Workforce Education and Development

Once skills have been attained through OJT basic and advanced training systems, many services members use this foundational training as a springboard to pursue other higher level workforce education and development degrees within their chosen fields. With the right foundation, this same type of model can be used in the civilian sector.

The latest figures from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) show that about 68% of high school students attend college. This means over 30% graduate with neither academic nor job skills that employers say they need but even the 68% aren’t doing great. Almost 40% of students who begin four-year college programs don’t complete them, which translates into wasted time, money, and burdensome student loan debt. Student loan debt is now the 2nd highest consumer debt category – behind only mortgage debt – and higher than both credit cards and auto loans. According to recent reports, there are more than 44 million borrowers with $1.3 trillion in student loan debt in the U.S. alone. The average student in the Class of 2016 has $37,172 in student loan debt.

Unfortunately, even for the graduates that do finish college, one-third or more will end up in jobs they could have had without a four-year degree. The BLS reports that 37% of working college grads are doing work for which only a high school degree is required. Currently, there are 30 million good-paying jobs available in the U.S. for those without a four-year degree. The BLS reports that 9 of the top 30 occupations expected to see the most growth are in health care and that there will be a shortage of 12.9 million healthcare workers by 2035 many of which do not require a four-year degree.

The point is that skyrocketing tuition costs, high dropout rates, crushing debt and default are not recipes for success, so Ontraxysys has partnered the nation’s leading developer of revenue cycle education to provide educators with a practical workforce solution that focuses on the exact skills needed to do the job and at the same time tap into this massive pool of untapped talent.

The fact of the matter is that unfortunately there is no “silver bullet” to address this problem but instead it will require educators, private companies and government to come together to address this growing skill gap crisis.