February 12, 2015
Co-Authored by OCTAE’s Acting Assistant
Secretary Johan Uvin and Deputy Assistant Secretary for Community Colleges Mark
Mitsui
Effective CTE programs are aligned with community
colleges, as well as the needs of employers, industry, and labor, in providing
students with curricula that combines integrated academic and technical
content, strong employability skills, and work-based learning opportunities.
Together, these provide seamless transitions that connect learning to real-life
careers.
President Obama recently proposed
America’s College Promise, a bold plan to make two years of community college
free for all Americans who are willing to work hard toward graduation. In
addition, the president’s FY 2016 budget request includes a proposal to create
a new $200 million American
Technical Training Fund that would expand innovative, high-quality
technical training programs that are aligned with the workforce needs of
employers in high-demand industries.
This
innovative fund would support the conception of 100 technical training centers
throughout the country, as demonstrated by the 27 Tennessee Colleges of Applied Technology (TCAT), which have
achieved impressive program completion and job placement rates for many non-traditional
postsecondary students. Last year, TCAT had an average completion rate for
short-term job training programs of 81 percent, and an in-field job placement
rate for graduates of 85 percent. The
TCAT system structures its training programs in a way that supports student
success, and each college works closely with employers in their region to
ensure that graduates of these short-term programs are prepared for skilled
jobs in high-demand industries.
The
American Technical Training Fund would build on the Obama administration’s
historic $2 billion investment in career training programs at community
colleges through the Trade Adjustment
Assistance Community College and Career Training (TAACCCT) grant program.
Over the past four years, federal TAACCCT funding has supported the creation
and expansion of career pathways training programs at nearly 700 community
colleges nationwide. This represents an unprecedented investment to strengthen
career training programs at community colleges in partnership with employers in
high-demand industries. However, the TAACCCT program expired last year, and
Congress has not authorized its continuation.
The American Technical Training Fund proposal
comes at a time when earning a college certificate or degree has never been
more important. Today, earning a certificate or degree in a high-demand field
is a prerequisite for joining the middle class, and labor market projections
show that this trend is only going to increase. By 2020, economists predict
that nearly two-thirds of all jobs will require some level of education and
training beyond high school. However, only about 58 percent of Americans 25
years and older have any postsecondary education or training. This means that the
U.S. needs to dramatically improve the skill level of its adult population.
According to the OECD’s most recent Survey of Adult Skills (PIAAC), about 36
million working-age adults in the U.S. scored at the lowest literacy and
numeracy levels. We are risking
America’s ability to be economically competitive if we ignore the call to
increase the education and skills of our adult workforce. We need to sustain
the progress begun under TAACCCT and continue investing in high-quality
technical training programs.
As
we’ve traveled the country and visited countless high-quality CTE programs,
we’ve seen, firsthand, how transformative these kinds of opportunities can be
for individuals looking to access middle-class jobs. There are students like
Juan Rodriguez, a 33-year-old son of migrant farm workers and the father of
three school-aged children, who recently earned an associate degree in welding
technology from Lake Washington Institute of Technology (LWIT). Before
enrolling in the training program, Rodriguez had been laid off from his job and
was relying on unemployment benefits and federal food assistance (SNAP) to
support his family. After graduating, he was hired as a quality manager at Skyline
Steel’s manufacturing mill. Rodriguez
has since moved his family to Texas, where he works as a welding engineer for
Kiewit Offshore Services and earns more than $100,000 a year. He credits the
education and training he received at LWIT with helping him reach his dream of
securing a good job that allows him to support his family without public
assistance. The American Technical
Training Fund will help to ensure that more hard-working students like
Rodriguez will have access to these kinds of life-changing opportunities.
During
his State of the
Union address on Tuesday, Jan. 20, President Obama reiterated his
commitment to make two years of community
college free for all Americans who are willing to work hard toward graduation.
Encouraged by similar programs in Tennessee and Chicago, the president’s proposal—America’s
College Promise—would permit students to complete a certificate, associate degree,
or the first two years of a bachelor’s degree at no cost.
This
proposal is aimed at boosting access to high-quality postsecondary education
and training, and comes at a time when it has never been more important to obtain
some form of higher education. In past generations, a high school diploma was
adequate to secure a middle-class job and support a family. Today, however,
going to college and earning a credential has become a prerequisite for joining
the middle class. Labor market projections show this trend is only going to
increase. By 2020, economists
predict that nearly two thirds of jobs will require some level of
education and training beyond high school.
Concurrently,
over the last three decades the cost of earning a college degree has risen
sharply. During this period, the tuition for in-state students at
public, four-year colleges increased by more than 200 percent, and the charges
at community colleges increased by 150 percent, even after taking inflation
into account. As a result, today’s college students have to take on much more
debt than their parents’ generation in order to access middle-class jobs. All
hard-working Americans should have the opportunity to attain the knowledge and
skills they need for good, well-paying jobs without having to take on
unmanageable debt.
Given
the demands that individuals face in the job market today, as well as the need
to have an educated and competitive workforce, we must make two years of
college as free and universal as high school. America thrived in the 20th century, in large part because the movement to make
high school widely available led to dramatic improvements in the education and
skill levels of the population. But other countries have caught up with us, and
some are passing us by. The time has come for America to once again “skill-up.”
Community
colleges are the natural focus of this effort. They are the backbone of the
U.S. higher-education system, enrolling about 40 percent of all college
students each year. As low-cost, open-access institutions, community colleges
also serve a high percentage of low-income, first-generation, and older college
students. They provide affordable options for millions of Americans to start
college and work toward bachelor’s degrees. In addition, they educate more
African American and Hispanic undergraduate students than any other higher
education segment. And community colleges have strong partnerships with local
and regional businesses to develop critical training programs to meet the
skilled workforce needs of high-demand industries like nursing, information
technology, and advanced manufacturing.
As
the president said, this proposal will require everyone to do his or her part.
Community colleges will need to offer high-quality programs and implement
evidence-based reforms to increase the number of students who persist, graduate,
or transfer. Additionally, participating states must contribute matching funds,
invest in higher education and training, and allocate a significant portion of
funding based on performance, not enrollment alone. And students must enroll at
least on a half-time basis and maintain at least a 2.5 GPA so they can stay on
track to graduate.
America’s
College Promise will yield tremendous benefits to an estimated 9 million
hard-working people who dream of earning college degrees and joining the middle
class, ensuring them access to life-changing opportunities.
*Cross-posted from the White House Blog | The recorded webcast may be viewed here.
President Obama believes in the innate curiosity of
every child, and our responsibility to ensure that every young woman and girl
has the opportunity to achieve her dreams, regardless of what zip code she is
born in.
This week, as part of the President’s commitment to
equal opportunity for all students, the White House Domestic Policy Council and
the Council on Women and Girls, the Department of Education, and the Georgetown
University Law Center on Poverty and Inequality highlighted programs that focus
on developing the talent of girls of color and low-income girls in science,
technology, engineering, and math (STEM) and career technical education (CTE)
careers. We heard from the educators, innovators, researchers, scientists, and
marginalized girls themselves who are dedicated to increasing the participation
of low-income girls and girls of color in post-secondary education and
in-demand careers within high-growth industry sectors.
According to a recent National Science Foundation study, today, more women graduate from college
and participate in graduate programs than men. As the White House Council on
Women and Girls noted in our November 2014 report, Women and Girls of Color: Addressing
Challenges and Expanding Opportunity, since
2009, both fourth- and eighth-grade math scores on the National Assessment of
Educational Progress, the largest nationwide assessment, have improved for all
girls of color, and since 2009 the high school dropout rate has fallen by 16
percent for black girls and 30 percent for Hispanic girls.
From 2009 to 2012, the graduation rate at four-year
colleges and universities increased by 0.9 percentage points for black women,
3.1 percentage points for Hispanic women, 2.7 percentage points for American
Indian/Alaska Native women, and 2.1 percentage points for Asian American and
Pacific Islander (AAPI) women. Despite this progress, barriers still exist for
girls and women in STEM and CTE fields. In 2010, just 10.6 percent of
bachelor’s degrees, 7.9 percent of master’s degrees, and 3.9 percent of
doctorate degrees in science and engineering were awarded to women of color,
and fewer than 1 in 10 employed engineers were women of color.
Many of these girls and young women continue to
demonstrate an interest in STEM/CTE education, and we know that they bring new
ideas, perspectives, and a passion for innovation and discovery. However, a
dearth of resources effectively focused on marginalized girls, inaccurate
stereotypes and implicit bias, and a lack of research informing evidence-based
programs have combined to discourage many from pursuing and advancing in STEM
and CTE careers. We simply cannot afford to allow these unfair and unnecessary
barriers to prevent our nation from benefitting from the talents of the best
and brightest Americans without regard to race, ethnicity, income, or gender.
We are proud to announce that the Administration is
working with non-profit partners to expand access to STEM and CTE for
marginalized girls, including low-income and girls of color:
-
Expanding Access to STEM and CTE Programs that
Work: With funding
support from the National Science Foundation (NSF), the National Girls
Collaborative Project, in coordination with non-profits like COMPUGIRLS
and educators from around the country, will create a new STEM/CTE portal
that will centralize resources on expanding marginalized girls’ access to
STEM and CTE, including curriculum, research, and promising practices. The
new project will also implement educator professional development at the
local level.
-
Guidance to Ensure All Students Have Access to
CTE and Non-Traditional Careers: The
Department of Education is developing policy guidance designed to ensure
that all students have equal access to CTE programs. The guidance to high
schools, community colleges, and other CTE providers will underscore that
gender bias has no place in American schools and that Title IX prohibits
schools from relying on sex stereotypes in directing students towards
certain fields. The guidance will also help state education agencies as
they think about ways to improve women’s representation in non-traditional
fields as part of their Perkins Act obligations.
-
Building Public-Private Partnerships and Strong
Mentoring Programs: The
Departments of Energy and Education will announce the expansion of a
mentoring program that connects federal government employees who are STEM
professionals with teachers and middle school students to share their
passion, including some of the most marginalized students. This program
will expand to additional cities around the country, with a focus on
students living in public housing.
To learn more about what the Administration is doing
now to expand opportunity for all with respect to STEM and CTE careers, please
visit the Office of Science and Technology Policy and previous White House blogs on
the topic.
Valerie Jarrett is senior advisor
to the president and chair of the White House Council on Women and Girls.
In
recognition of February as CTE month, this column
builds on the Division of
Academic and Technical Education’s review of the career and occupational
situation in the United States by looking at the differing demands and wages
across states for individuals with various levels of education. A recent study
by Elka Torpey and Audrey Watson of the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), “Education Level
and Jobs: Opportunities by State” (September
2014), assessed data from the most recent BLS Occupational Employment
Statistics survey from May 2013.
The
study found that the types of jobs and the levels of education needed to fill
them differ from state to state. It is a helpful tool for jobseekers who are
considering geographic location as a factor in their career choices.
Following
are findings in three of the eight education designations that the BLS uses: 1)
“some college, no degree”; 2) “postsecondary non-degree award”; and 3)
“associate degree.”
(Note:
The study reports the percentage of jobs, rather than the number, at every
education level because heavily populated states offer more jobs than those
less populated.)
Some College, No Degree
The
median annual wage for jobs requiring some college but no degree was
$29,100. The 10 states with the highest
levels of employment in these occupations were Vermont, New York, Kansas,
Connecticut, New Jersey, New Hampshire, Minnesota, Washington, Maine, and
Massachusetts.
Postsecondary Non-Degree Award
For
jobs in this category, the median annual wage was $35,120. The 10 states with the largest shares of
employment in occupations typically requiring a postsecondary non-degree award
were North Dakota, Arkansas, Nebraska,
Iowa, Mississippi, Alabama, Maine, Tennessee, Indiana, and Louisiana. Heavy and tractor-trailer truck driver was
the most common job in this group, of which all 10 states had
higher-than-average concentrations. The
report notes that some healthcare occupations that typically require a
postsecondary non-degree award were relatively prevalent in these states. Other states on the list varied in the types
of jobs that fell within this designation.
Associate Degree
The
median annual wage was $58,240 for occupations that generally require an
entry-level associate degree. The 10
states with the largest shares of employment at this level were Massachusetts, Vermont, South Dakota, West
Virginia, Rhode Island, Delaware, Michigan, Ohio, Montana, and Maine. Many of these states had residents with
relatively high rates of employment in hospitals, which have a variety of
occupations than typically require an associate degree. For example, most of these states had higher
concentrations of registered nurses than the nation as a whole.
Recognition
of these occupational concentrations by education level is one important factor
that students and their advisers should take into consideration when
researching future career and technical education options.
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