President Barack Obama loves community colleges. His goal is to produce 5 million community college graduates by 2020. Last year, his administration initiated a partnership between the National Association of Manufacturers, private sector employers and community colleges across the nation called Skills for America’s Future.
The initiative was developed to provide job training programs and create jobs in the manufacturing sector for 500,000 community college students.
That’s a lot of jobs for a lot of community college students — who are interested in manufacturing. Students studying history or journalism, however, are out of luck.
Since 2010, the manufacturing sector boosted the nation’s economy by adding 230,000 jobs. So the focus of Skills for America’s Future made sense.
If that initiative was a community college courtship, this year’s plan is a full-scale, down-on-one-knee proposal.
On Feb. 13, just in time for Valentine’s Day, Obama announced an even greater initiative called the Community College to Career Fund.
As a part of his 2013 budget plan, the $8 billion fund continues a commitment to the manufacturing sector, but it is intended to train 2 million workers for high-demand skills in health care, information technology and clean energy as well.
Nothing says “I love you” like $8 billion. Obama isn’t messing around.
Wife of the vice president and community college teacher Jill Biden joined Labor Secretary Hilda Solis in kicking off a bus tour to community colleges in Ohio, Kentucky, Tennessee, Virginia and North Carolina to learn more about community college training programs and industry partnerships.
Texas was not a part of the bus tour, but Solis said she wants to hear from community college students and faculty nationwide.
Are we helping students succeed to become a part of the 21st century workforce? Does our partnership with local industries improve our curriculum for high-skill positions and benefit our communities?
Yes, yes and yes.
Everyone at TCC, from administrators to students, should lobby hard to get our piece of that $8 billion, so the college can continue to help our community learn skills to find jobs.
Faculty and students can help that goal by sharing their success stories at WhiteHouse.gov/CommunityCollege/Tour or on Twitter using the hashtag #CCtour.
