Learn to earn: the Triangle is home of world-famous universities. But for the region to thrive, leaders say, its residents need more schooling.

• Position: FEATURE - Panel Discussion

Collectively, the 13 counties that make up the Research Triangle Regional Partnership have the highest per capita personal income of any region in the state. That's due largely to the three universities that inspired the name--UNC Chapel Hill, Duke and N.C. State. So how strange is it that these Triangle business leaders say that the key to a better economy is better education? Senior Editor Arthur O. Murray discussed the region's future with Joe Freddoso, director of Research Triangle Park operations for San Jose, Calif.-based Cisco Systems Inc. and chairman of the North Carolina Technology Association; Jim Goodmon, CEO of Raleigh-based Capitol Broadcasting Co.; Bob Greczyn, CEO of Chapel Hill-based Blue Cross and Blue Shield of North Carolina Inc.; Charles Hayes, CEO of the regional partnership; and James Oblinger, chancellor of N.C. State.

Last year, the partnership launched a five-year, $5 million plan to bring in 100,000 jobs and increase employment in all 13 counties. What progress has been made?

Hayes: We are ahead of where we thought we would be: 15,800 net new jobs were created over the last year, and 10 of the 13 counties gained in employment.

Goodmon: The plan looks at doubling our population in 15 to 16 years. Can anybody imagine this region with twice as many people? We need to figure out what we're going to do about that, what kind of community we're going to be, the kinds of jobs we want, what are we going to do about air quality, water quality, all those kinds of things to maintain the quality of life we have here.

Does technology still drive the economy?

Freddoso: We've grown the Cisco site 15% at Research Triangle Park in the last two years. We feel good about where the market's growing. But overall, the industry is still in a period of consolidation. You've got to use a broad definition of technology, because if you look at Mr. Greczyn's organization, it's an information-technology organization. He runs his business based on the information that he gets on a daily basis. Mr. Goodmon runs his business based on market information he gets on a daily basis that's enabled by IT. When opportunities come up in areas like financial services with Credit Suisse First Boston and we have a definitive technological advantage in attracting those opportunities to the Triangle, we need to aggressively work together.

Goodmon: I'm not worried about our economy. We've got good growth trends. We've got good job creation. We have three of the best universities you're going to find anywhere. So we're going to add jobs, and we're going to grow. The question is, when we sit down to talk about this in 15 years, what are we going to be talking about?

What problems do you foresee?

Hayes: Our biggest challenge is the dropout rate in high schools. You hear figures from 20% to 40%.

Goodmon: They argue in the schools about how to calculate the rate. We got it from Harvard yesterday. What Harvard does is calculate that you start the ninth grade and do you finish the 12th grade?

Freddoso: And it's 40%, right, Jim?

Goodmon: Yeah, and with black males the dropout rate is 55%. That's statewide.

Hayes: If it's 20% here, that's still a huge challenge because we know that it's going to be very difficult for whatever percentage it is to find jobs.

Freddoso: It's economic disenfranchisement. Those jobs are gone. The other figure that causes concern is that we remediate about 50% of our kids that go into community college. Chancellor Oblinger has less of a challenge. We remediate only about 4% of our high-school graduates that go to universities.

Oblinger: It's a very low percentage, but it's there and it's not getting less.

Freddoso: We have to look at those infrastructure things, those education things. We can't sit here in 15 years and look back. In terms of transportation infrastructure and air quality, we need to make those decisions now. It takes 10 years to build a road from initial concept to getting the first pavement laid.

Greczyn: We add about 250 jobs a year at Blue Cross, and we struggle to find people for entry-level jobs who can communicate with our customers. The training is taking twice as long.

Oblinger: We are so concerned about this that we're going through the planning process right now to add an elementary-education dimension to our College of Education. With our strengths in math and science...