Senate Bill 181 would create a template workforce-education partnership program with Ohio businesses and institutions of higher education. The Ohio Chamber offered a letter of support for the bill in Senate Higher Education Committee which included the following:

“Dear Chair Kunze:

On behalf of the nearly 8,000 members of the Ohio Chamber of Commerce, I write to you in support of Senate Bill 181; legislation that would create a template workforce-education partnership program.

Consistently, we hear from our members that they are struggling to fill workforce shortages. We believe that SB 181 has the potential to assist employers with filling those workforce shortages in a potentially creative manner. Additionally, this program has the potential to drive down the burden of student loans put on individuals pursuing higher education.

Workforce development is a particularly difficult issue in part because there is not one single solution to solve workforce shortages currently facing Ohio businesses. SB 181 takes an innovative approach to attempt to solve this issue. It remains to be seen if this template would be able to be replicated statewide, but there is a lot of potential with a program such as this.”

This bill has great potential to help develop the workforce of the future in our many institutions of higher education in Ohio.