Construction College Targets Training Gap

The California Construction College will award a Bachelor of Science degree, giving credit for past work experience, and the classes will be scheduled for the convenience of working students. The college "will benefit construction workers who can fill the white collar jobs becoming available," according to a statement from the college founders. Many of those who will attend the college have been apprentices, learning their trades from experienced workers. Some of them have parents who wanted their children to earn a college degree instead of working in the construction industry.

Neil Struthers, president and CEO of the Santa Clara & San Benito Counties Building & Construction Trades Council, says that one of the benefits of the new facility is that it will demonstrate to parents, students and educators that "an apprenticeship and a college degree are no longer mutually exclusive in the construction industry." The new college is designed to attract both high school graduates and skilled workers who are looking for professional careers in the construction industry, according to John C. Duncan, director of the California Department of Industrial Relations.

The California Construction College will also train senior construction workers so they are qualified to teach Career Technical Education at college and high school levels, notes Rosa Pérez, chancellor of the San José/Evergreen Community College District.

One concern among California's construction industry is that, without programs such as the new construction collete, contractors from other states and even other countries will profit from the huge volume of work generated from billions of dollars in infrastructure bonds for the construction of schools, medical centers, nursing facilities, and other buildings in California. But with highly trained mid-managers graduating from the CCC, local and California based contractors "will be able to expand their business management from within their own companies and those construction jobs will go to California-based companies, keeping jobs and tax revenues in the state," the CCC statement says.