Technical College System highlights workforce training, dual enrollment and scholarship program

Tim Hardy, president of the South Carolina Technical College System, briefed the House Education and Public Works subcommittee on the system’s role in workforce training, short-term credentialing, dual enrollment and targeted scholarship programs.

Hardy said the system operates 16 colleges with satellite campuses in all 46 counties and focuses on affordability, accessibility and relevance. He reported the system serves roughly 8,000 students in credit programs and about 40,000 in short-term training programs such as electrical lineman, EMT and CDL licensing. The system tracks graduate outcomes, and Hardy said 93% of graduates are working in the field for which they trained one year after completion.

Hardy described apprenticeship and rapid-response training programs run out of the system office — Apprenticeship Carolina, ReadySC and a retraining initiative — and said Apprenticeship Carolina supports about 7,000 apprentices statewide. He highlighted ReadySC’s role in pre-hiring training for large employers (Hardy cited an example where ReadySC prepares trainees for a manufacturer’s 4,000 hires). He also summarized a “heat map” of 72 active projects around the state that the system expects will require training for roughly 14,000 jobs.

Hardy presented return-on-investment data to legislators: for machine-tool graduates the system reported average wages rising from about $32,000 at enrollment to $50,000 after completion (87% still working in South Carolina one year later), and for nursing graduates an increase from roughly $18,000 at enrollment to $60,000 a year after finishing. Hardy said 21,000 nurses have graduated from the system over the last 18 years; 75% of nursing graduates were still working in South Carolina 10 years after graduation.

On scholarships and incentives, Hardy noted the SC WINDS scholarship line in the Ways and Means budget is $90 million. He said the state board decides program eligibility for SC WINDS dollars based on documented business and industry shortages and that about 40,000 residents have benefited from the technical system’s scholarship programs to date.

Hardy stressed dual enrollment as an affordability and access tool: roughly 19,000 high-school juniors and seniors are dually enrolled in technical college courses; the system estimates potential reach to about 25,000 such students. He described outreach efforts that begin earlier than high school, including partnerships with the Governor’s School for Science and Math to host weeklong summer STEM camps for middle-schoolers on technical college campuses across the state.

Hardy identified challenges: a low statewide unemployment rate alongside thousands of unfilled job openings creates a labor-supply mismatch, and rural areas face particular difficulties in both economic development and delivering training. He invited committee members to the Technical College System’s legislative day event at the State House and offered follow-up support to legislators.

Hardy’s presentation was informational; the committee did not take votes or issue directives during the briefing.