Article No. 3 – Utah’s Tech Colleges Have Incredible Impact

Utah’s technical colleges – Bridgerland, Davis, Dixie, Mountainland, Ogden-Weber, Southwest, Tooele, and Uintah Basin – ended the recent legislative session with 5.3% growth in funding for the upcoming budget year. These eight institutions across the state provide competency-based education and training programs for adults and high school students, offering flexible programming and scheduling to meet the needs of the state’s present and future workforce. Degree-granting institutions, in contrast, offer four-year programs for bachelor degrees and sometimes advanced degrees. 

In their presentations to the Legislature this session, the technical colleges highlighted the results of key performance indicators, including completion rates and placement in high-yield occupations. Many of the colleges reported results that have already surpassed their 2027 goals, such as Uintah Basin’s 79.1% completion rate for 2023. Ogden-Weber reported a truly impressive return-on-investment score of 1291%, which is calculated by comparing the cost of the program with earnings 10 years later. This result puts Ogden-Weber in the top 1% of technical colleges nationwide. 

Utah’s unemployment rate of 2.8% is exceedingly low, which generally advantages job seekers. However, there are also many open positions for which employers cannot find suitable candidates: as of December 2023, there were 85,000 open positions in Utah and projections for future job growth skew toward fields with at least some technical skills required. These data points imply that if job seekers grow their skill sets, they could obtain higher-paying jobs, often accompanied by greater stability and benefits, rather than only low-skill jobs.

Technical colleges are uniquely adept at providing individuals with precisely the skills they need to move into high-demand, high-paying jobs, without taking the time and accruing the debt of a four-year degree. Further, technical colleges frequently develop partnerships with employers, leading to better targeting of skills training, but also relationships that support placement of students after they complete a program.

As borne out in the Ogden-Weber data, technical colleges present a highly cost-effective opportunity for the state to meet workforce demands and improve the lives of Utahns. In recent years, the Legislature has recognized this potential by providing a greater percentage growth in funding for technical colleges compared to the degree-granting institutions. For the coming budget year, degree-granting institutions received a slightly higher increase, at 5.8%, over the technical colleges’ 5.3%. As the technical colleges continue to report their key performance indicators, the Legislature should continue to support the technical colleges in attaining those goals, through robust funding levels to meet the mission and potential of technical education in the state.

Source: Utah State Legislature, Compendium of Budget Information