Can free college tuition and scholarships solve the nation's labor shortage crisis? These governors seem to think so

• Thirty-eight governors raised the topic of higher education spending during their state-of-the-state addresses, an analysis by the National Governors Association found.
• Much of the new money for public colleges and universities is being aimed explicitly at training students for fields in which there are shortages of labor.
• In the current fiscal year, state support for higher education rose by 8.3%, exceeding a collective $100 billion for the first time ever.

“Investing in our conveyor belt for talent.”

That’s how Gov. Gavin Newsom described a proposed spending hike for California’s public colleges and universities.

Those few words also help explain a principal reason many states are boosting their budgets for public higher education more than at any time since 2008 and proposing even higher allocations down the road.