AMERICA’S two-year colleges, whether they brand themselves as a community, junior or technical college, have been called upon by President Barack Obama to produce an additional five million graduates by 2020.

Legislation has been put into place that will add an additional $2 billion into two-year colleges over the next four years. An additional $35 million grant program has been established by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation to boost graduation rates at community colleges.

The recognition of the value of these two-year colleges is timely and well deserved. In every state in the nation, these colleges are the workhorses of developing the workforce that fuels economic development at the local level.

Georgia has long been considered a leader in workforce development, primarily due to the Quick Start program and its system of technical colleges. Expansion Management magazine has ranked Georgia number one in the nation for the training programs it provides to new and expanding businesses. While the economy has dampened new industry announcements over the past several months, the demand for the services provided by the technical colleges has been overwhelming.

Community colleges nationwide experienced a 17 percent growth in enrollment between 2007 and 2009. Georgia Northwestern Technical College, created in July 2009 as a result of the merger of Coosa Valley Tech and Northwestern Tech, has seen a much larger increase. Comparing the 2007 fall quarter enrollment for Coosa Valley Tech and Northwestern Tech of 4,800 students to the enrollment count as of Oct. 11, 2010 of 6,761 students for Georgia Northwestern shows an increase of 40.9 percent. Of this increase of 1,961 students, 910 of the new students are enrolled at the Floyd County Campus in Rome.

GEORGIA Northwestern Technical College has 796 more credit students enrolled today than at this same time last year — an increase of 13.3 percent. This growth comes at a time when many other forms of higher education are showing flat or declining enrollment. Our enrollment growth can be attributed to three demographic groups.

The first obviously is the displaced worker — that worker who has lost a job due to downsizing or the closing of his or her employer’s business. Another is the individual who has either graduated from a traditional four-year college or who has many hours of college credit on a transcript. The skills sets needed to perform in a fast paced automated environment are much different than the theoretical mush possessed by graduates from many four-year colleges. The percentage of these individuals enrolled in technical colleges across Georgia has gone up significantly and, with the dismal prospects for jobs requiring four-year degrees, is likely to continue.

The most encouraging area of growth is in the younger student. Over the past seven years Georgia Northwestern has seen the average age of its credit student drop from age 27 to 25. This has happened for a number of reasons, most notably of which are the strong relationships that have developed between college staff and teachers and administrators in the area high schools.

Results of these relationships include the Floyd County Schools College and Career Academy, the Bridge program with Rome High School and Early College with the Walker County School System. We are seeing increases in dual enrollment, joint enrollment and enrollment from those students who are making the technical college their first choice upon graduating high school.

Why the demand? The leadership of Georgia’s technical colleges, from the governing board to the commissioner and down to the presidents of the schools, has a keen sense of commitment toward maintaining the reputation of being number one at preparing people to go to work. Understanding that in order to be effective you must be able to first listen and then respond, the colleges have risen to the occasion when called upon by businesses, industries and government officials.

CONSIDER the following achievements:

 Governor Sonny Perdue selected Lanier Technical College outside of Gainesville as the site for the Center of Innovation for Manufacturing.

 Lt. Governor Casey Cagle chose the technical colleges as the delivery system for the Career Academy initiative. The Floyd County Schools College and Career Academy has become a model for other communities to emulate as they develop their own partnership between the business community, K-12 system and the technical college system.

 The Southern Company, when faced with an aging workforce of skilled technicians, partnered with Georgia Northwestern Technical College to establish a Technical Education Training Center on the Polk County Campus in Rockmart. From this partnership, an Instrumentation and Controls Academy has been developed that will allow graduates to enter into an apprenticeship with a Southern Company coal-powered generating plant.

 Technical colleges along the Georgia/Alabama border have been actively involved in the recruitment and training for workers for the new KIA plant, located in West Georgia.

Georgia Northwestern Technical College will soon begin construction on a 60,000-square-foot facility in Catoosa County that will house, among other programs, a Mechatronics lab that will allow students to obtain the skills to compete for jobs in advanced manufacturing environments. The hope is that many graduates will find employment with the new Volkswagen plant in Chattanooga or its suppliers. The flooring industry as well has a need for technicians with multi-craft skills due to the integration of highly automated manufacturing processes. Mohawk Industries, Shaw Industries and Beaulieu are faced with critical shortages of workers who can perform the maintenance on their production equipment.

THE GREATEST challenge to the continued viability of America’s two-year colleges and, specifically, Georgia’s two-year colleges, is financial support from state policy-makers. To cut the budget of a technical college at a time when it is experiencing double-digit enrollment growth is the equivalent of reducing the oxygen supply for a person gasping for air.

Manufacturing has fueled the economic prosperity of our region for the past several decades, infusing dollars into communities that nurture health care, the service industries and local government services. These entities could not grow without a steady stream of qualified workers. When one looks at the staffing of local hospitals and clinics or at the make-up of small businesses or large manufacturing facilities, the large concentration of locally educated technical college students is testimony to the relevance of the curriculum offered through the technical college. In order to continue supplying educated, skilled employees for area businesses it is imperative that the investment in quality faculty and state-of-the art equipment continues.

The $2 billion package from the Obama administration is an acknowledgement of the critical importance of America’s two-year colleges. The long-term support for Georgia’s technical colleges, however, must not be shifted to Washington.

Education is a state concern and members of the Georgia General Assembly and our next governor have to understand that technical education, more so than any other form of education, provides a tangible return on the invested tax dollar.

We are accountable and this past year 23,383 people chose to improve their quality of life by choosing to enroll in a credit or non-credit program at Georgia Northwestern Technical College.

WE CANNOT talk about growing jobs while destroying the seed corn of economic development in Georgia by further cutting the budgets of our technical colleges.

Craig McDaniel is president of Georgia Northwestern Technical College, which has campuses in Floyd, Gordon, Polk, Catoosa and Walker counties.