Earlier this week, I wrote about a recent poll of 300 metro Detroit business leaders and their opinions on how the state should fund repairs to Michigan’s crumbling roads.
One interesting finding: Most folks do not think state funding redirected from K-12 education funding should be part of the mix. In fact, the same survey respondents pointed to a continuing issue facing the state’s workforce, the skills gap — a topic that very much is tied back to the education system.
Nearly nine in 10 respondents in the poll, conducted this month for Crain’s Detroit Business and Detroit law firm Honigman Miller Schwartz and Cohn LLP, said Michigan’s skills gap is the same or worse than in years past — particularly as it relates to workers who have more than a high school diploma but less than a four-year degree.
Yet higher education — including community colleges, where much of the state’s vocational training is found — was respondents’ most favorable choice when asked which of a handful of government departments and services they’d cut to come up with money to fix Michigan’s roads and bridges.