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ALBANY, GA --
Receiving an education to get a job is an age-old concept, but what about the idea of getting an education to promote economic growth?

"There's a direct correlation between education and economic development. If you don't have an educated workforce, then you're not going to have companies and businesses interested in coming to town to create new jobs," said Luke Flatt, President and CEO of AB&T National Bank.

Over the past few years, our community has built up the downtown area - filling it with new storefronts and qualified employees - but some believe more than just a paycheck comes out of being educated.

"People who have an education are less likely to be involved in crime, they're less likely to live in poverty. It's also about quality of life, not just about bringing jobs in," said Judy Randle, Owner of Central Monitoring who serves on the Economic Development Commission Board.

Businesses say it is a cycle - in which both ends need to keep up on - to keep the other one going and it will spread to all areas of the community.

"You want to have economic growth so that you can enhance opportunities for people in the future and increase the tax base, increase property values, and the whole community prospers when that happens," said Flatt.

Business leaders say we won't have more job creation with new industry coming in if we don't have the proper amount of education.

"The industries have other options. They can go to other cities where there's already a trained workforce. In order to get those jobs here, we have to have the trained workforce," said Randle.

As more students earn their caps and gowns we will hopefully see the last of the vacant buildings filling up so we can continue thriving.

"If you don't grow, you die. So as a community, if we don't grow, if we don't experience economic growth, then ultimately the outcome is that we dry up," said Flatt.