Dayton Competes for $1 million
May 10, 2011 - Dayton, Ohio
Dayton Competes for Talent Dividend Prize
Dayton has joined over 50 cities around the nation to compete for the Talent Dividend Prize, which CEOs for Cities will officially launch in Chicago today. A $1 million prize will be awarded to the metropolitan area that exhibits the greatest increase in the number of college degrees, associates and bachelors, over a four-year period. The competition is driven by research that indicates that 58 percent of a city's success, as measured by per capita income, can be attributed to the percentage of the adult population with a college degree. The $1 million prize will be used to launch a national promotional campaign centered on talent development for the winning city. For more information about the prize, visit Talent Dividend Prize.
The Southwestern Ohio Council for Higher Education (SOCHE), a consortium of area colleges and universities, in cooperation with Learn to Earn Dayton, a cradle-to-career initiative focused on increasing the number of individuals who have a college degree, submitted the Talent Dividend Prize application. The Dayton Foundation will serve as the fiscal agent if Dayton wins the prize. Other members on the advisory committee currently represent the City of Dayton, Dayton Business Committee, Dayton Development Coalition, Downtown Dayton Partnership, Generation Dayton, Sinclair Community College, University of Dayton, updayton, and Wright State University. Primarily, the role of the advisory committee is to help advance existing initiatives to increase college attainment.
Sean Creighton, executive director of SOCHE and chair of the Talent Dividend advisory committee, thinks Dayton has a competitive advantage because of its high concentration of colleges and universities, especially if local higher education can make substantial gains in college completion. Michael M. Parks, president of the The Dayton Foundation and advisory committee member, also sees the potential because of several efforts underway aimed at college attainment, including academic and specialized support programs at Sinclair Community College and other higher education institutions to enhance college access and success, along with scholarship efforts, such as the College Promise Program and the Dayton-Montgomery County Scholarship Program.
These and other efforts to increase the number of college degrees per capita hold tremendous potential for the Dayton metro area (Greene, Miami, Montgomery, and Preble counties). A city can achieve huge financial gains through small improvements in educational attainment alone - gains that can turn around a city, and ultimately boost the national economy. Currently, the percentage of college graduates in Montgomery County, for example, is approximately 36%. A significant increase must occur in the Dayton metro area to reach the goal set by the Lumina Foundation, one of the funders of the Talent Dividend Prize, to increase the number of Americans with college degrees to 60%. This goal is critical because 60% of jobs will require a college education in the near future as our nation shifts from a manufacturing economy to a creative economy.
From a national perspective, increasing the four-year college attainment rate in each of the 51 largest metropolitan areas by one percentage point, from its current median of 29.4 percent to 30.4 percent, would be associated with an increase in aggregate personal income of $124 billion per year for the nation, according to research conducted by CEOs for Cities.
Formed in 1967, SOCHE is a consortium of public and private colleges and universities dedicated to advancing higher education in the region through active collaboration, resource and knowledge building, and effective professional development programs.
Learn to Earn Dayton is working to ensure that every young person in the Dayton region is ready to learn by kindergarten and ready to earn by graduation. This effort is critical to develop the human capital needed for economic growth in the Dayton region.