PEABODY — The leaders of three local colleges and Essex Tech said Wednesday they are ramping up their efforts to train the future workers that are so desperately needed on the North Shore.
And they delivered that message to an audience that is feeling the desperation — local businesses.
The presidents of Salem State University, North Shore Community College and Montserrat College of Art, as well as the superintendent of Essex North Shore Agricultural & Technical School, were the featured speakers at the North Shore Chamber of Commerce’s Business Insight Breakfast Forum at the Boston Marriott Peabody.
“We do appreciate our role here in the North Shore region, and that is as the backbone of the economic vitality of the North Shore,” Salem State President John Keenan said.
All three college presidents said they are working to make their institutions more affordable and accessible to students of all income levels so those students can take advantage of their programs and fill those needed jobs.
North Shore Community College President William Heineman pointed out a new program launched last year, called MassReConnect, that makes community college free for Massachusetts residents who are 25 or older by covering the gap between the financial aid they’re already receiving and the total cost of college.
“For some students, it’s not a huge amount of money, but it might be the difference between being able to attend,” Heineman said.
Keenan said that starting next year, Salem State will be free for Pell Grant-eligible students — those from families making about $30,000 to $40,000 per year — through a program called MASSGrant Plus Expansion. The program will also cover about half of the cost of attending college for middle-class families making up to $100,000 per year, he said.
“This is a huge deal,” Keenan said. “I mean, this is really a huge deal.”
While other states in New England have been cutting aid to public higher education, Keenan said Massachusetts is increasing it.
“That really is a game-changer for the students of the North Shore, and hopefully for all of you who are hoping to hire these qualified students,” he told the audience.
Montserrat College of Art Interim President Brian Pellinen said his school has received a $2.1 million federal workforce development grant for to benefit low-income students, which encompasses 35% of Montserrat students. Pellinen said the grant money will be used to expand the school’s campus job program for students.
Pellinen said there has been a “major shift” in that many students are coming to college without having held a job during their high school years, leaving them unprepared for the work environment.
“We’re making assumptions about what students are coming to college prepared to do,” he said. “But they’ve never had a job where someone says, ‘Hey you’ve got to empty the trash at the end of the night.’ ‘Well, I don’t want to do it.’ We’ve all heard that right?”
To bridge that gap, Pellinen said, Montserrat created a new course to prepare students for the work internships that the college provides. “Now we’re seeing students who are being more ambitious with their internships, who are willing to travel,” he said.
Essex North Shore Superintendent Heidi Riccio said her school has expanded the number of day students it serves from 1,300 to over 1,700 in the last seven years. It has also added programs after school and at night, including for adults.
Even with those efforts, about 1,000 eighth-graders who applied for admission this year will not get in, she said.
“That means that there is a need not only for expanded access at our school but across the North Shore and across the other two counties that we serve,” Riccio said.
Riccio said there is a particular need for workers in the trades to repair the country’s infrastructure. She pointed to one example of the “significant need” for underwater welders, and said one woman she knows who is doing that job is making over $160,000 per year.
“I would never do it,” Riccio said, drawing laughs from the audience. “But it is extremely lucrative.”
Kathleen Walsh, the president and CEO of Metro North YMCA, asked the speakers about child care, which she said is a “huge deficit for organizations like the Y.”
Heineman said early childhood education is one of the bigger programs at North Shore Community College. “The opportunity is there,” he said. “Certainly the salaries are a challenge.”