Many of the workers whove been set adrift by the regions recessionary economy are washing up at community colleges here, and the schools are scrambling to address the needs of that group.


Some vocational and technical training programs in the Inland Northwest are full and have waiting lists to enter, say representatives of Community Colleges of Spokane and North Idaho College, in Coeur dAlene.


In other instances, the junior colleges have adopted programs that specifically address the needs of laid-off workers, such as courses of study that take a year or less to complete. The schools also are offering intensive career counseling to laid-off workers, hoping to ensure that they choose a field of study in which jobs will be available in the future.


While the number of students seeking retraining at Spokane-Coeur dAlene area community colleges tends to rise and fall with the economy, the current crop of students is different than in the past, says Terri McKenzie, vice president of student services at Spokane Community College.


These are people with a much higher level of education and training, she says. The skill level is different.


Counselors at SCC have had a higher number of people coming in the door saying, Look, Ive had a good job for years. Im 50 years old and I have one year to change my whole life, she says.


Frequently, those students also had made a good salary at whatever they used to do, and want a new job that will provide them with that same standard of living, McKenzie says. One of the toughest tasks counselors face is letting people know how difficult that might be, she says. For that reason, and to make sure that students are receiving training that matches market demand, laid-off workers typically undergo intensive career counseling, she says. Counselors start with the most basic questions, such as what someone likes to do and what they already have the skills to do, then try to build an education plan from there, she says.


Time often is of the essence when a laid-off worker is retraining for a new career because unemployment insurance and, in some cases, severance benefits, typically last for less than two years.


Compressing study programs


To address that problem, community colleges here have tried to compress the amount of time it takes to complete some of its most popular programs, says Mary Averett, district director of business and community training programs at the Institute for Extended Learning, the Community Colleges of Spokanes continuing-education arm.


In the last five or six years theres been a tremendous effort to take longer-term programs and put them in shorter certificates so that people can access them while theyre on unemployment, she says.


For example, Spokane Falls Community Colleges computer-applications training program used to offer standard one- or two-year programs, Averett says. Now, students sign up to study just the computer programs they want to learn and advance at their own pace.


Says Linda Roth, chairwoman of SFCCs computing department, People can come in and say, Theres this job, I need to learn (Microsoft) Excel, and I want to get it done in two weeksand that can happen.


SFCC moved to the computer-training model two and a half years ago, and its been very popular among both younger and older students, she says.


North Idaho Colleges Workforce Training Center, in Post Falls, offers some of the same kinds of targeted training, says Executive Director Robert Ketchum.


One recent student, for example, completed a short training program to learn a computerized bookkeeping program because the woman was a skilled bookkeeper, but shed been a manual bookkeeper for her whole career and found herself unemployable, Ketchum says.


In addition, the center last summer landed a federal grant to offer work-force training to up to 55 low-income workers, and already has enrolled 18 in that program, he says.


Most of those were seeing have suffered a layoff, he says.


Despite a continuing economic slump, community colleges still report high rates of placing students in jobs80 percent to 90 percent in some fields, for exampleand say the biggest problem they face in addressing the needs of the unemployed is that they dont have enough room for everyone.


Weve pretty well maxed out the headroom in our existing programs, says Bruce Gifford, vice president of student services at NIC. Vocational and technical programs are close to 100 percent full this year. Thats 11 or 12 percent higher over last year, he says.


McKenzie, at SCC, says that school was overenrolled last year, and provided education to nearly 300 more people than the state gave it money to educate.


Tight state budgets in Washington and Idaho mean its unlikely that schools will get extra funding for more students or new programs, representatives say.


Were trying to find ways to add new programs in new areas, but at the same time were doing it without the financial support when were already overenrolled, McKenzie says.