Students enroll in community colleges nationwide for various reasons. Some intend to earn a degree and transfer to four year colleges and universities. Some students plan to enter a program that can lead to industry recognized certification. Others enroll to acquire non-credit short-term training to develop workforce required skills. Community…

Barriers to education and training can have a generational impact on socioeconomic status and economic development. Post-traditional students have been shown to experience a variety of barriers to education and family-sustaining employment. Social capital has been shown to help alleviate some of the barriers for students, resulting in stronger…

Workforce development education programs in community colleges impact the economy of a region, surpassing other public or private educational institutions (Bradley, 2013; Drury, 2003). Workforce development education programs provide short-term programs with the aim of training individuals in specific skills, promoting individuals' upward…

Increasing the number of college students who earn STEM credentials and enter STEM careers remains a national priority, as does the need to diversify the population of STEM workers by race/ethnicity, gender, and socioeconomic background. This fact sheet describes how community colleges hold potential for diversifying the STEM workforce as well as…

Despite the growing popularity of WBL, the community college and workforce development fields need greater transparency and clarity on the design of these programs to broaden workforce pathways, ensure the transferability of exemplary program models, and support the advancement of equitable outcomes for all students, especially learners from…

This second brief on learnings from career education (CE) opportunities in the California Community Colleges (CCC) focuses on what college personnel described as barriers to designing and implementing programs with features that students find helpful, as described in the first brief of this series (ED610768) (e.g., cohorts, consistent course…

This final brief in the series focuses on policy options that can foster more innovation and address challenges in career education (CE) program development. It is based on earlier research for a series of reports called "Career Opportunities," aimed at identifying ways that state and system policy can best support the CE mission of the…

The announcement that Taiwanese manufacturing giant Foxconn will bring 13,000 jobs to Wisconsin and partner with Gateway Technical College is great news for the state's community and technical colleges and their students, but it's not particularly surprising. The state's two-year colleges have been notching all sorts of workforce development…

Community colleges and non-traditional student populations, such as adult learners, often experience a unique set of academic and non-academic challenges. This is particularly true for those in rural America, where resources and community supports are less abundant. This report describes how rural community colleges are overcoming these barriers…

Community colleges are beginning to build on guided pathways reforms in partnership with employers, universities, and K-12 schools to create cross-sector pathways to college and career opportunities for students--particularly those students traditionally underserved by higher education. The aim is to improve economic mobility for community…

How can community colleges support students' goals of finding success in the workforce, both today and the future? This issue brief builds upon the Association of Community College Trustees (ACCT) previously published report "Partnerships for a Future-Ready Workforce" (2018) (ED605153). This brief is the first in a four-part series that…

Workforce development in the United States today is spread across higher education institutions (primarily public two-year and for-profit colleges), labor market institutions, and workplaces, with public funding from a range of sources. But outcomes for students and workers are weaker than they could be, especially among disadvantaged students and…

Investing in community college workforce training is a central part of the Biden administration's agenda for improving the lives of American families. Now more than ever, as the nation's economy enters a post-pandemic period of significant organizational and technological change, community colleges are well-situated to help millions of low-income…

A growing number of states allow community colleges to award bachelor's degrees as one strategy to meet workforce demands, address affordability, and increase access to educational opportunities. Offering bachelor's degrees traditionally has been the domain of four-year institutions, while community colleges have been established to award…

As concerns grow over labor shortages in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics fields, the colleges ready students for jobs or more education. Educators are also looking to community colleges to fill the gap. With their high enrollments of minority and low-income students, community colleges are obvious places to recruit a diverse work…