Advancing technology such as artificial intelligence and robots is steadily replacing jobs in the USA. Continuous skill-upgrading and re-skilling are critical for workers to remain employable throughout their careers. In these social and economic contexts, community colleges play significant roles to provide workforce education and training…

An estimated five million Americans participate in non-credit college and university classes annually. The Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System (IPEDS) does not require the reporting of non-credit student postsecondary enrollment, which means there is a lack of data about non-credit higher education. This qualitative case study provides…

The United States labor market has seen dramatic shifts in its occupational composition over the past few decades. Employment and wages have grown for workers at both the high and low end of the skill distribution, while those in the middle have suffered. Community colleges have historically acted as suppliers of middle-skill jobs and drivers of…

Job Corps is the largest and most comprehensive education and job training program in the United States for young people ages 16 to 24 who are not in school or working. Most students live at and take classes at its approximately 120 residential centers. To explore ways to improve student outcomes and reduce per-student costs, Job Corps pilot…

Apprenticing in a skilled trade is an opportunity that has not been fully accessed by women. Per 2019 figures from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, women make up only about 12% of the nation's apprenticeships, despite comprising half the U.S. workforce. Additionally, female apprentices are concentrated mostly in social service occupations, as…

Employer-provided training is the dominant form of skill development among American workers, but when it comes to training that people can seek out on their own, community colleges are just one of many options that include job training programs run by government agencies, nonprofits, proprietary schools, online programs, and unions. This brief…

Weak labor markets typically lead young workers to invest in skills. High unemployment during COVID diverged from prior downturns: enrollment at community colleges dropped by 9.5 percent between 2019 and 2020, with the drop larger among men. COVID disruptions generated supply-side impacts on courses of study requiring significant capital and…

Representing approximately two in five community college students, noncredit education is an important but understudied segment of the higher education population. In an effort to help open the "black box" of noncredit education in community colleges, the present study uses an established noncredit course typology (occupational training,…

The workforce system offers work readiness training through nearly 2,400 American Job Centers (AJCs) nationwide. However, people in recovery can face unique barriers to employment not covered in traditional work readiness curricula. New Hampshire has a work readiness program called WorkReadyNH, which it offered free of charge to customers…

Since the late years of the Eisenhower Administration, when alarms were first raised about the impact of what was then called cybernation there have been cycles of interest in the role of training policy for addressing perceived national challenges. During the War on Poverty youth unemployment and juvenile delinquency motivated initiatives…

This brief highlights lessons from the City Colleges of Chicago (CCC) Centers of Excellence model, which has redesigned each of the system's seven campuses as a "college-to-career center" and consolidated academic programs in high-demand industries at particular campuses. The model incorporates features of sectoral training programs,…

Few issues are more complex and require more effort than the training and performance of law enforcement personnel to be competent in a society where their performance is significantly important and multifarious to the general public. It is imperative that our law enforcement personnel are well prepared in their respective training programs and in…

The Century Foundation (TCF) and the Urban Manufacturing Alliance (UMA) announced the convening of the second cohort of their Industry and Inclusion project to develop solutions to advance racial equity in manufacturing. The second Industry and Inclusion Cohort includes representatives from twelve community colleges who will participate in a…

This dissertation explores race-conscious Job-Embedded Professional Development (JEPD) in community colleges by inquiring how this type of programming is experienced by community college faculty who attempt to implement strategies learned from their participation in such programming. This study investigates how faculty understand the challenges…

A growing number of U.S. companies across a range of industries are designing apprenticeship programs to give workers access to on-the-job learning opportunities that allow them to transition into in-demand jobs and careers. This discussion paper provides a snapshot of the current state of apprenticeship in the United States based on interviews…