The Magic Valley is experiencing significant growth, with companies like Chobani, True West, and Idaho Milk Products expanding their operations. These companies bring technical careers with employee benefits and good pay, allowing community members to build meaningful careers close to home.
Building a Skilled Workforce
The College of Southern Idaho (CSI) and local employer partners are working together to address the gap in skilled workers. The barrier to education is often cost, with education costs higher than ever. Students working two jobs cannot afford to quit their jobs to attend school.
Public-private partnerships like Idaho LAUNCH and the Chobani Scholars Program are helping to make education more accessible and affordable. Idaho LAUNCH covers up to 80% of tuition and fees for students enrolled in high-demand programs, while the Chobani Scholars Program covers the remaining 20% of tuition costs and provides an additional $1,000 per year for books and training materials.
An example of this partnership in action is Logan Burgess, an automation engineering technology student from Jerome, ID. With the help of the Chobani Scholars Program and Idaho LAUNCH, Logan was able to enroll in school without financial stress and completed his program with an associate degree from CSI.
The skills taught in CSI’s Automation Engineering Technology program are not theoretical, but practical skills that employers in the region are looking for. The program delivers exactly what employers need, with students learning Programmable Logic Controllers (PLCs), Human Machine Interfaces (HMIs), and electronics and circuits.
The question of retention is also important, with community and business leaders asking how to keep young people in the area. The answer is simple: students follow opportunity. If the jobs available locally do not match their training or interests, they will go find jobs that do.
Programs like the Chobani Scholars Program and Idaho LAUNCH work because they are built around what employers are specifically hiring for in the region. A student who trains locally, finds meaningful work locally, and builds a life locally is the outcome everyone is working toward.
Original reporting: Idaho Education News — read the source article.
