Rise up: Tampa Bay’s

Rise up:

Tampa Bay’s educational institutions have worked to improve in every area. More is still needed

For businesses to grow, they need a workforce with the right skills suited to today’s demands. Increasingly, academia is taking a role alongside the private sector to tailor courses and programs to meet emerging needs and produce the kind of talent the business community requires. The partnerships include the provision of scholarships and efforts to re-engage adult learners. With the COVID-19 pandemic, many institutions were also forced to push their programs online, an effect that could continue once the crisis passes.

On the funding side, Gov. Ron DeSantis promised 2020 would be the “year of the teacher.” In his 2020- 21 budget proposal announced in November, he tabled a $91.4 billion state budget heavily focused on education. The Florida Board of Education subsequently adopted this budget as its own, calling it “bold.” But there remains a gap between those who finish high school and those who go on to higher education, with 46% of high-school students without a path to secondary learning. Here too, the private sector has a role to play.

Landscape The percentage of Tampa Bay residents without a high school diploma is about on par with the Florida average of 13%. While the proportion of people with a high school degree is lower in Tampa at 43% compared to 49% in Florida as a whole, Tampa outpaces the state in eaners of higher degree, with 43% compared with the state’s 37%. Around 14% of Tampa residents have a Master’s degree or higher, compared with just 11% on average in Florida.

Although women are more likely to have a higher education, this trend reverses after the Master’s level, when males are 76% more likely to have a professional degree and 35% more likely to hold a doctorate. But the tide is changing with age. Data show that in the age category over 65, males are 61% more likely to hold a Bachelor’s degree, but for each generation that comes below, there is a higher chance of women attaining a Bachelor’s. For the group aged 25-34, women are 13% more likely to hold this level of degree than males, but this is still far short of the Florida-wide trend, where women are almost 30% more likely to have a Bachelor’s degree than men in this age group. Despite education levels, men earn on average $10,000 more than women across every age category. ( )