The percentage of Rhode Islanders holding bachelor's degrees is expected to decline unless more opportunities are made available to minority groups.

01:00 AM EDT on Friday, June 30, 2006

BY ARTHUR KIMBALL-STANLEY
Journal Staff Writer

The percentage of young workers in Rhode Island, as well as in most New England states, holding a bachelor's degree or higher will drop by 2020 if current trends continue, according to a report released yesterday by the Nellie Mae Education Foundation.

The report found that blacks and Hispanics, the fastest-growing demographic groups in Rhode Island, Massachusetts and Connecticut, have not been making the gains necessary to compensate for the exodus of educated whites.

"New England states will see declining proportions of their young populations holding four-year college degrees," the study said, "an outcome with obvious repercussions for our labor force quality and regional economic competitiveness."

The study, commissioned by the foundation, an advocacy group for schools and children, is the latest in a series of reports that claim Rhode Island's educational institutions are not adequately preparing the state's youth for a 21st-century economy, where advanced degrees and a skilled work force will become increasingly necessary to remain competitive.

Since 1990, the population of working-age minorities in Rhode Island has more than doubled, jumping to more than a quarter of all those between the ages of 25 and 64. For those people between the ages of 25 and 29, whose role in the region's economy will only increase over the next 15 years, nearly half will be minorities.

The number of whites in Rhode Island between the ages of 25 and 29 will decrease by more than 24 percent in the same period, the study said.

"Clearly, if it were not for the predicted growth in their minority population," the study said, "these states will be even more hard-pressed to find young workers to fill jobs and fuel their economies."

These minority groups demonstrate both absolute and relative differences in education when compared with the region's white population. The number of blacks who have studied at the college level or completed a degree has increased, but at a slower rate than whites, the study found. And since 1970, the gap between these groups has widened.

The study said that the threat of a widening achievement gap was especially serious for Hispanics. During the 1990s, only 58 percent of Hispanic adults completed high school, compared with 86 percent of the white population.

The probable outcome, according to Stephen P. Coelen, one of the study's authors, is that the percentage of Rhode Islanders holding a four-year baccalaureate degree will decline by 3 percent to 4 percent unless something is done to alleviate the disparities in education between demographic groups.

The advantage that New England states such as Rhode Island still have, according to the study, is that large numbers of young people still come to the region to go to college. If New England can do a better job of keeping those new graduates, it should help make up for the departure of older, educated workers, the study said. Nearly half of all new college enrollments in Rhode Island originate from out of state, more than any other New England state, the report said, but too many are leaving.

"I think we have to work very hard to make sure this forecast is wrong," Coelen said. "We need to take the work force we do have and invest in it and business needs to do that. We need to get education to work better for people."

Among the suggestions the study puts forward for getting more minorities to go to college and keeping more college graduates in New England is to increase financing for programs that develop college aspirations in underprivileged groups, increase the amount of grant money available to low-income students applying to public universities and expand the number of internship opportunities available for recent graduates to develop connections with area employers.

"We need to conceptualize this as an investment problem," Coelen said. "It's like the road crumbling underneath you. These roads are expensive but we invest in them. We have to do the same for our human capital."

akstanle@projo.com / (401) 277-7485