Jan. 31—MANCHESTER — Business leaders made a pitch Tuesday for more state funding for the University System of New Hampshire to boost efforts to convert college graduates into Granite State workers.

"We're hopeful and optimistic that policymakers, our Legislature, will consider increasing this investment in supporting the university system in the years ahead as they are really, I think, the tip of the spear in addressing our workforce issues," said Mike Skelton, president and CEO of the Business and Industry Association of New Hampshire.

Business and university leaders gathered for a discussion at the University of New Hampshire at Manchester.

The University System of New Hampshire is receiving $88.5 million this current year and is seeking $95.2 million for the 2024 fiscal year and $104.2 million the following year. In 2011, it got $100 million in funding, which was cut nearly in half the following year.

"We get them ready for the kinds of careers that they'd like to have and then as you can see, we have a great close working relationship with the businesses across New Hampshire and that handshake then allows the students to seamlessly enter the workforce and do great things for the economy," said UNH President James Dean Jr., interim chancellor of the university system.

The additional state funding would provide more financial aid to students and help defray some costs of attending internships, Dean said afterward.

Melinda Treadwell, president of Keene State College, said convincing its "talented graduates" to remain in the state is key to expanding the state's workforce through internships.

"It's really about giving them a taste of what it means to be a part of this state" and its workforce before they graduate and move away, she said.

New Hampshire business owners are "desperate" for talented workers, Dean said.

'A lot of that talent is coming from the educational institutions that we have here," said Dean, who also serves as president of the University of New Hampshire.

Fidelity Investments, which employs more than 7,000 people in New Hampshire, counts more than 1,200 graduates from the University System of New Hampshire among its 65,000 U.S. workers.

"There is no other university system which is a better source of students in New England in terms of numbers, and I would say talent, than the university system (of New Hampshire)," said Joe Murray, vice president of government relations and public affairs at Fidelity.

Manchester inventor Dean Kamen has partnered with UNH at Manchester to help train workers for regenerative medicine as part of his Advanced Regenerative Manufacturing Institute, based in the Millyard. He hopes to build an entire industry around it.

"Can we attract the best and the brightest people to come here and build here?" Kamen asked.

Anne Tyrol, chief nursing officer at Cheshire Medical Center in Keene which is collaborating with Keene State College, said the school not only trains future nurses but is "partnering to develop the clinical instructors, the simulation instructors that are going to continue to develop our workforce in the future."

Butch Locke, strategic operations director at BAE Systems, said students on internships can test-drive potential careers.

"As they exit, they go back to school and they can start to reflect on what do I want to be? What is my next step? And a company the size of BAE systems, they can make a choice," Locke said afterward.

Skelton recently attended a conference with leaders from chambers of commerce from 40 other states.

"Every other state's talking about this issue, and every other state is marshaling its resources and upping its game for how it's going to address this issue," Skelton said.