economy

Texas Community Colleges:Central Texas Region

Public community colleges serve a vital role in our state’s economy by training our workforce and preparing students for further academic study. Created specifically to expand access to higher education, they’re also notable for filling the specific educational and vocational needs of their service areas.

Regional Overview

The Texas Comptroller of Public Accounts divides the state into 12 economic regions. The Central Texas economic region — 20 counties covering about 17,400 square miles in the heart of Texas — has five community college districts: Blinn College, Central Texas College, Hill College, McLennan Community College and Temple College. The region is home to about 1.2 million people, or 4.6 percent of the state’s population.

Regional Economic Impact

In 2020, the Comptroller’s office requested financial data from Texas’ 50 community college districts and conducted statewide and regional studies of their economic impact. Our analysis predated the COVID-19 crisis and the economic impacts that followed. The Central Texas region’s five community college districts reported revenues of $368.5 million in fiscal 2018, which produced an additional $183.9 million in indirect and induced economic activity for a total impact of $552.4 million annually. More than 5,700 jobs are supported by the region’s community college spending. Under normal economic conditions, every dollar spent by community colleges produces an additional 50 cents of economic activity, while every dollar spent on compensation produces an additional 22 cents of total income to the state economy (Exhibit 1).

Note: Output refers to the intermediate and final economic values of goods and services. Induced impact refers to the jobs, sales/output and compensation created when new employees spend their wages at local establishments. Figures may not sum due to rounding.

Sources: JobsEQ, Texas Comptroller of Public Accounts, Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board and Texas community colleges

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Our model represents a conservative estimate. Other studies, including one conducted by this agency in 2008 and another by Emsi in 2015, have applied a broader view of the economic ripple effects of a community college education in Texas and found considerably greater impact.

Employment and Wages

In general, the region’s restaurant industry, personal care and retail workers and the healthcare professions have seen the highest employment growth in the last five years. The recent downturn in the oil and gas industries reduced employment in its extraction sector by more than 5 percent. The Central Texas region has seen an uptick in postsecondary education, adding more than 750 postsecondary teachers in the last five years. Food preparation added more than 4,300 jobs, while the region’s health care and social assistance industries added more than 2,200 jobs.

The region’s most significant occupations are shown in Exhibits 2 and 3, first by location quotient (which measures an industry’s proportionate concentration in a region versus its concentration in the U.S. as a whole) and secondly by numeric growth during the last five years.

Note: Figures may not sum due to rounding. Data are as of Q3 2019 except wage data, which are for covered employment in 2018.

Source: JobsEQ

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Note: Figures may not sum due to rounding. Data are as of Q3 2019 except wage data, which are for covered employment in 2018.

Source: JobsEQ

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Wages by Educational Attainment

Community colleges deliver a particularly good return on investments of time and tuition. In the Central Texas region, workers with some college or associate degrees and with stable jobs — defined as those employed with the same firm throughout a calendar quarter — earn an average of $3,773 more annually than high school graduates (Exhibit 4).

Sources: U.S. Census Bureau and JobsEQ

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The increase in wages alone for those workers adds an additional $444.8 million in direct compensation to the state economy each year (Exhibit 5) — much more than the total spending of the region’s community colleges.

Exhibit 5

The wage effect is particularly noteworthy given an average annual tuition for the region’s community colleges of just $3,148 per year and the modest two-year educational commitment required for an associate degree.¹ The highest-paying jobs for associate-degree holders in Texas are in the energy/utility, management, professional services, trade and manufacturing sectors.²

More Degrees Needed

While the region’s new graduates and certificate holders enter the workforce in large numbers, demand for some degrees still outpaces supply. Broadly speaking, these award gaps are largely in health professions, personal and culinary services, construction trades and education.

Community colleges in the Central Texas region awarded more than 4,600 certificates and associate degrees in general studies and liberal arts in the 2017-18 school year, followed by health professions, business administration and other trades (Exhibit 6).

Source: JobsEQ

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Central Texas Community College Overview

The Central Texas region’s five community college districts provided technical and academic coursework for more than 47,000 students in the 2017-18 school year (Exhibit 7).

*The percentage of academic or technical graduates employed in the fourth quarter of the calendar year after graduation and/or enrolled in a Texas two- or four-year institution in the following fall after graduation, as specified.

Source: Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board

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Blinn College

• Beginning Fall 2020, the Texas A&M Engineering Academy at Blinn-Brenham will increase the number of students accepted into the engineering program from 100 to 150 students per year, allowing more high-achieving engineering students to pursue their engineering bachelor’s degree while co-enrolled at Texas A&M University and Blinn College.³
• The health information technology program at Blinn College prepares students for careers such as health information management technicians, coders, documentation specialists, revenue cycle specialists, patient advocates and insurance specialists.⁴
• Blinn College offers a unique opportunity for students to enroll in the Texas A&M Engineering Extension Service (TEEX) Forensic Science Academy, where they receive high-quality forensic technical training, earn 18 college credit hours and are awarded two certificates: the Blinn College Forensic Science Certificate and the TEEX Forensic Investigation & Evidence Management Certificate.⁵

Central Texas College

• Central Texas College’s (CTC’s) Computer-Aided Drafting and Design program helps students quickly complete a certificate or degree by learning the competencies common to all drafting and design technicians.⁶
• CTC’s Fast Forward program helps military students and veterans by showing them how their military experience can translate to college credit, accelerate their degree plans and provide education and career counseling services.⁷
• Office technology programs at CTC prepare students to provide administrative support in a variety of office settings across numerous industries by offering courses in multiple formats including traditional, online and open-entry bookkeeping.⁸

Hill College

• Hill College partners with the National Coalition of Certification Centers (NC3) for its automotive and HVAC programs.
• Hill College’s welding program joined its NC3 partnership through the Lincoln Electric Education Partner Schools welding certification program, which allows students to obtain portable industry certifications in welding safety, shielded metal arc welding, flux-cored arc welding, gas metal arc welding and gas tungsten arc welding.
• The National Security Agency and Department of Homeland Security jointly sponsor Hill College as a Center of Academic Excellence in Cyber Defense.

McLennan Community College

• McLennan Community College (MCC) added $414.7 million to the regional economy in fiscal 2013, the same amount that 9,270 jobs would generate. This is equal to about 3.9 percent of the MCC service area’s gross domestic product.
• To meet local business needs, MCC performs program demand gap analysis studies and surveys employers about employability skills.
• MCC’s computer information systems program recently was designated a National Center of Academic Excellence in Cyber Defense Education, aligned with the National Initiative for Cybersecurity Education Cybersecurity Workforce Framework.
• MCC’s engineering program, which just celebrated its 10th anniversary, provides a steady stream of well-prepared engineering students to its four-year partners, including Texas Tech University.
• MCC’s health professions programs (including nursing, radiology, respiratory care, surgical technology, occupational and physical therapy and health information technology) provide most of McLennan County’s health care workers other than doctors.
• MCC’s corporate training programs have provided millions of dollars in grant-funded training to local industries in the last five years.

Temple College

• Students studying medicine at Temple College have access to advanced technology such as virtual reality lenses, which provide hands-on practice helping patients in a controlled environment.⁹
• The college’s Dental Hygiene Clinic provides students in the dental hygiene program with real patient experience while providing community members with affordable cleanings.¹⁰
• The Texas Bioscience Institute Middle College program offers highly motivated high school students from Central Texas the opportunity to earn up to 60 college credit hours and an associate degree in a STEM-focused foundational curriculum while still in high school.¹¹

Conclusion

Community colleges play a vital role for students and businesses by offering postsecondary education and job training at great value. As the Central Texas region’s five community college districts work to address local skills gaps and meet the specific needs of area employers, they support more than 5,700 jobs and add more than $550 million in economic output annually. Furthermore, the higher pay of those with some college or an associate degree helps raise total wages in the region nearly $445 million per year.

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Questions?

If you have any questions or concerns regarding the material on this page, please contact the Comptroller’s Data Analysis and Transparency Division.