The Maryland Center for Construction Education & Innovation was created to align the industry’s changing workforce needs with Maryland’s education offerings. We aim to create a world-class education system for the built environment.
MCCEI’s third study, titled Building Bridges, MCCEI Building Bridges_full_report. Building Bridges is a call to action for Maryland’s industry, education, and government to expand existing educational assets, create new assets, and simplify pathways to careers.
In past research and assessments of Maryland’s built environment industry and the K-12, post-secondary, and apprenticeship education system that produces its workforce, a recurring theme has been the persistent gap between skills that Maryland-based businesses seek and skills developed at in-state institutions. Prior to Building Bridges, numerous reports revealed that the default labor pools of Maryland’s built environment companies were out-of-state schools, given perceptions that Maryland lacks adequate built environment degree-granting programs.
For Building Bridges, MCCEI set out to discover just why those out-of-state degrees are more sought after, and how it is affecting Maryland’s economy as a whole. We interviewed industry professionals to find out who they hire, how many they anticipate they will need to hire, and what they are looking for out of a program. Our findings? Through 2020, Maryland’s built environment is anticipated to hire 8,700 more bachelor degree holders than produced by in-state institutions, with a whopping cost of $73 million lost per year for the industry to rely on them. The state of Maryland loses $24 million per year just because local high schoolers are attending out-of-state schools for these degrees.
The recommendations from Building Bridges are meant to help grow Maryland programs and allow local students to get a quality education in-state (which would save them and their parent’s money) so that they can be sought after in the industry. The industry needs to step up and support the local programs as well, providing internships and guidance.
We are surrounded by top schools and are nowhere near close to keeping up with them. Maryland as a state needs to make some major changes and expansions to their programs in order to become a leader in producing Built Environment bachelor degree holders.