Upskilling and reskilling for jobs are needs that existed before the coronavirus pandemic, but are now more critical than ever, according to the new report from Opportunity America, The Indispensable Institution: Reimagining Community College. The report suggests that because of these urgent needs, community colleges have an opportunity to become central to the nation’s efforts in revitalizing the economy by providing quick job education and training. It includes 11 recommendations to highlight how community colleges can be reimagined to better serve the workforce and build up economic development.
Several of the recommendations call on community colleges to focus more on workforce skills by always being responsive to the changing regional workforce needs, including the importance of serving midcareer adults by providing noncredit, non-degree courses with flexible course schedule times. Another recommendation is to encourage community colleges to focus more on job placement and wages. In order to successfully provide students with high-wage, in-demand jobs, the report also suggests community colleges need to provide wraparound student supports such as career counselling and stackable credentials.
Other recommendations focus on building on the existing strengths of community colleges. These strengths are engaging employers, teaching both academic foundational skills and career-focused technical skills, providing opportunities for work-based learning and integrating both credit and non-credit education. The reports authors suggest that continuing these aspects of community college will be crucial in successfully building a pipeline to the public workforce system for the national economic recovery.
The last recommendation is for policymakers to not only rethink funding levels for higher education and training overall, but also rethink how to fund community colleges. It is recommended that funding should be viewed as a regional economic development tool because investing in community colleges will decrease the regional skills gap, and that programs that are more successful in hitting their objectives and performance goals should be granted more funding than the institutions that did not meet those goals. Pell Grants are recommended to be available for students who enroll in short-term programs to encourage attainment of more industry-recognized credentials. Finally, the report recommends that Congress should also remove the lifelong cap of Pell for students who spend more than six years in higher education to promote accessibility for lifelong learning.
These recommendations can provide community colleges an opportunity to provide access to displaced workers and others looking to obtain the skills needed for in-demand, high-wage jobs during and after the COVID-19 pandemic.
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