University is most important

Any successful economy of the future will be based on a highly educated work force. If this is true, and I believe it is true, the University of Alaska is our most important institution.

Currently the Alaska economy is growing at a rate one-fourth to one-third of the rate of the Lower 48. I believe I understand at least a part of the reason.

In the 1990s, funding of university systems in other states increased by an average of 42 percent. Funding of higher education in other oil-related states increased 57 percent. Alaska increased its funding by 2 percent.

The University of Alaska Board of Regents surveyed other small state university systems. They used Wyoming, Montana, North Dakota and Maine in their survey. The University of Alaska offers fewer classes and fewer majors than the universities of those other states.

The Alaska Legislature has been starving our university by denying needed funding.

The result is astounding. Sixty percent of college-bound Alaska students leave the state for their education. More than half never return.

Of those who stay in Alaska for their education, 80 percent remain in Alaska.

One of the side effects of this process is truly dramatic. Every student who leaves Alaska over a four-year period of time takes $80,000 to $150,000 out of the Alaska economy and invests it in a Lower 48 community.

When a student leaves Alaska it is not simply a brain drain, it is a dollar drain as well.

This is in dramatic contrast to the economic dynamic that is created when we educate our young people in Alaska. For every dollar the state of Alaska invests in our university, the university returns $4.44 to the Alaska economy.

Our university is a basic economic engine for Alaska. We should also note that Department of Labor data shows that individual earnings increase with the completion of the very first post-secondary course.

Note should be made of our own Mat-Su College campus. We are the largest population concentration in Alaska without a full four-year campus of the University. The development of such a campus is the true sleeping giant of the Mat-Su economy. I contend that our Mat-Su kids need and deserve the opportunity to get a high-quality college education at their doorstep.

Especially important to us is the expansion of the associate of arts (AA) degree level vocational programs. Because of the increased sophistication of the work force of the future,

I see vocation-oriented programs moving from high schools to AA-level degree programs in community colleges. The existing vocational programs at Mat-Su College are gems. They need to be increased.

A local economy that is strongly related to a local college or university is very stable. It feels little of the recessions that plague manufacturing-based economies.

Sen. Ted Stevens recently said, "Education is the key to competition in this next century. Enriched brains should be our answer to problems Alaska will face in the future."

I could not agree more.

Howard Bess is a candidate for the House of Representatives, District 27.