucks rumbling from GM’s Moraine plant.

Fisher’s running against Ohio Secretary of State Jennifer Brunner for the Democratic nomination for the U.S. Senate in the Tuesday, May 4, primary, and it’s much better to be associated with the more than 1,000 jobs GM is adding to the Lordstown complex to build the new Cruze than with the 421,300 manufacturing jobs Ohio has lost since 2000.

Neither Strickland nor Fisher — nor the two Republican governors who preceded Strickland, George Voinovich and Bob Taft — are responsible for the disappearance of all those high-paying jobs

They’re gone and most won’t be coming back.

That’s why all the candidates this year, Democrats and Republicans, probably should spend less time at factories and more time talking about what they’re going to do to help Ohio’s colleges and universities, particularly schools such as Dayton’s Sinclair Community College, prepare young men and women with skills for a future that often looks uncertain.

“Building Ohio’s Future Middle Class: Addressing the Challenges Facing Young Adults,” a report released last week, makes the point.

The report, published by two left-leaning research groups, Demos of New York City and Policy Matters of Ohio, basically said that higher education has replaced the social contract forged by factory workers, often aided by unions, and companies such as GM as the gateway to middle-class prosperity.

Strickland and the legislature during the past two budget cycles have tried to make college education more affordable by freezing tuition for the first two years and limiting increases to 3.5 percent annually during the current budget cycle.

That’s helped, but the barriers to higher education, particularly for lower-income Ohioans, still are too high, the report concluded.

Just over half — 55 percent — of Ohio students at four-year schools graduate within six years and just 25 percent of two-year students graduate within three years, the report said.

Also, students rack up crippling debt in trying to earn their degrees, the report said.

The report included a host of proposed solutions, including more financial support for students.

Of course, a college education alone won’t guarantee entrance to the middle class.

Russ Pinkard, 42, said he earned undergraduate and master’s degrees in an effort to make a career in health care administration.

When efforts to find a well-paying job fell short, he got work here at the GM plant, where he said he can earn up to $65,000 in a good year.

Still, said Amy Hanauer, co-author of the report and executive director of Policy Matters Ohio, college educations for more Ohioans is the right strategy, even if it’s not clear where that will lead.

“It’s very clear that with just a high school degree, there’s very little available,” Hanauer said.

Contact this reporter

(614) 224-1608 or  

whershey@DaytonDailyNews.

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