Thursday, May 2, 2002

Texas Businesses Join the State Government in Paying for Technology Education By DAN CARNEVALE While many other states are cutting spending for college technology programs, Texas has started a grant program that pools money from government and businesses to increase the number of college graduates with engineering and technology degrees. Called the Technology Workforce Development Grant Program, it is offering grants that pay for scholarships, faculty salaries and training, and laboratory equipment. So far, the program has attracted about $4.5-million from public and private sources. The state's current two-year budget provides $5-million a year as long as companies are able to match the money, but to date businesses have offered a little more than $2-million, most of that from Texas Instruments, which was a driving force behind the grant program. Organizers say they hope to raise at least $10-million in private donations this year, but they are having trouble finding business support, as many companies are losing money in the weakened economy. The Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board is in charge of awarding the grants and has given them out to 23 institutions. A group created under the program, the Texas Engineering and Technical Consortium, is coordinating conferences and other means of sharing information among the participating institutions and businesses. Roger Elliott, former assistant commissioner for finance, campus planning, and research at the coordinating board, says Texas Instruments organized a group of businesses, including Intel and Motorola, to lobby the Texas Legislature during the 2001 session. "The companies that are participating in this look at this as a long-term investment," Mr. Elliott says. Even after the economy slowed and unemployment rose, the job market for engineers and other technology workers has remained hot, as less than 2 percent of such workers are unemployed, says Gray Mayes, director of public affairs at Texas Instruments. Universities aren't producing enough graduates with technology degrees, Ms. Mayes says. So the company offered a plan to the Texas Legislature. "We approached the state about it, and they just latched onto the idea," she says. By the end of the 2001 legislative session, the governor had signed off on the plan, and businesses began raising money for grants. One grant will allow a group of 14 universities to begin a retention program devised by Southern Methodist University. The 14 institutions are sharing about $500,000 in grant money, but that could grow to $1-million if more businesses participate. Geoffrey C. Orsak, executive director of the Institute for Engineering Education at SMU, says the university created a program last year that increased the retention of freshman engineering students to 90 percent from 45 percent. Instead of making the freshmen take a bunch of prerequisite courses, he says, SMU now allows them to enroll in courses that let them see what types of problems they would solve as engineers. For instance, freshmen have built their own cellular phones and designed special effects for movies -- types of projects that 18- and 19-year-olds are interested in, he says. During the rest of their college careers, they will learn advanced theory and tougher mathematics. "Once you get kids into the sophomore- and junior-year engineering programs, they're more likely to finish because they've invested so much," Mr. Orsak says. The grant program will support the participating institutions as they try to duplicate SMU's success, Mr. Orsak says. "We've got a proven model that's already in place," he says. Other universities receiving grants include Southwest Texas State University, which received about $300,000 to develop a program to teach computer science to working professionals, and the University of Texas at Austin, which received about $200,000 to recruit women and minority-group members into computer-science programs. If the Texas Legislature agrees to help pay for the grant program again next year, organizers hope to go through another round of grant proposals in 2003. Mr. Elliott says legislators think the program has been a success, so he hopes that economic troubles don't force lawmakers to make cuts. "During the last legislative session, things were a little better than they are now," he says. "Everything is up for grabs every legislative session." Ms. Mayes says she expects other states to find ways of supporting college technology programs without spending too much state money. "It's a model that can be duplicated in other states," she says. Easy-to-print version E-mail this article

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