Remarks by H. Martin Lancaster, President
North Carolina Community College System

(click for reports)
Host:  Representative Joe Tolson (D-Edgecombe)
Legislative Building
Raleigh, North Carolina

Thank you, Representative Tolson, and all the members of your staff and their colleagues on the General Assembly for your help in setting up this briefing.  I am pleased to see many members of the State Board of Community Colleges, our Foundation Chair, community colleges presidents and trustees.

In North Carolina our community colleges are in the business of contributing to economic growth by:

• Preparing students to earn a better livelihood.
• Ensuring taxpayers get their money’s worth (and more).
• Giving back more …to the community… than is expected.
  

We’re here to look at the scorecard… you’ll hear how we’ve done, and we ask you to think about what it means for the future of our state. It’s clear we need to respond to the increasing demand for our services  .And we need to improve the salaries of our faculty – if we’re to attract and retain high quality educators. We must acquire the right kinds of equipment to train employees for jobs that are vastly understaffed and in demand (i.e. healthcare / biotechnology).  Particularly in the past few years, you have supported our community colleges very strongly, with dramatic new investments in people, programs, facilities and equipment.

• LET’S TALK STUDENTS FIRST: Students graduating from North Carolina Community Colleges enjoy an 18.6% annual return on their investment. For every dollar invested by a student, that student will receive $4.24 back in future, higher earnings. Few investments offer students this level of return.

• SECOND, LET’S TALK ABOUT WISE USE OF TAYPAYER MONEY: North Carolina community colleges are net providers of public revenue. (that is, they put more into the state coffers than they take out.) Every dollar of state and local tax money invested today returns $2.74 in direct state and local tax receipts (over the next 32 years). This constitutes a 16.8% return on the investment in North Carolina Community Colleges.
• THIRD, LET’S TALK ABOUT THE ECONOMY: According to the study, North Carolina community colleges account for $1.4 billion in the North Carolina economy (equal to approximately 52,000 jobs).

That’s what the numbers tell us. You’ll have plenty of chances to ask questions about those numbers in just a moment. I’m pleased that we have one of the economics who developed the report with us today – Kjell Christophersen. Before you start in on him about econometrics and multipliers, I want you to hear for about five minutes from someone who REALLY understands the benefits of a community college education!

Her name is Diane Johnson, and she comes to us from Central Carolina Community College. Diane, you have the floor!

(Dianne Johnson tells her  story of how retraining at Central Carolina means she has a future. She was a single mom, 40 years old, with 3 kids, out of a job following a textile shutdown. Two years later she is a happy, successful medical assistant who is finishing up her associate degree and plans to pursue a B. S.)

• A dollar invested by a student generates $4.24 in future earnings.
• A dollar invested by a taxpayer generates a 16.8% return on their investment
• Community colleges contribute $1.4 billion dollars to the state economy.

And lawmakers will soon have the opportunity to invest in facilities that support enrollment growth, pay our faculty enough to hang on to the high-quality educators who have produced the outstanding results you’ve heard about, and help fund us to acquire the equipment we need to provide training in the areas that will continue to contribute to economic growth.

We ask you to consider the economic impact of our colleges on the students, local communities, and statewide economy and support us with the funding we need in the upcoming legislative session.

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