The Observation Deck

Bill

It reminds me of some woman who they frequently have as a guest on NPR on the local morning segment. She works for some group promoting and recruiting college grads from outside the region to move here. She has stated, on numerous occasions, that there are 60,000 jobs here begging to be filled. Not service jobs, but high paying jobs requiring degrees or training.

I'm flabbergasted, and no one EVER challenges her. That's an outright lie. I know many, many college grads who are from Cleveland who know that to get a real job , they have to relocate. Where are these 60,000 jobs. Wouldn't CWRU and CSU be working to fill these openings?

It just seems to me that these cheerleaders are clueless about reality. I love Cleveland, but I can face reality, too.

Grace O'Malley wrote:I'm flabbergasted, and no one EVER challenges her. That's an outright lie. I know many, many college grads who are from Cleveland who know that to get a real job , they have to relocate. Where are these 60,000 jobs. Wouldn't CWRU and CSU be working to fill these openings?

It's been awhile since the Plain Dealer printed an article about all of the thousands of good paying jobs in Cleveland just waiting to bill filled. I suspect they had a lot of people asking the same questions:

If you know the number of jobs you must know where the jobs are and which jobs they are.
If you know that they you know the skills needed.
If you know that then all of our taxpayer subsidized educational institutions know what training to offer.

So

If you know all of those things why aren't those jobs being filled and why does the Cleveland area have so many waiters with college degrees?

Of course, it's just a number they make up out of whole cloth.

P.S. All of that naturally leads to the next question.

If there are 60,000 jobs in the Cleveland area just waiting to be filled wouldn't it make more sense to spend $85 million on job training instead of spending $ 85 million to remodel Public Square?

and the one that really turns them purple with rage:

The taxpayers spend hundreds of millions subsidizing TRI-C and CSU and there are 60,000 jobs with no qualified applicants? What are you spending the money on?

Universities like CWRU and CSU. and colleges like Kenyon and Oberlin, do not consider themselves to be in the business of preparing their students for employment. They are not trade schools. They usually spend very little on career days. In the field of accounting, for example, graduates must pass a professional examination after completing the major. That examination is under the domain of the profession, not the schools, and the pass rate is rather low. That leads to entrepeneurs offering a course on the practicalities of passing the examination. If you ask the colleges why they don't offer such a course (and they didn't some years ago, perhaps they do now), they respond that they are not trade schools. The same pattern holds true with Law schools.

Junior colleges consider themselves both prep for college, and trade schools. Many medical technicians learned their craft at CCC, or in the military, for example.

My three children graduated from college; one went to graduate school and became a specialized engineer, so specialized that I couldn't understand his explanation of what he did. He works for a defense contractor and naturally had to leave Cleveland because there are no defense contractors here, and there is no snow in San Diego. My other son studied industrial design, and had to go where there was a job in Kentucky. Only my daughter found a job in Cleveland, and I think it was because she didn't get into a specialized field in college, so she could work almost anywhere.

I don't doubt that there are job openings in Cleveland, but we don't seem to have any new businesses opening and the businesses we have do not seem to be expanding, which limits the number of jobs. But I also think the talent pool is pretty shallow in that young people today don't know how to look for a job, and lack fundamental skills that employers want

Bill Call wrote:and the one that really turns them purple with rage:

The taxpayers spend hundreds of millions subsidizing TRI-C and CSU and there are 60,000 jobs with no qualified applicants? What are you spending the money on?

An informed source told me that in the early 80's, under Governor Celeste, the State of Ohio provided over 80% of the revenue for CSU, and probably also for the other state universities. That included funded research positions. The current state funding for CSU is about 20%. The rest is made up locally, meaning, in this case, by tuition.

I suggest you ask what the parents and students are spending their money on, and maybe not as much about the hundreds of millions that you are personally spending for their benefit.

Tri-C is funded differently. Unlike CSU, they can actually go on the ballot for funding.

Around 2000, as state funding decreased, The Ohio State University president, Brit Kirwan, raised tuition to boost OSU academics and research. He hired a bio-tech researcher away from an important California university. The researcher was so important to one California bio-tech company that they moved the entire corporation (Good jobs) to Columbus. OSU, Columbus, and Ohio seemed to win in that deal. Kirwan wanted to continue to raise tuition for more development, but was shut down by the Ohio Board of Regents. Apparently, they didn't want to increase funding to universities, nor did they want the universities to increase tuition. In frustration, Kirwan went back to Maryland, and we Ohioans are left with underfunded education, frustrated educators, underemployed graduates, and old-world business opportunities.

Lack of tax support for educational institutions may be the cause of the lack of jobs for graduates.

My rage is probably directed differently than yours.

I'm not sure what this has to do with the closing of a coffee chain, but since you brought it up...

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stephen davis wrote:The current state funding for CSU is about 20%. The rest is made up locally, meaning, in this case, by tuition.

I stand corrected. It has been pointed out to me that the CSU FY 2015 Budget Book says that state revenue participation is 29.4%. Tuition covers 64.3%.

Still worthy of rage.

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Don't forget to factor in the $9,550 round trip private jet flight for the President of CSU from Cleveland to Columbus.