Book Description

Employment in Montana (including hourly and salaried jobs and self-employment) is projected to grow by 17 percent from 2002 to 2012, adding over 96,000 new jobs to the state's economy and growing the workforce from 554,456 to 651,135. The rate of growth is higher than the 15 percent increase projected for the nation as a whole. Growth will occur in most sectors of Montana's economy, however Montana's "top jobs" those with the strongest employment outlook and high earnings are all professional positions. All of the top jobs listed on Table 1 require considerable education and training. Three of them (registered nurse, dental hygenist, cardiovascular technician) require an associate's degree, while all the rest demand a bachelor's degree or higher. The question for Montana and other states is how, in a time of tight budgets, to meet the increasing demands on higher education and thereby meet the needs of an increasingly sophisticated economy. The Western Interstate Commission for Higher Education (WICHE) was launched specifically to address the shortage of workforce-training opportunities in medicine, dentistry, and other professional fields. Today, WICHE offers undergraduate, graduate, and professional options that help the West's states educate and train their citizens, building their economies in the process. This publication describes 3 student exchange programs available to students in Montana: (1) Western Undergraduate Exchange (WUE), which allows students to enroll in out-of-state institutions at a reduced tuition level; (2) The Professional Student Exchange Program (PSEP) offers students opportunities to train outside of their home state in 14 highly competitive fields: architecture, dentistry, graduate library studies, medicine, nursing, occupational therapy, optometry, osteopathic medicine, pharmacy, physical therapy, physician assistant, podiatry, public health, and veterinary medicine; and (3) The Western Regional Graduate Program (WRGP), which offers students the chance to engage in graduate studies and includes 175 distinctive programs in 14 states, such as education, nursing, and business. On the horizon is a distance learning option, NEON (the Northwest Educational Outreach Network), which will provide electronically delivered degree programs in high-demand disciplines, such as a Ph.D. in nursing and a graduate certificate in supply chain management. (Contains 2 tables.).