The Salt Lake Chamber of Commerce is actively supporting that program, said Lane Beattie, the chamber's president and chief executive officer. The chamber also supports keeping in place a law that allows undocumented students to pay in-state tuition if they attend a Utah high school for three years and graduate.

"A lot of people are coming into Utah for lower-end jobs," Beattie said. "That drops the percentage of people with degrees. A lot of our minority groups don't have as high of graduation rates.

"Those are things we need to continue to work on as a whole, and that's one of the reasons the Salt Lake Chamber is so outspoken on the immigration angle," he said.

Another issue of concern is that in Utah, people tend to take longer to complete higher education degrees than in other states because of LDS missions and because of a tendency to start families at younger ages, he said.

"A lot of people get started and don't finish as quickly," he said. "We really need to emphasize, let's finish college, get full (course) loads, get people in full time."

Data in the census release are from the 2006 Current Population Survey's Annual Social and Economic supplement, which is conducted in February, March and April at about 100,000 addresses nationwide.

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E-mail: dbulkeley@desnews.com