The vast majority of inmates filling Iowa’s prisons will someday complete their sentences and return to society.

That reality leaves state leaders with a decision to make. They can either equip those inmates with skills so they can become productive citizens or they can just lock them up and hope for the best when they get out.

The solution seems obvious: train the inmates in needed skills.

Since 2016, Iowa Central Community College has been leading the way with a promising program to train inmates at Fort Dodge Correctional Facility and the North Central Correctional Facility in Rockwell City. Under this program, inmates at those prisons can apply for financial aid in the form of Pell grants to pay for specific workforce training programs offered by the college. The program is called Second Chance Pell.

Classes at the Fort Dodge Correctional Facility have quickly outgrown the available space. For example, the always popular welding program usually has 40 inmate students a semester, but there are just five welding booths for them to work in.

Leaders of the college are asking the state legislature to provide money for a new building at the prison to house the classes. Neale Adams, the college’s dean of business and industrial technology, addressed the House-Senate Infrastructure Appropriations Committee on Tuesday to make the case for funding the new building.

We believe the proposed new facility is a worthwhile investment that the legislature should make.

Iowa is a state that is constantly on the hunt for skilled workers and the inmates need a path to productive lives after their incarceration ends. Spending some money from the Rebuild Iowa Infrastructure Fund to build the proposed new facility would help to address both of those issues.

We urge legislators to approve the needed spending for the training facility and we also ask Gov. Kim Reynolds to sign the appropriation into law.