Colo. tech foundation cracking – Despite signs of an industry turnaround, students pursue other subjects

Colorado may be in danger of losing its bragging rights as having one of the most educated tech workforces in the nation.

By Jennifer Beauprez
Denver Post Business Writer

Enrollment in information technology programs at some Colorado community colleges and universities has dropped by as much as 50 percent over the past three years, as many students go after more general educations and stay away from technology.

Educational leaders fear the lack of tech education ultimately could lead to a technology brain drain nationwide and yet another worker shortage four or five years from now.

"That is really scary," said Midge Cozzens, president of the Colorado Institute of Technology, an organization Gov. Bill Owens started during the tech boom to work with universities and community colleges to boost high-tech graduates.

The decline comes as companies increasingly shift new tech jobs overseas in search of cheap labor and as frustrated, laid-off workers leave the sector in pursuit of jobs in the mortgage industry, employment staffing, retail, manufacturing, banking and the liquor business.

"There is no incentive for high school kids to sign up for technology classes because there’s no jobs at the end of the effort," said Jim Hertzel, an outspoken critic of offshore software development and chairman of Alumni Consulting Group International, a Greenwood Village technology consulting firm.

"I think it’s all related to new Colorado jobs going offshore," Hertzel said.

Education officials promise that technology is beginning to show signs of recovering, that more companies are hiring and that the future is bright. Technology is becoming an integral part of the operations of nearly every kind of business, from printing shops to doctor’s offices, Cozzens said.

"We have to be sure that high school students believe there are jobs," Cozzens said. "The state’s diversification to include technology was critical to growth in Colorado and continues to be critical to growth."

Yet students instead are clamoring for classes in English, philosophy and religious studies at Regis University and at the Community College of Denver.

"General education is off the charts," said Linda Lujan, dean of business and technology at CCD.

Overall enrollment at CCD is up 25 percent this year, Lujan said. But the number of students taking computer science courses has dropped 40 percent each of the past two years.

Today, just 120 of 12,000 students at CCD declared information technology as their majors.

Education officials statewide tell similar stories. At Colorado State University in Fort Collins, enrollment in computer information sciences has dropped 58 percent in the last three years.

And as few as six students show up for software and networking classes at Red Rocks Community College in Littleton. The school canceled 50 computer courses this semester and reduced its faculty staff size to nine teachers from 14.

"That department once was the largest on campus," said Wayne Caruolo, associate vice president of technology at Red Rocks.

To boost student enrollment, Caruolo put up a billboard earlier this year off Interstate 70 advertising the school’s Microsoft IT Academy. It depicted a fortune teller with a crystal ball with the words: "We can see the future, can you?"

Evidently, no one could. The number of students taking such courses has plummeted 50 percent at Red Rocks since the high-tech boom.

"We don’t believe IT is going away anytime soon," Caruolo said. "But the students aren’t showing up."

There are good reasons why. Two-thirds of the layoffs in Colorado over the past few years came from telecommunications and technology firms. And in August, 141,300 Coloradans were looking for jobs.

"A lot of my friends in the computer program are freaking out, and they’re trying to switch their careers," said Rose Munrow, a computer programming major at Red Rocks. "We talk about it often. A lot of students say, ‘Where do I go? What should I do?’ They’re unsure."

Munrow, who hopes to transfer to Regis University next spring, said she’ll stick with computer science despite the economy, but she will rely on school advisers to guide her studies so she can find work after graduation.

Increasingly, the new computer programming jobs created by local companies are in India, China, Vietnam and Singapore, where the work can be done cheaper and faster.

"Those information technology jobs aren’t coming back," said Hertzel of Alumni Consulting. "The only tech jobs coming up we see are help-desk and low-level tech jobs."

Indeed, help-desk jobs typically pay just $24,000 to $30,000 a year. That compares with five years ago, when an 18-year-old could get a Cisco networking certification and make $40,000 a year.

The good news: New higher-skilled jobs may emerge as computer science blends with other disciplines. And universities and colleges increasingly are shifting their curricula to accommodate new fields.

The University of Denver, for instance, has a new computer science division that offers concentrations on technical communications, Internet law, Internet communications and digital art.

And at the University of Colorado at Denver, graduate and doctorate students combine computer science with biology and even radiology.

CU’s Denver campus has a record 170 master’s students enrolled in computer science this semester. The vast majority of those students are working full-time and went back to school primarily because of the economy.

"They want to update their skills, and many are updating their skills in new areas," said Krzysztof Cios, professor and chair of the computer science and engineering department at CU-Denver.

One-third of CU-Denver’s 16 Ph.D. students are concentrating on computational biology, he said.

"There are huge needs in biological sciences," Cios said. "That’s coming, and students know it, and they are moving in this area."

True, experts predict doctors one day will use a computer to see a patient’s genetic makeup, predict what diseases he or she is likely to get later in life and administer personalized drugs to prevent them. Few people have the combined technical skills in computers, math and biology to create that reality, however.

Community colleges, too, are working to integrate other fields, such as accounting and anthropology, with computer science.

The biggest challenge, however, may be to keep general computer departments afloat and keep them sharp for the next wave of demand.

Community colleges faced the same problem during the 1990s, when students fled the engineering field after the oil and gas bust, said Lujan of Community College of Denver.

"The worst thing we could do is close our lab, let our computers gather dust and put our faculty to work doing other things," Lujan said. "We’re trying to get potential students to realize that there are jobs and that there will be jobs."

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