Honing skills

September 2, 2012 at 12:00a.m.

Miami Herald

MIAMI

The glossy brochure promoting Miami Dade College’s School of Science begins with the expected burst of lofty language about teaching students to question, investigate and formulate conclusions about the world.

But directly under the “Mission” heading, the new pamphlet gets down to business, laying out the paycheck prospects for graduates. Biological technician: $38,396. Horticulturist: $34,511. Environmental technician: $40,227.

“That’s what the students care about right now,” Dean Heather Belmont said. “Before, students always felt that when they graduated, they could get a job.“

High unemployment and battered household finances have colleges working harder to tie their classroom offerings to job offers.

From creating courses to accommodate a new industry to customizing a curriculum to a specific employer’s hiring criteria, schools are pushing to narrow the gap between academia and the real world.

It’s a long-running trend that has accelerated during the recession and limp recovery, at a time when many employers refuse to hire candidates without the exact skills needed for a position.

“How do you become marketable with a degree in management?” asked Robert Sellani, an associate professor of operations management and accounting at Nova Southeastern University in Davie, Fla. “It’s not easy.”

Sellani presides over NSU’s new supply-chain master’s program, which is designed to train students on the nuts-and-bolts of moving goods for companies. He said the program came in part from looking around at businesses poised for growth in South Florida, despite the wobbly economy.

“It’s very obvious with the deep dredging of the Port of Miami, more cargo is going to be ready to move north,” Sellani said of the effort to prepare Miami docks for ships serving a deeper Panama Canal, which is also being dredged. With the cargo industry already growing, Sellani said supply management looked ripe for funneling students into jobs at some of South Florida’s top employers.

No field is too narrow. The University of Miami offers a post-graduate course on real-estate development, and Florida International University is rolling out a course of study on medical paperwork.

Sometimes, the push for marketability can go too far. NSU had hoped to focus its supply-chain offerings even more with a master’s in logistics. But Sellani said the school dropped that for lack of demand.

The downturn has put a bigger focus than ever on the role education plays in not just landing jobs for students but also improving their wages.

With about 3.7 million job openings nationwide — the highest since 2008 — experts see a “skills gap” as a main reason for an unemployment rate topping 8 percent.

The Obama administration this year proposed $8 billion to train 2 million people in community-college programs aimed at industries where skilled workers are lacking.

Federal dollars funneled through the $800 billion stimulus program has already funded training programs for so-called “green” jobs.

With a tough job market, more students are opting to skip a paycheck and pursue their own business ideas. That’s given an opening for the University of Miami’s Launch Pad program, which pairs “venture coaches” with UM students and alumni who have an idea for their own businesses.

The program started in 2008, and has attracted national attention. Now UM is expanding it across the country, under the Launch Pad brand it owns.

Two years ago, the charitable arm of the Blackstone equity fund partnered with Launch Pad to expand the program to universities and community colleges in Detroit, then the Cleveland area.

Blackstone paid UM licensing fees to set up the new programs, with UM serving as a headquarters overseeing the ventures under the new Blackstone Launch Pad label. Two more cities will be added this fall, said Amy Stursgberg, director of the Blackstone Foundation.

“Two-thirds of all the jobs this current generation of college students are going to hold, they’re going to have to create themselves,” she said. “Entrepreneurship really is a viable career path.”