LANSING – Michigan wants to compete for the industries expected to drive the middle of the 21st century — artificial intelligence, robotics, advanced manufacturing, defense, aerospace, mobility and other high-tech businesses.
But before Michigan can win those jobs, it has to answer a more fundamental question: Who is going to do them?
Michigan already faces thousands of STEM job openings each year. It trails the nation in the percentage of working-age adults with bachelor’s degrees. Its population is aging. Its pipeline of young workers is projected to shrink.
And while Michigan’s universities produce thousands of highly marketable engineers and technology graduates, competing markets including Chicago, California and New York continue to attract a significant share of them.
Michigan therefore faces a three-part talent challenge:
Train more people. Keep more of the graduates it already produces. Attract more skilled workers from elsewhere.
Failure could carry consequences far beyond unfilled job openings.
Companies increasingly consider access to skilled workers when deciding where to invest. If Michigan cannot produce or attract enough people with the right skills, the danger isn’t simply that Michigan residents will miss out on the technology jobs of the future.
Some of those jobs — and the companies creating them — could go somewhere else.
Against that backdrop, Michigan is spending nearly $1.8 million on six experiments aimed at getting more adults into college and keeping them there long enough to earn a degree or skills credential.
It’s a relatively small program addressing a much larger problem.
Michigan’s Talent Clock Is Ticking
Michigan has set a goal of having 60% of working-age adults earn a college degree or skills certificate by 2030.
The state remains well short of that target.
About 51.8% of Michigan’s working-age population currently holds a college degree or other postsecondary credential, according to the state’s Sixty by 30 program.
Michigan also trails the country in bachelor’s-degree attainment.
In 2024, 35.5% of Michigan residents ages 25 to 64 held at least a bachelor’s degree, compared with 38.7% nationally, according to the Michigan Center for Data and Analytics.
Meanwhile, Michigan’s MiSTEM program projects more than 16,000 STEM job openings annually over the next several years.
And the demographic picture makes closing that gap more urgent.
Michigan’s population age 24 and younger is projected to decline 18.5% between 2025 and 2050, according to state demographic projections.
Michigan can’t simply wait for today’s schoolchildren to become tomorrow’s engineers, technicians, nurses and computer scientists.
It needs more adults in the workforce pipeline now.
Michigan Also Has To Keep The Talent It Produces
Producing more engineers, software developers and other highly skilled graduates won’t solve the problem if too many build their careers elsewhere.
Michigan State University’s College of Engineering provides a revealing example.
Among 525 graduates from its 2024-25 class who reported their employment location, 60% were working in Michigan.
That means 40% were working somewhere else.
Illinois was the leading destination outside Michigan, followed by California, Ohio, Texas, Washington and New York. Chicago was the leading out-of-state metropolitan destination.
The University of Michigan School of Information’s 2026 employment report presents an even more striking picture.
Only 45% of graduates reporting employment locations were working in Michigan. California and New York each accounted for another 11%.
Technology was the largest employment sector for those graduates.
Michigan’s longstanding reputation for “brain drain,” however, needs some qualification.
Recent Census estimates suggest Michigan’s overall migration picture is improving.
Michigan recorded positive domestic migration of 1,796 people in 2025 — its first positive domestic migration estimate since at least 1990, according to the Michigan Center for Data and Analytics.
Recent Census-based analysis also suggests Michigan does relatively well at retaining college-educated adults who already live here.
The bigger weakness may be attracting enough educated workers from other states.
That changes the workforce equation.
Michigan doesn’t merely need to stop people from leaving.
It needs to give skilled workers from Michigan and elsewhere compelling reasons to build their careers here.
Michigan Can’t Afford To Waste The Workers It Already Has
There is another potentially enormous source of talent already living in Michigan.
Business Leaders for Michigan estimates roughly 1 million Michigan residents have attended college but don’t have a degree.
Some may need only additional courses or credentials to qualify for jobs employers are struggling to fill.
That’s one reason Michigan created Michigan Reconnect.
Reconnect provides eligible Michigan adults who don’t already have a college degree an opportunity to attend community college tuition-free.
More than 250,000 people have applied since the program launched in 2021, according to the state, and nearly 20,000 have graduated.
Michigan recently made Reconnect permanently available to residents age 21 and older.
But eliminating tuition doesn’t eliminate the other reasons adults don’t attend or finish college.
A 35-year-old factory employee raising children faces very different obstacles than an 18-year-old graduating from high school.
Childcare may be a problem.
So may transportation, work schedules, confusing enrollment requirements or simply figuring out which courses lead to an actual job.
“For many Michigan adults, the path to college is not always clear or easy to navigate,” MiLEAP Executive Director Dr. Beverly Walker-Griffea said.
Six Colleges Test Six Solutions
That’s where the new $1.8 million initiative comes in.
The Michigan Department of Lifelong Education, Advancement, and Potential is awarding grants to six colleges to test ways of removing those barriers.
Jackson College will receive $297,315 to improve outreach and communications with prospective adult students.
Keweenaw Bay Ojibwa Community College will receive $300,000 to expand evening childcare.
Monroe Community College will receive $299,989 to work with local jails, shelters and community organizations and provide advocates to help adults navigate enrollment.
Montcalm Community College will receive $300,000 to establish a Reconnect Navigator program providing hands-on enrollment assistance.
Oakland Community College will receive $264,384.50 to connect adult learners with health sciences careers, employers, clinical placements and work-based learning opportunities.
Muskegon Community College will receive $300,000 for an approach that could be particularly important to Michigan’s manufacturing economy.
What If Years On The Factory Floor Counted Toward College?
Muskegon Community College will work with Greater Muskegon Economic Development to expand Credit for Prior Learning.
The idea is to recognize skills workers already possess.
Someone may have spent 15 years maintaining industrial equipment, programming machines, working with computers or accumulating industry certifications without ever earning a college degree.
Instead of requiring that worker to begin from scratch, qualifying workplace knowledge and credentials can potentially count toward academic credit.
That could shorten the path to a credential and make returning to school more practical.
It’s also particularly relevant as artificial intelligence, robotics and automation change existing Michigan jobs.
Michigan doesn’t necessarily need to replace every worker whose job changes.
In many cases, the better solution may be helping experienced workers acquire the additional technical skills required for the next generation of jobs.
Reconnect Graduates Are Earning More
There is evidence that completing a Reconnect credential pays off.
A recent Michigan Center for Data and Analytics study found that median annual wages for Reconnect graduates were more than $13,000 higher than their wages before participating in the program.
That makes completion crucial.
Getting someone to submit a college application doesn’t solve Michigan’s workforce problem.
Neither does enrolling someone who leaves school without a useful credential.
The economic payoff comes when people acquire skills employers need and translate those skills into better-paying jobs.
The $1.8 Million Experiment Is Only The Beginning
Nearly $1.8 million won’t solve Michigan’s workforce challenge.
But these six projects could help answer an important part of the problem: What prevents adults from obtaining skills when tuition itself is no longer the primary obstacle?
Michigan’s larger challenge is considerably more difficult.
It needs to educate more people.
It needs to retain more of the highly skilled graduates its colleges and universities already produce.
And it needs to become more successful at attracting educated workers from elsewhere.
That means Michigan’s economic-development strategy can’t focus only on tax incentives, industrial sites, electricity, infrastructure and attracting companies.
Talent itself is economic infrastructure.
Artificial intelligence companies need software engineers and data scientists.
Advanced manufacturers need engineers and highly trained technicians.
Defense and aerospace companies need specialized technical talent.
Healthcare employers need nurses and other trained professionals.
And Michigan’s existing automotive industry increasingly needs workers who understand software, electronics, automation and artificial intelligence as well as traditional manufacturing.
Michigan has spent decades worrying about where the next generation of companies will locate.
As the technology economy accelerates, another question may become just as important:
Where will Michigan find the people those companies need?
The answer will help determine whether Michigan becomes one of the states leading America’s technology-driven economy in the middle of the 21st century — or watches too much of that investment, talent and job creation go somewhere else.
