Browning: BMCC must find balance
By Terry Murry on Tuesday, June 14th, 2022 in Columbia Basin News More Top Stories
PENDLETON – Low enrollment at Blue Mountain Community College is resulting in cost cutting and layoffs this year. In the long run, President Mark Browning said the college has to change to respond to what potential employees need.
Browning said using the college as a two-year path to a four-year degree is still important, but so are technical courses that lead directly to employment.
“We’ve been very heavy into transfers over the last 10 to 20 years,” Browning said. “That’s what we were kind of designed for and that’s the way the state pays. The state does not pay you any differently for an engineering, a welding, a nursing, any of those programs. They don’t pay you any different than they do for an English or a political science student but the costs are so different.”
Browning said he is working on what needs to be changed.
“We really need to be more of a blend, and to do that, we’ve got to have some financial backing that will assure us that we could do those things,” he said. “We need more workforce training, but we really need to be balanced. Right now we’re out of balance with too few targeted programs that will really address workforce.”
