2020 will forever be remembered as the year of COVID-19, the illness caused by the novel coronavirus. The graduating class of 2020 will face a difficult job market, and the adversities will follow them for years. New graduates facing these types of jobs numbers will be subject to "scarring"--reduced lifetime incomes caused by entering…

At this moment, roughly 12 million Americans are unable to find work, with more than 40 percent of that number unemployed for six months or more. At the same time, current estimates put the number of job vacancies in this country at 3 million per month. The most popular explanation for this apparent paradox, the one put forth by former President…

As health care providers, patients, and employers adjust to the changes related to the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, which promises to extend medical coverage to thirty million previously uninsured Americans, community colleges are gearing up to keep pace with rising economic and societal demands for medical and allied health…

Northeastern University economists Paul E. Harrington and Andrew M. Sum argue that a recent report, "Help Wanted", "radically overstates the size of the college labor market." This overcount, they claim, has nothing to do with the recession. "Even in times of near full employment," Harrington and Sum argue that…

By 2020, 65 percent of all jobs in the economy will require postsecondary education and training beyond high school. That's a pretty strong statement in defense of the value of higher education in this country. But it will mean little unless the nation's colleges and universities--and, specifically, community colleges--can produce more workers…

For most of the twentieth century, high school was enough for a shot at middle-class status and wages. Today, no one goes anywhere in the American job market without some postsecondary education or training. This article argues that postsecondary competencies and awards have become the threshold requirement for middle-class earnings and status.