Editorial: N.M. kids and economy need Mission: Graduate

In the Albuquerque metro area, just 38 percent of adults age 25 to 64 have an associate’s degree or higher. Is it any wonder it’s an uphill battle to get businesses to relocate or expand here?

Or that when the state’s real economic drivers do finish college, many of them use their New Mexico degrees to find employment elsewhere? Or that other New Mexicans get their degrees somewhere else and stay there?

To increase New Mexico’s brain power and plug its long-decried brain drain, a group of community leaders under the auspices of the United Way of Central New Mexico has put together Mission: Graduate with the goal of adding 60,000 two-year, four-year and graduate degrees above and beyond the norm to central New Mexico by 2020.

That would put the four-county metro area on par with Seattle and Raleigh, N.C., where slightly over half of the population is college educated — if those areas were to stand still. And they won’t.

We’ve got to up our game to have any hope of growing a robust private sector and the jobs that come with it during a time of declining federal dollars.

The driving force for this effort is the belief that “increasing graduation and college attainment rates in central New Mexico will lead to a more informed and engaged citizenry, as well as a workforce capable of transforming central New Mexico’s economy into one of the most vibrant and healthy economies in the nation.”

On a more basic level, it means bringing the community together in an effort to give every student the chance to “succeed in school, graduate with a postsecondary degree and enter a career of their choosing in central New Mexico.”

Headed by CNM president Kathie Winograd and Jim Hinton, president and CEO of Presbyterian Healthcare Services, the project is being steered by the United Way. Signatories to the compact for the initiative and the UNM Center for Education Policy Research include Mayor Richard Berry and leaders from the University of New Mexico, Albuquerque Public Schools, Rio Rancho Public Schools, SIPI, Intel, Public Service Company of New Mexico, the Albuquerque Journal and others. The initiative is scheduled to launch in August before the 2013-14 school year begins.

New Mexico’s education statistics are dismal and its economy under-performs. This is a chance for the community to work together to change that.

This editorial first appeared in the Albuquerque Journal. It was written by members of the editorial board and is unsigned as it represents the opinion of the newspaper rather than the writers.