economy

Texas Community Colleges:West Texas Region

Public community colleges serve a vital role in our state’s economy by training our workforce and preparing students for further academic study. Created specifically to expand access to higher education, they’re also notable for filling the specific educational and vocational needs of their service areas.

Regional Overview

The Texas Comptroller of Public Accounts divides the state into 12 economic regions. The West Texas economic region — 30 counties covering about 39,800 square miles in western Texas — has three community college districts: Howard College, Midland College, and Odessa College. The region is home to about 636,000 people, or 2.2 percent of the state’s population.

Regional Economic Impact

In 2020, the Comptroller’s office requested financial data from Texas’ 50 community college districts and conducted statewide and regional studies of their economic impact. Our analysis predated the COVID-19 crisis and the economic impacts that followed. The West Texas region’s three community college districts reported revenues of nearly $164.9 million in fiscal 2018, which produced an additional $88.8 million in indirect and induced economic activity for a total impact of $253.7 million annually. More than 2,300 jobs are supported by the region’s community college spending. Under normal economic conditions, every dollar spent by community colleges produces an additional 54 cents of economic activity, while every dollar spent on compensation produces an additional 22 cents of total income to the state economy (Exhibit 1).

Output refers to the intermediate and final economic values of goods and services. Induced impact refers to the jobs, sales/output and compensation created when new employees spend their wages at local establishments. Figures may not sum due to rounding.

Sources: JobsEQ, Texas Comptroller of Public Accounts, Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board and Texas community colleges

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Our model represents a conservative estimate. Other studies, including one conducted by this agency in 2008 and another by Emsi in 2015, have applied a broader view of the economic ripple effects of a community college education and found considerably greater impact.

Employment and Wages

In general, the region’s extraction and construction industries have seen the highest employment growth in the last five years. Unlike the rest of the state, the West Texas region has seen an increase in its extraction worker sector, adding nearly 3,600 jobs between 2014 and 2019, despite the recent downturn in the oil and gas industries. The region also has seen increased employment in supervisorial roles, particularly in oil and gas and construction.  

The region’s most significant occupations are shown in Exhibit 2 and Exhibit 3, first by location quotient (which measures an industry’s proportionate concentration in a region versus its concentration in U.S. as a whole), and secondly by numeric growth during the last
five years.

Figures may not sum due to rounding. Data are as of Q3 2019 except for wage data, which represent covered employment in 2018.

Source: JobsEQ

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Figures may not sum due to rounding. Data are as of Q3 2019 except wage data, which are for covered employment in 2018.

Source: JobsEQ

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Wages by Educational Attainment

Community colleges deliver a particularly good return on investments of time and tuition. In the West Texas region in 2018, workers with some college or associate degrees and with stable jobs — defined as those employed with the same firm throughout a calendar quarter — earned an average of $3,331 more annually than high school graduates (Exhibit 4).

Sources: U.S. Census Bureau and JobsEQ

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The increase in wages alone for those workers adds $254.1 million in direct compensation to the state economy each year (Exhibit 5) — more than 1.5 times the total spending of the region’s community colleges.

Exhibit 5

The wage effect is particularly noteworthy given an average annual tuition for the region’s community colleges of just $2,653 per year and the modest two-year educational commitment required for an associate degree.¹ The highest-paying jobs for associate-degree holders in Texas are in the energy/utility, management, professional services, trade and manufacturing sectors.²

More Degrees Needed

While the region’s new graduates and certificate holders enter the workforce in large numbers, demand for some degrees still outpaces supply. Broadly speaking, these award gaps occur largely in health professions, business and the construction trades.

The West Texas region’s community college districts awarded more than 1,200 certificates and associate degrees in general studies and liberal arts in the 2017-18 school year; the next most-common award areas were health professions, business administration and other trades (Exhibit 6).

Source: JobsEQ

West Texas Community College Overview

The West Texas region’s three community college districts provided technical and academic coursework for more than 16,000 students in the 2017-18 school year (Exhibit 7).

*The percentage of academic or technical graduates employed in the fourth quarter of the calendar year after graduation and/or enrolled in a Texas two- or four-year institution in the following fall after graduation, as specified.

Source: Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board

Howard College

• The SouthWest College for the Deaf (SWCD), a Howard College campus, is the nation’s only community college setting for the deaf and hard of hearing.
• Howard College plays a key role in training in the area of health professions to address regional skills gaps and put graduates to work in the community as first responders, nurses, phlebotomy technicians, EKG technicians and more for daily and emergency health care.
• Howard College maintains a dental hygiene program to prepare hygienists in the West Texas area and a dental lab technician program for its deaf students.
• To meet needs in the oil industry, Howard College provides CDL driver and welder training programs.
• Howard College works to prepare student inmates at the federal prison to have new lives and trade skills such as masonry, building construction and heating, air conditioning and ventilation upon release.³

Midland College

• To ensure its energy programs are relevant to the oil and gas industry, Midland College partners with Endeavor Energy Resources, LP, whose Energy Services management team serves on advisory committees and provides industry expertise and equipment donations.⁴
• To meet increasing demands for medical care, Midland College offers healthcare degrees such as respiratory therapy.⁵
• Midland College’s energy technology program helps students find long-term, financially rewarding jobs in the oil and gas industry.⁶

Odessa College

• The Weekend College at Odessa College allows students with work and family commitments to earn an associate degree in just two years of weekend classes.⁷
• Odessa College offers an energy technology program to help students start careers in high-wage, high-demand jobs such as instrumentation and control technician, mechanical engineering technician and electrical technician.⁸
• In partnership with the Fab Foundation and Chevron Corporation, Odessa College hosts the Fab Lab Permian Basin, which allows users to create almost anything they can imagine with technology such as 3D printers, laser cutters and more.⁹

Conclusion

Community colleges play a vital role for students and businesses by offering postsecondary education and job training at great value. As the West Texas region’s three community college districts work to address local skills gaps and meet the needs of area employers, they support more than 2,300 jobs and add nearly $254 million in economic output annually. Furthermore, the higher pay of those with some college or an associate degree helps raise total wages in the region by another $254 million per year.

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Questions?

If you have any questions or concerns regarding the material on this page, please contact the Comptroller’s Data Analysis and Transparency Division.