According to The MENTOR Network, there are more than 16,800 children in foster care in Pennsylvania; 95 percent will leave the system with no source of income and under 3 percent will earn a college degree.

It doesn’t have to be that way. A longtime university president calls on local colleges to steal an idea from Michigan: recruit and educate the nearly 17,000 foster kids in Pennsylvania.

Photo: Mary F. Calvert

Baker College promises students a better life. It sells itself as a place where students thrive and lives are transformed: “a haven for those who dream big.”

In reality, few students ever graduate, and even those who do often leave with crushing debt and useless degrees. No one—not the board, nor the accreditors, nor the federal government—has intervened.

Like many industries across the country, U.S. manufacturers are facing a shortage of qualified workers. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, manufacturers had more than 1 million open jobs in October 2021.

Companies are tackling the skills shortage on many fronts, from creating or expanding internal training efforts to collaborating with educational institutions on skills certification programs.