The headlines are the same in nearly every state: massive cuts in higher education budgets, faculty and staff layoffs, tuition hikes and students locked out of a college education because of rising costs. Our nation’s economic distress is taking a huge toll on our colleges, universities and future work force.

It’s been said a down economy is a boon for Masters of Business Administration programs. The fact that the region has kept the healthy crop of MBA schools it had in 2007, before the economy turned, and even added one would suggest the maxim holds true. But it’s no free ride.

The University of the Pacific arrived from San Jose in 1924, planting a brick-and-ivy educational institution in the heart of the San Joaquin agricultural community. Since then, it’s grown to become the second-largest private employer in the county. But, school officials say, the university can still do more in the business community.

Ask virtually anyone in the business community what Gov. Jerry Brown’s administration must do to repair our state’s broken economy, and over and again the answer is the same: improve education.

More than 40 years ago, Brice Harris entered education leadership and vowed never to use money — or lack thereof — as an excuse for the performance of the higher-learning institutions he served. However, he now insists the California Community Colleges System cannot adequately serve the student population without more state funding.

Sacramento State President Alexander Gonzalez’s tenure has been one of the most tumultuous in the university’s history.

The shade of the warehouse does little to quell the triple-digit heat. Still, Thomas Nesbit, 21, and Jared Smedly, 22, volunteer their afternoon to construct a picnic table from scratch.

In an economy where company officials are making hard financial decisions, spending thousands of dollars on training might seem like an unnecessary expense.

California will need close to a million new medical assistants, lab techs, respiratory therapists and other skilled health workers in the next 20 years in addition to new doctors and nurses, a recent study estimates. But the state doesn’t have enough educational capacity to train them all.

With California’s unemployment statistics among the worst in the nation, there’s no hotter topic right now than jobs: how to keep, expand and create them. Increasingly, policymakers are focused on so-called “middle-skill jobs.”