Program will help teens claim spot at Ga. colleges, universities
ATLANTA - Gov. Brian Kemp on Thursday unveiled an initiative to help connect students with colleges and universities in the Peach State.
He made the announcement during a workforce summit where he’d promised to unveil plans for the state to meet the demand for workers amid unprecedented job growth.
As part of the so-called Georgia Match initiative announced by Kemp, more than 120,000 high school seniors next week will get a letter listing the public technical institutions, colleges and universities that are holding a spot for them in the fall 2024 semester, based on academic eligibility.
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The letters will provide information on the next steps to claim a spot at a college.
All participating institutions – including Augusta University – will waive application fees for students during November 2023 for students who apply through the program. Georgia College & State University, Georgia Institute of Technology and the University of Georgia are not participating in the program, due to a different issions process.
Students may view their personalized MATCH list, request more information, and claim their spot at gafutures.org/GEORGIAMATCH beginning next week.
The Georgia Match program is the first of its scope and scale in the nation, according to Kemp.
“We have workforce needs in literally almost every sector of Georgia,” he said.
“We’ve had three years in a row of record economic development, investment, and job creation in our state because of our workforce,” Kemp continued. “In order to sustain that and sustain the growth coming to our state, we’ve got to keep putting more people into that workforce.”
When asked what kinds of workers are being sought after, the answer was a wide range.
“Our economy is so diverse,” he said. “Agriculture is our number one industry. We’ve got a huge health care industry, a huge financial services industry, traditional manufacturing, tourism and entertainment, and all kinds of other things going on.”
On Tuesday, Area Development magazine named Georgia the top state to do business for the tenth year in a row.
According to the Georgia Department of Labor, the unemployment rate for August was slightly higher than last year at 3.3% compared to 3.1%.
However, the statistics also showed Georgia added almost 96,000 jobs from last year to now, bringing the total to 4.93 million.
Some of the sectors in Georgia with the most job gains, according to the most recent data, included food services, health care, entertainment, and finance.
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