The Framework is designed to support workforce boards in building regional data capacity to identify, coordinate, and track the impact of regional activities. In addition, the Framework outlines how workforce boards can strategically align to statewide goals focused on increasing equitable upward mobility. Demonstrating equitable economic growth…

"The Virginia Plan for Higher Education" articulates the objective that the Commonwealth will be the best-educated state by 2030. To achieve this objective, Virginia not only must increase educational attainment rates, but also must close the gaps in the differing rates of attainment that exist across its population and its regions. For…

College completion matters, especially from the perspective of equity. Who finishes, how long it takes them, how much they benefit economically and how their citizenship benefits local communities all "matter." This is especially true of knowledge-driven, innovation economies in New England. For Massachusetts--a state that ranks third…

Between 2014 and 2016, California policymakers invested a half-billion dollars in the California Career Pathways Trust (CCPT). The initiative funded regional and local partnerships to establish career pathways designed to lead secondary school students to postsecondary degrees or certifications aligned with regional workforce needs. This brief…

The California Community Colleges Workforce and Economic Development program (WED program) helps students, incumbent workers, business partners and industries develop skilled competencies in critical industry sectors. As a source for developing and implementing training and curriculum, the WED program is instrumental in helping the community…

The Workforce Investment Act (WIA) has authorized services to assist Arizona employer clients and job-seeking clients in developing businesses and communities with qualified staff who can respond to opportunities for business and job growth. Locations in which businesses and jobs are growing require responsive mechanisms that address unique…

This scholarly paper describes and analyzes the role of career and technical education (CTE) in Iowa community colleges. Iowa's community colleges are doing a good job of responding to the changing workforce needs of the state and providing smooth career pathways. However, changes in the population and economy of the state will call for further…

Virginia's community colleges could easily be more closely linked to the economic and industrial development upgrade occurring through the Commonwealth. The colleges' educational partnership programs, which have recently been stimulated by government encouragement and intercollegiate cooperation, are ready-made facets of industrial training and…

This document examines recent developments in strategic planning for employment, identifies key elements of strategic plans, examines issues to be addressed in implementing such plans, examines New Jersey's state plan in detail, and provides short sketches of the strategic plans for employment in six other states. Following an executive summary,…

Discusses the role of Oregon's community colleges in the state's economic development, focusing on the state's benchmarks for progress over the next 20 years, economic restructuring, regional workforce development, welfare reform, and business school partnerships. (MAB)

Reviews approaches taken by Oregon, Arizona, Illinois, Ohio, South Carolina, North Carolina, and California to incorporate community college systems into statewide economic development strategies. Approaches focus on small business assistance; anticipation of community needs; incentives for innovation; technology transfer; comprehensive…

Examines a new approach to university economic impact research that views institutional expenditures as a means to increase the state's skill base, and finds that while the approach yields favorable results for higher education it fails to consider fully the effects of migration. Advises researchers to avoid this approach and use the traditional,…

States that are successfully integrating three development programs--economic, work force, and technology--are focusing on the results as the first step in the process and have an easier time developing, monitoring, and improving their strategies. To structure their integration efforts around results, states need to begin with a vision of a…

A project examined changes in the workplace and in employment in four states that were broadly representative of the United States--Colorado, Indiana, Mississippi, and Missouri. It identified common concerns and issues across the four states, including graduated awareness of the vast changes in the workplace, the ambivalence of business leaders'…

In 1987, the U.S. Economic Development Administration awarded a grant to the American Association of State Colleges and Universities to conceive, plan, and coordinate a series of regional conferences following their funding of the successful 1986 National Conference of Higher Education and Economic Development. The proceedings from these four…