Roughly 70 percent of jobs available between now and 2030 will require more schooling than a high school diploma but less education than a four-year degree, Collin College President Neil Matkin said.

Collin College, said Matkin, sees this statistic as both a necessity and opportunity for the college to help fill that workforce need locally through additional certification programs.

With that in mind, the Collin College board of trustees approved the master plan in June, which identifies several local workforce needs, including current jobs in manufacturing and nursing, said Jennifer Blalock, Collin College’s vice president for workforce and economic development. Other programs are expected to begin at Collin College in 2017, she said.

Most workforce training programs take one to two years to complete, cost less than four-year degree programs and often result in certifications rather than degrees. Right now, these programs make up less than one-third of Collin College’s academics, but that will soon change as the college focuses on expanding workforce training to better meet the needs of the local market demand.

“As the county grows and continues to grow, there’s an increase in demand,” Matkin said. “For us, we feel very strongly that we want to make sure to provide what the economy needs.”

Meeting the local market demand

John Valencia, McKinney Economic Development Corp. director of business retention, expansion and emerging technology, said the MEDC works closely with Collin College and Workforce Solutions for North Central Texas to respond to workforce needs within the city.

One way the MEDC works with these organizations is by meeting with local companies and determining their workforce needs.

“Workforce Solutions and Collin College can both develop curriculum to train people, and we can let them both know what companies have those needs,” Valencia said. “If companies come to us with those certain needs [or open positions] we try to make sure we help them make those connections.”

Valencia said he has recently been working with several start-up companies within the emerging local technology, software development and gaming sector and found they are facing challenging recruiting efforts because the needed workforce is not available locally.

“They try to find local people, but they are having to go outside the immediate area,” he said. “I won’t say it’s impossible to find [the workforce] locally, because the people I am working with are finding [employees] and they are hiring them, but they are definitely having to look for them.”

Valencia said there is also a lack of  non-degreed, skilled workers. Collin College also found a strong demand for non-degreed positions in advanced manufacturing to the tune of almost 3,000 job openings a month throughout Collin, Dallas, Denton and Tarrant counties. Collin College officials said a large number of engineering
technology-related positions require no more than an associate degree.

“There are companies in our community that need that labor force, and it’s pretty thin, which is kind of good news-bad news,” Valencia said. “The good news is that people are working; the bad news is that people aren’t available.”

Valencia said he is currently working with two McKinney food-manufacturing companies that are challenged with finding enough employees.

“The hiring sign is out, and that labor pool is pretty thin,” Valencia said.

Matkin said Collin College also meets regularly with companies, which can help shape the workforce programs Collin College offers and the structure of those programs.

According to the college, manufacturing-related occupations was identified as the most in-demand field in McKinney. Some of the most needed positions in this field include welders, machinists and electronics-related technicians. The college also found demand for employees skilled in repair, inspection, inventory management and computer-related design. Robotics, sensing technologies and quality- control positions are also in need.

“The mechanical engineering sector continues to see a need, not only from the practical side of experienced engineers but also for interns and recent graduates,” Valencia said.

The college would like to offer more workforce training in mechanical engineering and technological areas; however Matkin said the challenge to offering more workforce training programs is the need for more facilities.

“At this point in time, we would love to get into welding, [heating, ventilating, and air conditioning] and electrical,” he said. “But today, in terms of facility use, where would we put them? We don’t have a place to put them.”

The college is working to expand its footprint by building a new main campus in Wylie and two centers in Celina and Farmersville, all of which are expected to open in 2020.

Collin College’s workforce training programs include IT fields such as computer networking and cybersecurity.

Blalock said it is important to continually update these programs so IT employees can stay relevant in their fields.

“When you look at the life cycle of higher education, it’s ongoing and continuous,” she said. “People never stop learning, which is a beautiful and wonderful thing. But when we think of workforce and technical education, we have to understand that that’s an ongoing continuum as well. It’s about people getting those skills and that readiness so that they can contribute in a proactive and productive way to our local economy.”

McKinney ISD workforce training

McKinney ISD has also tapped into the efforts to provide workforce training for students through its Career and Technical Education Program.

The program offers more than 25 different certifications and partners with Collin College to offer dual credit, which allows the courses to count as both high school and college credit, said Melinda DeFelice, senior director of college and career readiness for  MISD.

“We have one health science-articulated credit—students take the MISD course, and when they enroll with Collin College, the college recognizes the credit,” DeFelice said. “The program is one-third the cost of tuition. Plus, it benefits students who are college-bound by helping them get a head-start toward their college degree and at the same time finishing up high school.”

MISD officials said the district’s CTE Program exists to serve students by helping them discover their own unique strengths and interests. Its mission, officials said, is to provide students with business and industry experience. Students are exposed to a unique combination of classroom instruction and technical work environments where they can gain new concepts, techniques and procedures related to their specific career interests, MISD officials said.

“The program gives students a chance to take a college-level course while in high school,” DeFelice said. “It saves major tuition costs as well as allowing students to attempt a college-level course while in high school to learn about the rigor of college life and prepares them for when they graduate. Students will not only graduate with a high school diploma but complete an associates degree within his or her field.”