Newly released U.S. Census Bureau figures show 29.8 percent of Utahns age 25 or older held at least a bachelor's degree in 2005, ranking the state 16th in the nation. The percentage is down a point from the previous year.

"This is a trend that is going the wrong way," Utah Commissioner of Higher Education Richard Kendell said Wednesday. "If anything, we want to have a higher proportion of people in the state with bachelor's degrees."

Utah employers currently have 324 job openings for workers with engineering or computer science degrees, Kendell said. Over the next 12 months they will have an estimated 550 openings.

"We need more nurses, pharmacists, teachers, financial analysts and accountants, too," he said. "There are great, high-paying jobs that will sustain a family, but all of those require an associate's degree or bachelor's degree. Students have got to go to college and get degrees."

Kendell pointed to the "disconnect" between the percentage of residents age 25 years and older who have high school diplomas and those who have higher degrees. Utah, where 92.5 percent of residents older than 25 had high school diplomas in 2005, ranked second only to Minnesota.

"The economy is changing, and the good jobs in the future are going to require more training rather than less," Kendell said. "The number of high-paying manufacturing jobs, such as those at Geneva Steel, are not abundant like they were 20 years ago."

Wages earned by those with college degrees compared with those earned by high school graduates are substantially higher:

Census data shows that those with just high school diplomas in 2004 earned a national average of $28,645, while those with bachelor's degrees made $51,554. An advanced degree boosted wages to an average of $78,093.

Workers without high school diplomas earned an average of just $19,169.

The Utah State Office of Education regards the state's second-place ranking for its percentage of high school graduates as "great news." Spokesman Mark Peterson credits Utah's "kid-friendly" culture and the peer pressure to graduate caused by the fact that between one in four and one in five Utah residents is a public education student, while the national average is one in seven, Peterson said.

"Some students have perhaps concluded that college is not as important and they are taking jobs and not finishing college," Kendell said.

"Maybe people are taking a job that is very attractive to a high school graduate at $14 or $15 an hour, but it's not a self-sustaining career over time. The people who are going to survive in the future are the skilled workers. The nonskilled people are more expendable."

smcfarland@sltrib.com