economy

Texas Community Colleges:High Plains 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 High Plains economic region — 41 counties covering about 39,500 square miles in northwest Texas — has four community college districts: Amarillo College, Clarendon College, Frank Phillips College and South Plains College. The region is home to about 873,000 people, or more than three 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 High Plains region’s four community college districts reported revenues of $175.7 million in fiscal 2018, which produced an additional $83.7 million in indirect and induced economic activity for a total impact of $259.4 million annually. More than 2,500 jobs are supported by the region’s community college spending. Under normal economic conditions, every dollar spent by community colleges produces an additional 48 cents of economic activity, while every dollar spent on compensation produces an additional 21 cents of total income to the state economy (Exhibit 1).

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 and found considerably greater impact.

Employment and Wages

In general, the region’s restaurant industry, the health care professions and agricultural workers have seen the highest employment growth in the last five years. The number of the High Plains region’s extraction workers has declined over the past five years due in large part to the downturn in the oil and gas and petrochemical industries. Food preparation added nearly 3,000 jobs, while the region’s health care industry added almost 1,400 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.

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

Source: JobsEQ

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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 High Plains 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 $3,539 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 $359.4 million in direct compensation to the state economy each year (Exhibit 5) — more than twice the total spending of the region’s community colleges.

Exhibit 5

The wage effect is particularly noteworthy given an average annual tuition for ACC of just $2,933 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, construction trades and engineering technologies.

The High Plains region’s community college districts awarded more than 1,100 certificates and associate degrees in health professions in the 2017-18 school year; the next most-common award areas were general studies and liberal arts, business administration and other trades (Exhibit 6).

Source: JobsEQ

High Plains Community College Overview

The High Plains region’s four community college districts provided technical and academic coursework for more than 22,000 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

Amarillo College

• In fiscal 2018, Amarillo College added $639.4 million in income to the Amarillo College service area economy, equal to about 3.7 percent of the region’s gross product.
• Amarillo College’s impact supported 9,221 jobs or one out of every 22 jobs in the Amarillo College service area in fiscal 2018.
• An analysis of fiscal 2018 showed students’ average annual rate of return for their investment in Amarillo College is 24.6 percent.
• In response to local employer needs, Amarillo College built a full data science degree program and a data analytics continuing education certification.
• Amarillo College runs a training program with Bell Helicopter to build the Osprey that has trained well over 1000 of their employees as of 2019.³

Clarendon College

• To ensure its career and technical education programs provide relevant training, Clarendon College uses industry advisory committees for programs including welding technology, cosmetology, nail tech, heating and air conditioning, ranch and feedlot management, industrial maintenance, and allied health.⁴
• Clarendon College’s ranch and feedlot operations program helps students gain new technical and management skills needed to cope with today's complex agricultural problems and start a successful ranch or feedlot career.⁵
• Clarendon College's new Pathways Programs integrates ESL, GED, or development education classes into technical training classes to allow students to quickly gain the skills needed to launch a career.⁶

Frank Phillips College

• Frank Phillips College (FPC) meets local industry needs through its Safety Center, which provides training for current and future employees of local businesses to reduce on-the-job fatal and nonfatal accidents.⁷
• In response to the high need for nurses in the Panhandle, Amarillo College and FPC have created a rural nursing education consortium with four local hospital districts to provide a nursing program with the hospitals paying student tuition.⁸
• FPC offers certificates in instrumentation, electrical, pump and engine, and process technology and has the largest training facility for petrochemical and refining operations in the Texas Panhandle.⁹

South Plains College

• South Plains College (SPC) received a Skills Development Fund grant to provide enhanced skilled training, including heavy equipment and office workflow, for more than 200 employees of four participating manufacturers: Azteca Milling, J&B Industrial, Red River Commodities and Simflo.¹⁰
• SPC’s automotive collision program provides a hands-on, self-paced learning experience to gain all the skills needed for a successful career in automotive repair.¹¹
• SPC’s Lubbock Coding Academy allows students with little or no coding experience to learn the fundamentals of computer programming and web development.¹²

Conclusion

Community colleges play a vital role for students and businesses by offering postsecondary education and job training at great value. As the High Plains region’s four community college districts work to address local skills gaps and meet the specific needs of area employers, they support nearly 2,600 jobs and add more than $259 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 by over $359 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.