Miami Gardens faces challenges, but we are working with the community. We have many initiatives in both the public and charter schools here, and use state and federal grants to increase educational success. We also have important programs at St. Thomas University (STU) that are geared toward helping mature students who want to begin or complete a college education. We have developed many of our new programs based on what The Beacon Council, the County’s business development agency, has identified as target industries through their One Community One Goal Initiative. To best serve the employment market, we have added market-ready programs in cybersecurity and big data, along with expanded nursing and health sciences offerings. There has been a significant expansion of our business advisory board, and we have a president’s advisory board made up of mostly business people and people who are related to the different fields in each one of our schools. Additionally, we are proud that over 1,200 of our students in our undergraduate, graduate and law programs are Miami-Dade natives. The government has to remain involved in supporting higher education, especially if it is going to be more accessible. We cannot do it ourselves, especially as private independent institutions. Money is not wasted in higher education at STU. We are constantly looking at our finances in order to offer the best for our students. We need to ensure that people appreciate what we are doing and make funds available. The business community also needs to be slightly more forthcoming, not only with resources, but also with opportunities. We have wonderful higher education institutions in this community, and local businesses need to embrace this. They need to consider our institutions while recruiting. The trustees and friends of STU are very generous. We actually have scholarship funds that are entirely created through donations and private foundations. That is how we are able to help provide support for many students. The state and federal governments provide some funding, but it is not enough.
