Good morning, everyone. Good morning and welcome to New America. It is so wonderful to see everyone. Thank you for joining us today So we have a really exciting jam-packed event today talking about some very important some important issues We're gonna hear some new research and we're gonna have some fantastic conversations with thought leaders practitioners and policy experts in The field about getting non-degree community colleges, right? Centering quality and workforce education. So my name is Mary Alice McCarthy and I'm a senior director here at New America And I oversee our center on education and labor Before I want to just share a few thank yous and a few remarks before we dive into today's discussion So let me just start with the thank yous first again. Thanks to all of you who made it here this morning We're just getting started. This is about our fourth or fifth in-person event so far since March of 2020 So we're just thrilled that you're able to join us. Thank you very much and to all of you who are joining us online Thank you very much. We had over 400 registrations for the online event. We're absolutely thrilled So we do look forward to hearing from you in the question-and-answer period So I hope that you'll get some prompts about how to participate in that but again Thank you very much for for joining us Next thank you is to our funder Lumina Foundation That was has generally generously supported this two-year project Which then turned into a three-year sprint and this is like pandemic time where like nothing actually quite adds up So again, thanks to our program officers Kermit Khaliba and Georgia Bolin who have just been fantastic thought partners in this whole process and Helped us sort of adapt to the differing different moments and opportunities For working with the colleges We did two rounds of this research project and it was really great to be able to work with them on sort of Taking some lessons from the first round and then also adapting to the different circumstances in which the second round took place So thanks again for that While everyone's here, too I do want to take this moment to sort of acknowledge the tremendous leadership of Iris Palmer who leads our community college program here at New America and who was the lead on this project and again who steered this very complicated project through You know at an incredibly challenging time So thank you Iris you'll be hearing from her and to challenge you Tishi our lead researcher on this project and lead writer who has been a tireless writer and researcher and Has learned has helped us all learn so much about these these projects and thanks to all the new America team that Helps and went on some of the site visits and and to our comms team that has helped us get the word out And it's helping us here today Alright well, so we're here today to talk about Workforce education programs, particularly non-degree programs. This is the area of focus of this Two slash three year research project. So first just a couple of quick points of why non-degree education? Why are we so focused on that and I think probably if you're here? You already know the answer to that but we in this country We have a widening opportunity gap between those with a bachelor's degree and those without a bachelor's degree and The bachelor's degree has become an increasingly stark dividing line in our labor market and it has actually become sort of a choke point really in in both Economic mobility for individuals, but also in economic development innovation for employers. So this is the system in which we generate In which a bachelor's degrees are increasingly becoming Required for jobs and then jobs that do not require a bachelor's degree do not offer the same Sometimes the same pain benefits as jobs that do is just unsustainable for our country It's unsustainable for our communities and I think it's unsustainable for for our employers as well. So It's not that and it's not that we don't like bachelor's degrees Of course one of the solutions to this widening opportunity gap between those with our college degree and those without is to make higher Education bachelor's degree education in particular more affordable and more accessible and we're all in favor of that But that on itself is just not going to be enough And it's actually not going to address some of the really critical pain points that we're seeing in our economy and in our labor market In terms of the shortages of jobs that that are there and the shortages of workers So we know that we need more alternatives More alternative pathways into good jobs and into a stable middle-class life that do not have to go through a two or four year degree These these opportunities can certainly connect to those degrees, but people need to be able to start their careers And start earning family sustaining wages earlier than that and and it's just absolutely critically important that we do so So this is not new either and we actually kicked off this project in 2019 and even then you know non non-credits Non-degree workforce education is not a new topic, right? It's been around for quite a while, but it has taken on increased urgency. I think as inequality has been widening and it's also Take in take it on increased urgency as we try to address some of the unique challenges that and unique opportunities Which I'll talk about in a minute that we're facing in the future But one of the things that we've always known about non-degree work force education at community colleges and more broadly is that the problem we're facing isn't a The you know the quantity of programs There is plenty of non-degree non-credits Workforce education programs out there. In fact, you won't have to look very far You don't have to spend much time on the internet or really go anywhere without seeing some sort of offerings of a training program That will get people connected to that will connect you to a job and do it quickly But there has been a shortage and there's no real problem of access to those programs, right? They are ubiquitous. They are everywhere But there is a shortage of high quality programs There are not nearly as many high quality non-degree programs and we'll talk about what quality means in a minute There's but there are fewer of those and access to those high quality non-degree programs is much more Restricted. So just an example of this sort of conundrum that we're in I think we all know that the skilled trades and manufacturing Have training programs have long-standing sort of traditions of being able to train people into a really good jobs that pay very well Certainly middle-class and above Lifestyles, but access to those training programs has been very has not been very open and particularly for women and particularly for black men So we have a high quality example of a non-degree program with very limited access at the flip end of the of the space we have Non-degree programs in fields where demand is absolutely exploding There are huge shortages in our care sector child care workers long-term care workers and also in areas like hospitality and and in some cases retail And so there are tremendous there's there's huge demand for these programs But the jobs that are connected to them are not the kind of high quality jobs I just talked about in the skilled trades and manufacturing, right? These are not always jobs that pay a family sustaining wage So it was we took on this project and thank you to Lumina Foundation again for for letting us dig into this what we really wanted to do was to understand identify Analyze and understand the characteristics of those really high quality programs that both are Connect people to very good jobs actually get them into those jobs and that they are good jobs And that are and that also maintain a broad accessibility to those jobs And so we spent three years looking for those programs and looking for the colleges that do them and we found many And that's what we're going to talk about today and you're going to hear about those specific programs and those institutions But just I think what we need well as we're sort of coming to the end of our research What we want to understand too is then what does this mean? Why is it so hard to do high quality non-degree programs? It's not because colleges don't want to right that is for sure So what makes these so hard and you'll be hearing a little bit about the there are research on that and about policy misalignment and funding Strategies that make it hard for colleges to pay for the things that they need to to really stand up high quality programs some of it is just capacity community colleges are under are Under so much strain and everybody wants them to do everything these days And they're getting pulled in a lot of direction So again just how do they how do they maintain the staff and the expertise they need to be able to do These programs well and then last of all though is that a big challenge for colleges is that they don't control the labor market Right, and they don't control the fact that some of these jobs that are Extremely important to our economy right and are facing acute shortages don't pay well So this question of what does it mean for community colleges to deliver high quality non-degree programs and? Occupations that are not well paid I think it's going to be one of the major challenges facing the field going forward How can community colleges partner with external with other organizations with eight state agencies with local agencies around these questions? Because I don't think it's for lack of wanting to be able to improve the quality of those jobs And how do we align our funding strategies that allows That puts community colleges at the table of those job quality discussions and allows them to be a full partner in those So before I so so we're going to share some examples of all of that today, and I say Come away from this research so encouraged about Where we are on non-degree education and how far we've come and it's a good thing because We are at a really I think important historic moment In terms of workforce development in this country and the opportunities for non-degree education programs when we started this project in 2019 Economy was you know in macro terms and in quite good shape right unemployment was extremely low There were a lot of shortages Skill shortages employers were you know looking hard for talent So it was a really good time to be able to dig into these issues Then we went through just wild Girations of unemployment and underemployment and non-employment and then here we are three years later and we're back to almost the exact same economy With two gigantic exceptions one being inflation Which is hopefully a temporary exception, but the other big except exception is that we now have four trillion dollars of investments in Infrastructure and a broad array of infrastructure from bridges and roads There's also to broadband to green energy right and those in those investments are going to generate a lot of new jobs and A lot of those jobs are not going to or should not require a four-year degree to enter So there's a tremendous opportunity ahead of us and almost an obligation To make sure and we feel that obligation to make sure that what we've been learning is able to translate into how some of those Investments are implemented and to put community colleges at the table On making sure that those are non-degree training programs for those good jobs are really high quality. So we're excited about that So with that I am going to introduce our first speaker of the day It is a tremendous privilege and honor to introduce Chauncey Lennon the vice president for work and learning at Lumina Foundation For those of you who have not had the opportunity to work with Chauncey. I'm sorry because it is delightful He has tremendous experience in workforce development policy and practice He currently sits on the New York City workforce development board So he's walking the walk and talking to talk at the same time and that's a bird's-eye view before joining Lumina Foundation Chauncey was the managing director of workforce development at the JP Morgan Chase Bank and then also spent time at the Ford Foundation as a program officer But what you might not know about Chauncey, which I think is Fascinating and exciting is that he is also an anthropologist by training He has a PhD in anthropology from Columbia University and when I think back Chauncey to 2019 when I will say full credit Thank you to Chauncey. This project was his idea and he said to us He came to us after we at an event held in this space about our tax investment It was like what would be like if you went out into the field and like found some quality programs Learned about them wrote about them and tried to figure it out. You know back mapped the policy From that what would that could you do that? You know and so we saw a lot about that and I thought to myself as I read that I was reminded that he was an anthropologist. I was like, that's how anthropologists work. Oh my gosh So one thing Chauncey is I think a lot of anthropology graduate students right now Would like to know about the career path that led you from a PhD in anthropology to JP Morgan Chase Bank to Lumina Foundation But more importantly, thank you for supporting that kind of really important research. That is the best way We that's how we love to do things beyond the field talk to people learn from the experts in the field And then try to see how we can hopefully advocate for policies that allow them to to fulfill their aspirations For high-quality non-degree education. So with that, let me introduce Chauncey Lennon Thank you Mary else for those kind words I do try to keep it very quiet that I have a PhD anthropology So you all are now in on the secret but don't tell anyone else Let me welcome everyone here and people who are joining us remotely Let me add my thanks to Shailen to Iris to Mary Alice to everyone At New America who helped make this project the success that it was and I want to also say thanks to the community colleges and the community college students who without their work on this incredibly important Set of training and education activities. We wouldn't have any story to tell And you know what we really are doing this in service of making the opportunities of the support and the recognition they deserve better So I also want to thank we had an advisory committee to that also was folks from the community college field that were also very helpful to this work I Want to sort of go back a little bit in time to and think about you know what why is why is this issue important? And I don't have slides, but I'm gonna use my hands as graphics and see how that goes but you know Well, I'd like to think about this is it's important to think about our General demographics and if we go back to the 1960s demographers call Our demography was a demographic pyramid and it was a pyramid and the importance of a pyramid Was that to feed a growing economy? We have lots of young people folks down here on the corners who were going to get older We were going to educate and train them and they were gonna go into the economy not just replace the old people But we had more of them we could grow the workforce We also had other things like immigration improvements to productivity And that's how we did it right. That's how we we sort of built our economy What do we have today? We have no more pyramid. We have a beehive There are no more young people, right? We have no more or no more excess young people Now that is important That means we really have to ensure that we live in a world where every young person is getting education and trained But it's not just that we have no more young people We don't have any more immigrants and we aren't doing so well in productivity So what that means is we have decided perhaps not intentionally that we are going to grow and sustain our economy on adults people in their 20s their 30s their 40s and they all are going to need to be Retrained up skilled skilled for the first time whatever the case may be and That is where we are. We don't talk about it in these terms But we are now facing a world in which the the greatest demand for us to sustain our economy is going to be educating adults Let me sort of talk about this from another set of numbers so Over the next decade. We're going to graduate about 35 million young people from high school and again all of them need to get training post high school to go into the labor market That's really important that will not be enough by any measure We currently have 30 in mind million adults with some college note credential and over 50 million adults whose highest level of education as a high school diploma That is where the lion's share of our workforce is going to come from right many of them are already in the workforce But they need another dose of skills Some of those skills will turn out into credentials, but some of those skills will come in two or three classes at a community college The reality is we have to understand that the impetus is on us now to figure out How do we do that better right and to Mary Alice's point? We're not starting from zero right this is not a new world The community colleges have long been involved in training adults and come-at-workers. We have lots of labels for its contract training We have been this is part of what was behind the development of community colleges 50 plus years ago But We are now going to have to take that system designed for a very different era and ask it to Figure out how to train Tens of millions adults right and they're going to be looking for programs that are affordable Flexible tied to occupations And that is really that is the challenge in front of us is to think about how we're going to do that and You know, I think We just don't know enough about how to do this right To Mary Alice's story about you know this sort of our early thinking about this project It was very much of kind of a positive deviance, right? We know that there are programs out there that are doing right by quality that are doing right by equity, right? They are training Folks who have been locked out of many industries because of gender because of color because of race But we don't know enough of how that happened right and there is a story to be told There's an institutional story. There's a financing story. There's a policy story. There's a leadership story And we better understand that story because what we need to do is that we need to think about the challenge we face in terms of Expanding the opportunity expanding the high quality programs We think about making these programs more equitable And anything about taming these programs more sustainable because it's going to take us a long time to get back to a world We have lots of young people down in the corners of the pyramid the beehive is with us for for quite some time to come So I see this project as a really critical first step of elevating this question and Answering it in so many profound ways and I couldn't be more excited about both the conversation today The all the kind of incredible work that Shailen has done keeping us up to date with blogs and reports The three reports that you're sort of are being released today really just important additions to our thinking about Again the policy dimension the institutional dimension the financing dimensions So I'm thrilled to have you here with us and I'm excited for the conversation and perhaps most important I look forward to all of us working together over the years to come To continue to raise the importance of this issue and to develop solutions. So thank you all Great. Well, thanks very much Chauncey and and just echoing Mary Alice for very grateful for your support And Lumina support for this project. I also wanted to thank our Lumina foundations Kermit Khaliba and George Reagan Very grateful for their support over the course of the project as well Well, good morning, everybody. My name is Shailen Jotishi as Mary Alice mentioned I'm a senior analyst for New America and fellow at the World Economic Forum and it's been my privilege to Co-author this work with my colleague Iris Palmer our deputy director who you'll meet later in the program Let me double-check and everybody hear me with the microphone. It's all okay. Brilliant Back up a bit. How's it now? Excellent, great. I know I look a lot different from my picture long hair eye bags the full enchilada That's that's that's what the pandemic does for you. My glasses. I left at home But I wanted to just say over the course of the program both my email and Iris's email are included on the one pagers on all of your tables So over the course of the program, please tweet us and of course email us with your questions And for those of you who are online or a contact info is on the website and all of the Twitter handles for our Speakers are also available on the event page. So please do engage with us so that we can connect with you after I have a brief presentation on our new models for a career preparation project Before we dive into two really illustrious panel discussions Today Iris and I and our team are really excited to release three Briefs that will we hope will unlock the full potential of high-quality non-degree workforce education at community colleges in this country Over the past several years headline after headline has touted the promise of non-degree programs is Faster and more affordable or even more employer aligned career preparation tools Compared to degrees the US government and states like Maryland and many employers like Google and Microsoft and Apple have dropped degree requirements when hiring and we know from public opinion data from strata Education network and other groups that have affirmed growing demand in non-degree paths that exceed demand for degrees College enrollment is down skepticism of traditional paths is on the rise And the pictures particularly bleak at community colleges And as we near a demographics cliff with the high school age population in particular in 2025 employers and Colleges and learners alike are searching for new models for career preparation as Mary Alice and Chauncey mentioned in their comments The promise of non-degree programs are there, but as we've discussed the reality is not living up to that promise not yet These programs could complement degrees and they could solve middle-skill workforce needs And kickstart a long-term educational journey for many millions of learners And also help them achieve the financial stability that they so need But earlier research from New America and others including my venerable colleagues at the non-degree credentials research network Also, Lumina sponsored has revealed that even at public colleges many non-degree programs lead to Underemployment unemployment or employment than jobs that pay poverty wages with little ability to move out into higher level positions So this initiative really at the core is is tackling that question slide so Our new models research and storytelling initiative really sought to understand how to maximize the benefits of non-degree programs while mitigating the risks by unpacking the design strategy and Financing principles that go into creating great Non-degree programs at community colleges where many of these programs are offered and many of the most underserved Black Latinx and indigenous students in this country get their education To set a scope on our program This is a snapshot of non-degree programs offered by community colleges as you can see they're actually very diverse They range from a one-week boot camp by the way, not all boot camps are for coding big misconception in the field To multi-year apprenticeship programs while no clear definition for non-degree programs exists at least among colleges We decided to use this term non-degree programs because as you can see they are not all short term They are not all non credit They are not all alternative programs as they're sometimes characterized as and they don't necessarily all end in the credential Chauncey mentioned sometimes it takes just a course or two to gain the skills you need And they're not even all necessarily awarded by colleges industry Certifications occupational licenses and company issued credentials like from Google and Metta and HubSpot and Microsoft are often embedded or incorporated into community college workforce offering So our brief provides examples of all of these And of course community colleges offer many of a Vocational or personal enrichment non-degree programs as well. Those were not the focus of this work We focused on non-degree Workforce programs that lead directly to work and indeed many workforce first colleges have actually sunset a Vocational programs to double down on their missions as engines of economic mobility So I wanted to just take a minute to really double down on one clarification and our Conversations we saw a non-degree and non credit being used interchangeably. So just to be very precise here We looked at all non-degree workforce programs regardless if they came with college credit or not We looked at programs above the high school diploma But below the associates degree and indeed in 25 states community colleges also award bachelor's degrees as we share during another event we hosted here on Monday So that's just another sort of clarification of the credential landscape that we find ourselves in I also wanted to say that apprenticeship programs too can come with college credit and even degrees and we studied one example in our briefs So that is another interesting clarification as well So this is our quality framework for non-degree workforce programs Over the course of three years. We have synthesized the field's best working Understanding of high quality programs. We studied the literature We conducted hundreds of interviews with expert academics and analysts and journalists and funders and Colleges and employers and unions and policymakers and workforce intermediaries From from all across the country and in fact the world to create a clear Comprehensive and I think most importantly pressure tested five-point criteria for building and identifying high-quality Equitable non-degree programs our brief go into great detail of how colleges can make this framework embedded across their planning delivery and improvement processes for their programs, so Really excited to hear what you all think and how you might Adopt this framework in your own work Central to the pressure testing Chauncey mentioned this was our new models advisory committee, which I'd like to thank for their immense Contributions their names are shown on screen and they're also in the reports Massive thanks to this group of thinkers and doers. We really could not have done this without this group So thank you After building our five-point quality framework We then selected a cohort of six community colleges with six varied High-quality non-degree workforce programs to reverse engineer them and figure out what makes them tech the colleges and the programs are shown on screen Then we realized that to understand how to get non-degree programs right We really needed to complement our program level understanding with an understanding of what makes community colleges Good at workforce education in the first place So we launched a second cohort of six community colleges to study the college-wide Institutional factors that allow community colleges to offer these non-degree programs In a quality fashion and at scale So this was a critical piece of the project to see both program level design and Institutional level strategy and how those reinforce one another or not And since you know story-telling was a key objective of this work our project resulted in more than a hundred Blogs and and op-eds and comments and presentations and many of these stories are actually embedded in our briefs Because that way we could have depth as well as breadth So you'll find them scattered as links throughout our briefs, but you can also read them at new America dot org slash new models Many of the stories that we've produced as part of this project have spurred follow-on Conversations and in fact even follow-on projects. So I wanted to take a moment to share those Short-form outputs as well, but of course we are here to discuss the primary outputs of this project Which our our our briefs So it's now my pleasure to unveil our new models for career preparation briefs series We produced three sequential briefs geared towards college presidents and vice presidents That really focus on the three steps of offering high quality non-degree workforce programs the planning step The delivery step and the continuous improvement iteration step The first two are available to you today So please read them and let us know what you think the final one will be released in Q1 of 2023 So you have something to look forward to when the holiday festivities are over and and we have only winter so you know So now college leaders bring decades of expertise to their work It would be presumptuous of us to think that our three 5000 word ish briefs could be an instruction manual for colleges rather our briefs Prioritize providing solutions to what we had heard were the field's biggest problems when creating these programs their biggest pain points and we address them with actionable solutions and concrete replicable examples that institutions and districts and states and systems could adopt in their own Ecosystems and many of the URLs to our own writing and the work of our peers are in the field are also incorporated in this work So it's really we wanted to build on the work of fields work in this space So I'm gonna briefly go through a little bit of the content of these briefs in our planning brief We present replicable models to secure employers skin in the game and co-creation How do you really promise that? How do you have difficult conversations with employers as Mary Alice mentioned about job quality and pay for grads? How do you take advantage of this specific moment? We're in with the tight labor market and with employers really Sort of vying for workers to move the needle on pay and job quality attributes We provide tips to finally make stackable credentials a reality and not just a promise We provide tips to properly account for all of the expenses Involved with offering a program including hidden ones that get missed This is a tactic called full-cost budgeting which we and our partners at the non-profit finance fund CDFI community development financial institution Produced together. We have a technical assistance video and a dedicated report on making full-cost reality for colleges We provided tips on how to partner with new unexpected workforce allies Mary Alice emphasizes her comments including unions and Organizations that understand the innovation economy. This is a personal research interest of mine one of my hats is say me colleges in the future of work and federally funded research and development centers tech-based economic development entities national labs Manufacturing USA institutes. There is a myriad of new allies that Communicologists should work with to maximize the impact of these non-degree workforce programs and you'll see examples of them in our briefs so That is really the focus of our Planning stage of the process that we focused on number of other topics addressed here as well including student information systems and integrating interoperability for non-credit credit students Lots of technical aspects in the delivery brief the second brief We provided colleges funding tactics college level funding tactics like asset Monetization priority-based budgeting tax abatement utilization really out of the box thinking of how we can braid together Funding to finance these programs even if policymakers are taking their time with Sustain systematic fixes. We provide tips for designing excellence including by building staff capacity to deliver great workforce Programmings build concrete equity goals and address occupational segregation not leave it a chance But really build it into the objective of offering a program How to build an effective marketing strategy so that people enroll and we stem the hemorrhaging enrollment declines that can be Colleges using these programs and many other topics so our delivery brief really is the operational day-to-day administration of these programs and Finally in our forthcoming and final brief We will provide colleges with tips to really collect and use program level outcomes data Using models that exist. It is very difficult but not impossible colleges collet systems and states each have Strategies that they could adopt to collect outcomes data for all of their various kinds of non-degree programs How to revisit and leverage labor market information both real-time data from private vendors as well as Utilizing publicly available labor market information and data. That's that's freely available to institutions today And finally how colleges can institutionalize feedback loops with employers and students Navigate sort of the continuous improvement feedback loop that would allow them to achieve the outcomes that their programs have set for so There we have it folks Iris and I hope our briefs are useful to you. I hope this presentation is enticed you to read the briefs Tell us email us. Tell us what you love. Tell us what needs additional clarity Get in touch with new story ideas or examples our work here is not done With these PDFs We would love to work with you all to get uptake of these ideas and continue to do our part to Maximize the impact of non-degree education that can be colleges in this country. So, thank you very much So now the boring part is over Off off the stage I go and I'm excited to invite our first expert panel to the stage Moderated by the one and only Paul fain of the job and work shift as well as Miami-Dade's Antonio Delgado and Broward College Milchurch coin both exceptional Leaders in the workforce education. So please join me in welcoming them to the stage. Thank you very much Well, thanks to Shailen Thanks to New America for hosting this hybrid event and all of you for being here We're talking about non-degree non-credit Microcredential short-term credential, whatever you whichever your term of preference may be I'm not gonna do any introductions. We're just gonna jump into this so I can leave a little time for questions The first is we're talking about quality. I think there's a reason these two folks are here I think they know a little bit about quality in this space So I wondered if we'll start with Mildred if you could describe a specific program that you've Created in the last few years a non-degree program and You know how you created it who it serves the response from industry and how it fits with the broader strategy sure, thank you. I'm very excited to be here and Dr. Lenin your comments were perfect because one what we decided to do in 2018 was to take a deeper dive into our demographics and really take a good look at our communities and Despite all of the accolades of excellence that the Broward College was Experiencing over the past prior decade. We really took a look at who will be who we were serving but more importantly who we were missing and When we disaggregated our local data of Unemployment and education attainment data We found and identified six zip codes in Broward Broward County that had the highest unemployment 9 to 15 percent unemployment when we were experiencing a 2.8 percent unemployment in our community and An education attainment of 27 percent and that's a that's 25 to 64 year olds with an associate's career above and When we at the county level we were at about 44 percent education attainment So we knew that those six zip codes as we took a deeper dive even into that population We were only serving at a we have about 63,000 students at the time And now we were only serving about 3,000 coming to us from those six zip codes that represent some of the largest cities in Broward County, and if you don't know Broward County it is right above Miami-Dade everyone knows Miami and Broward is Fort Lauderdale and we're sandwiched between Miami-Dade and Palm Beach and we're Fort Lauderdale And we have a greater Fort Lauderdale area. We have 31 municipalities But we recognized as the only higher education public higher education institution in the community that we had to do better And so we developed what we call Broward up and because we believe everyone can achieve unlimited potential And we just have to make sure that we were Delivering on the promise that the community colleges are to be that beacon of higher education hope for our communities And we pushed out into those six zip codes Free workforce training and we started with one location partnering with the Urban League of Broward County and offering training free training in it supply chain and Manufacturing so that our community residents could come to a trusted partner Because that's very important for our community to go to somewhere where that they trust But under a Broward College flag begin to take college and that was all done We really feel like we bootstrapped this from the beginning in 2018 on a grant that we have from the governor's job growth grant at the time and then we built out from there and now we've four years later have developed an entire inventory of non-credit programs and have served over 3300 Individuals earning 2100 work-ready credentials. We've increased continuing education enrollment right to 13 percent We've increased credit earned certificates from those communities by seven percent in those four short years so what we've done and looking at wouldn't we now offer health care and business programs and We've seen that we're we're tackling the challenge of providing adults with an on-ramp a non-traditional on-ramp into college because one of the goals of Broward up was very specifically to improve the education attainment levels and we get There by starting people but with continuing education to helping them build confidence and competence and giving them little Winds so that they can come and you know it's like it's like we lure them into the higher education arena by starting with continuing education and now we've added in an Entire employer component where we are Also making sure that we're providing them the employment services to align those skills that they're learning earning right into employment Thanks for that. I think safe to say the Broward up hits most of the bases if not all of them For what I've seen in the country Antonio, I know Miami-Dade's been active in the space, too Can you give us a sense of a program that for you really speaks to the question here? Yes, Paul. Thank you Antonio legato Miami-Dade College and we do have many programs that are relevant to our local community that leads to employment Of course, but I'm going to talk about one particular program that is not only relevant for the Miami-Dade community It's actually relevant for the nation and it's in Electric vehicles We have seen especially with Tesla. We did a partnership with Tesla They're main manufacturer of electric vehicles and they have a shortage of electric vehicle technicians Of course, they're selling more than ever more Manufacturers are coming, but they're not enough workforce that know how to operate and fix and really putting pieces and put it back together An electric vehicle So this is part of the reality that you know companies face nowadays It's like when I have a shortage do I create the program and teach people to get into my skills and the reality It's like yes, that might happen, but their expertise is not in education So in this case we partnered with Tesla because we are the experts on education and community colleges are well positioned to really help on that Non-degree pathway to give you short term Program heavy on skills heavy on gay getting you ready and then in this partnership is called the Tesla start We get students through full heavy Tesla experience with the Tesla vehicles Tesla equipment Computers everything curriculum developed actually by Tesla but deliver at Miami-Dade College and then we get the students every single Graduate from the program has a pathway to a job at Tesla. So it's that natural transition That can be replicated anywhere in the nation and actually the graduates Decide where to go depending on where the opening isn't Tesla They can go anywhere in the nation to really serve the needs of a new workforce industry that is only gonna grow So we see as the just a pilot that is just Showing that the future being elected because how can we prepare the students short term and by the way being paid With a stipend while during the program because we don't want them to think about getting a job after Coming to the class is just focus on getting the skills Focus on getting ready and then you get a job and the age of those students any age coming out of High school all the way to 50 and 60 years old that we have part in the program already and again every single graduate After two years implementing this program on periods of 16 weeks Every single graduate has got a job at Tesla Which again when you talk about this one non-company anyone in the community is how can I get a job at Tesla? So that's exactly the pathway that we built at Miami-Dade College and Thank you to Charlene and the new America team to really highlight this program nationally through this program and now through this panel Thanks for that. I know you both have multiple programs that fit the bill I want to return to the on-ramp concept. We all love Chauncey's beehive Analogies great, and I think you know I've been surprised by some of the polling of Younger adults 20 30-somethings the folks who are sitting out of the community college pipeline right now Really high interest in pursuing education and training doubts about the payoff Reasonably I think and of course barriers like time and money How can you ensure first of all why let's start with you Mildred? Why is the short-term program in your opinion? Potentially more appealing to that population But more importantly how can you ensure that it is that kind of first step not just the final step? Well for us the continuing education piece takes by helping people start or get their first step in their journey or recover Their previous experience that they have that might not have resulted in a degree through continuing education or the non-credit side We eliminate a lot of the obstacles that higher education typically puts in the path and a lot of the Challenges that the community has said I don't want to deal with any of that. I don't need you know I want to get a job. I want to go have something better for my family and And and have a better quality of life and grow my have my economic mobility increase and the on-ramp for Continuing education is much less and you know, we don't have to do a lot of the paperwork For residency for all sorts of other things that require so much documentation and swirl for a person that's really their their resources and time are very maxed out We also see that they're you know people are looking for work. They really want to make a connection to the marketplace You know the dignity of work is a real thing Someone's connection to the marketplace and giving them a sense of purpose and value is a game-changer And it makes people feel connected and valuable and important and it changes their relationships at home It changes their neighborhood it changes their community And so what we're able to do with this on-ramp for continuing education is give people quick wins as I mentioned before but connect them to the marketplace and give them a path back into higher education where we're working with employers to pay that next level of Education attainment for the person that's that's working with them. So they're learning and earning and continuing It's not a hundred percent an apprenticeship model although We love the apprenticeship model and are growing that at the college level as well But this is a real partnership that we're having with employers that are then investing in the work in the employee Having them come back and we're working with employers to actually build career ladders within their pipe They're their paths within their organization. So one example is Broward Health. We they have an entire Inventory of employees that they are our gap that they're missing in their revenue cycle side the operations of the hospital non-clinical side And we're working with them to build that on-ramp into those entry-level positions But it's not enough for us to say okay where we'll help you submit your talent supply for your entry-level positions Only if there's a career pathway within your organization for people to grow because we need people to continue to grow within their career Trajectory earn additional credentials and the and the employer has built those career ladders. They literally have here's your first job Here's what you add in next in your education. Here's your next job Here's your education piece and we're helping them build that and we're having those courageous conversations with the employer And that's what's helping them build a talent supply from our marginalized communities These are not community members that that we're typically getting hired So we're because we're able to take their early training curriculum Offer to the residents in our communities and give those residents access to those jobs And then the employer has built the on-ramp and is then supporting them through that traditional through the next levels of their education we've really seen a great synergy there and an engagement with community members that hadn't been Engaged in the marketplace and we're seeing a real great way for them to get on board and then the last thing I said I'll say and I will answer your question. I promise is that we also Built articulation so as someone earns those credentials They can either be bundled or they can get a one-for-one if the course is built in conjunction with our college faculty That we can articulate them into and accelerate them into that degree program And so that's what else we think is really attractive because we do believe that education attainment is the pathway to a resilient wage because one credential and a short-term credential does not a resilient wage Make you know what's stacked and laddered into those degree programs Which I do think your institutions are probably ahead of the curve and the ability to do that It's still pretty rare. I think but Antonio. Can you add anything? What your institution does to ensure that that first step isn't the only step? So basically, I'm gonna focus my answer in technology. So we focus on Not what the college things should be done It's actually what industry tell us what they're looking for and technology is one of those areas where on one side There is a lot of induce industry certifications So technology companies developing their own certifications and that becomes a credential of value Where the degree that we offer is relevant But the company is not looking necessarily just for a degree They're looking for a credential of value or in other cases in technology for skills like software development What matters is that you know how to develop software not necessarily that you have a degree So in this area of technology, which I work heavily in Miami-Dade College We try to bring that experience through the non credit programs or book camps where we offer the training or the opportunity for students to learn Doesn't matter the age doesn't matter the background is come and get a certification Come and get a skill that can actually bring value to get that first job and in doing that We have seen a huge increase of course on students getting that credential the industry Cation but also actually looking for more education because there is a reality that credential or the industry Cation or the software development skills can help you get your first job But yes, it's great. It's great for the first step that you were asking is more about how do you continue? Developing how do you continue to the next level and that's when the students realize they come for a first? Course first group of courses that are focused on certifications and they realize okay. I can expand and Actually, that's the purpose of education Understanding what are the industry needs mapping those needs delivering that education, but then creating a pathway for the students to see That's not gonna be enough in the long term That's just for your first step and then many students realize later on we try to put it in advance before you get to that Role block like oh by the way, you never completed a degree So that's why we do it in a way to answer your question is stackable credentials so as Mildred said we Provide credits Even when you went through a non-degree program if you completed a certification We give you the credits for that certification so you can easily translate That experience and that credential to a credit that later on count into an associate degree But also is a stack into a bachelor degree So we make it easier for those that are looking for a job in a short term Don't think about an education of four years to get into that job think about getting credentials You get a job now and then you continue coming to school what we do to facilitate that We offer the classes technology classes in the evenings so you continue coming to work during the day you come to school at night and you complete an associate degree in the Stackable credential model and then you continue you get a promotion you get to a bachelor degree So it's really the natural transition that we have Implemented to make sure that we deliver on both ways serving industry needs Getting our local community with skills to get the first job, but getting giving them a long-term plan to actually get to higher paying job I don't need to tell you that in higher education the non-credit-to-credit Transition is not always seamless Students lose a lot of credits often doesn't count towards whatever they end up majoring in Can you give us a sense? I'll start with you Antonio here of what Miami does to make that possible I mean you made it sound pretty seamless and I believe that that is the case But how hard was that to accomplish so to make this seamless the easier way is industry applications because if you pass And if you get that credentials because you pass an exam is because you demonstrated your skills So that is a credential that you have already and then we create a seamless pathway You have a credential don't worry about taking that class you can prove that you have the knowledge What is harder to make it is when there is no Certification no no credential that can testify that you actually completed completed training And I will use the analogy of software development I you know how to develop software, but there is no credential that tells like yes you have that skill So it depends more than on the Support on the mechanisms that we create in the college between the school of continuing education and the schools that deliver The degrees on the translation from non-credit-to-credit is creating those pathways and connections to understand What the non-credit programs are offering not just from Miami to college, but talking about Companies like Google with the Google certificates where we recognize there is no final exam on the Google certificate But we recognize the skills that the students are learning learn through Google on Coursera Separate third-party, but we recognize the skills and then we said okay You you you learn really good skills that are actually transferable to our data analytics bachelor degree So we recognize those skills and we hope the students get a number of credits and then makes an easier pathway to say Great with a certificate from Google you might Possibly get a first job, but not really at some point you're going to be required a bachelor degree You have a national pathway doesn't matter where you are in the nation You did it on Coursera, and then there is a pathway to complete a bachelor degree online at Miami The college that gives you an option to have an official degree that complements that certificate So we do a lot of mapping of those skills that happen even when there is no certification And that's actually what we did with Tesla they complete the the program is like eight eight hundred hours of You know heavy training for four months, and then we translate that into a pathway for a coming associated in science in electric Electric vehicles technician So it's really finding a way that what you learn counts towards the credit side But it's the willingness to work between both sides non-credit and credit I also add is the state of Florida and what what Antonia is talking about to for industry Certifications and actually recognize third-party industry credentials as the state of Florida has then a standard a gold standard Articulation agreement so every every one of the Florida 28 community colleges if you earn that Industry certification is is there's a state articulation agreement so that an individual could come to what and any one of the 28 community colleges and earn a certain level of credits at that institution But we can all individually locally go beyond that and that's so it but it gives us a really strong articulation framework to build on and so one of the other ways that we're doing it at Broward in addition to that Standard that the state has through our industry certain. He is right Antonio is right. It is the cleanest because they're demonstrating mastery by passing that exam We're also now working with our faculty to identify where we already have Institutional challenge exams that our faculty have developed and have in our tank our test bank in our Testing centers that a person can come in and challenge their competence and then get credit And now we want to further look at our continuing education courses as being that skill builder for that for that individual to Challenge that exam and get credit. So that's another way because it is It that being able to demonstrate mastery does make the articulation simpler We're also working with our faculty to help develop companion continuing education courses for our credit college credit certificates for our credit Courses that are in our short-term certificates that are laddered as a part of the degree and that also has been really successful We right now have 16 courses that our faculty have developed that we can offer on the continuing education side that we're Defining the policy so that anyone who takes those 16 courses Can articulate then and springboard into their degree because that is ultimately the goal still right is to get to that Individual to have that degree because that's where the resilient wage lies, but that also still gives them the skill sets to be able to find employment and work with our Employment specialist to get jobs. Absolutely. Let's talk about tech Certifications or micro credentials for a second and Tony you mentioned it. I mean I read a lot about the Professional certificates available through Coursera from big tech companies. Each one is different in a lot of ways But I wonder how you determine which ones are most valuable to students and to employers And I'm thinking about this in part like how to design your own micro credential versus using one from industry, you know Goldie Blumenstik who's here from the Chronicle of Higher Education wrote about a local project to embed micro credentials and four-year degree programs That had very little pickup by students and I believe industry I think in part potentially because the colleges themselves universities were designing those credentials themselves. They didn't use You know Salesforce or Meta. How do you make that decision Antonio? Which ones seem to have the most value? So that's a really good topic that micro credentials have been exploding on the last few years and badges and digital badges becoming a theme and really It could be dangerous as you mentioned when everyone is developing But then there is no value on them because really what matters is not the development of it It is who values like who values these credentials industry when they are offering jobs for people or jobs or Promotions for people that already have a credentials like okay. You can demonstrate this skill. Let's move it up So for for us while Miami Tech College. We really consider is the partnership with industry We are not telling students what best for them we partner with industry to understand What is better for industry when they're looking for talent because we need to make sure that our education maps the opportunities for employment so learning from industry if the most Looked after certifications in cloud computing are from AWS Microsoft and Google That's for us to understand. Yeah, we can create our own batching in cloud computing But that's gonna be valuable for industry probably not what they're looking is show me that the students have one of these credentials And that's what we did when we developed the cloud computing program So looking into data that prove what is necessary especially in Miami But now really in a remote work anywhere in the in the country and then Validating that information with our local employers with our advisory committees like it is this a type of talent It's this a type of credential that you need when you're hiring so when we do that matching that really Empowers us to say great We're partnering with Amazon Web Services to send our faculty for training to get them certified And now our faculty can actually start teaching and certify our students to a point that we have over 300 students certified without any experience in cloud computing yet through their academic program and really the AWS solutions architect is a Certification that is valued at a six-figure salary our students are getting that certification without any experience yet using the classroom So that's the point of mapping the right certification in the courses that today could be AWS tomorrow could be Another provider is not just married to one is just having the flexibility and the freedom to move around But making sure that we stay relevant into what industry is looking for Very quickly. Although this is not an easy question. You know, I think stackability and portability, right? You know that let's use AWS. I mean, I've read data that shows something like 90 percent of people in cloud Have one of the AWS certifications So obviously deep market penetration, but what do you say to somebody who's worried if I change jobs and they use? You know Microsoft or Google Cloud will those skills port over great question because of course and The way that we develop the programs is actually cloud computing We don't say cloud computing with one provider We give the students the skills to be really able to transfer those skills doesn't matter to exactly Agnostic to any provider that they can apply those skills and then we match to a certification because we want the students to have that in the resume To get the first job But at the end to your point is just transferable It feels like one company calls one thing in one way and the other one use the same product on a different name The students are really able to transfer those skills from one company to the other one And that only that doesn't only apply to cloud computing. It really applies to cyber security or data analysis Or even software development with different programming languages What matters is the core skills that they learn and then helping them get a credential to help them on the resume to get that first job Would you like to add? Well, I don't want to take us in too far of a different angle But one of the other ways that we're using micro credentials and we were a recipient of a strengthening community colleges grant through the Department of Labor to build out micro credentials at the college and we've also Like Antonio and looking at skills that ladder and stack into the credential making sure that their value added to the employer But we also have built it for soft skills, you know our workplace essential skills That is because I think that's also a challenge with Non-credit or short-term credentials as they often get well You're not going to get the full well rounded individual that just has the skill competency So we really have taken the approach with our micro credentials to also build out Those core competencies that we all need to have no matter what your technical competence is and so we have micro credentials that are also working with our students and giving them value added credentials in in problem-solving and critical thinking and communication and professionalism and those types of skills that Every employer needs and have been validated and documented across the in you know for decade really on the gaps that the employers are Experiencing there and again though. It's really the the proof is going to be in whether that student is actually Demonstrating professionalism that will add the value to what that credential is So the employer hiring that student better see professionalism if they're going to have a Broward college professionalism badge So it's holding everybody accountable to make sure or otherwise the credential doesn't have value So to and to this point that the employer is the one who really has to see value in the credential So I want to open it up to questions in a minute here, but first kind of a big ticket question This isn't a policy panel, but it is a quality panel Can you give your thoughts to folks who are nervous about opening up Pell to a shorter term program Mildred? You and I were talking about a four week program. You know it just just big ticket here What would you tell someone who's worried about whether or not public funds should go to these shorter term credentials? Well, I would say our Continuing education our non-credit programs are a non-ran for people that traditionally would not be coming to us The widening gap of people earning a bachelor's degree or versus those that are not in our community in our society is It is evident of that. We still are not penetrating after Generations and generations of study on this. We are not penetrating the people that still need access to higher education I explained it in my opening data of those communities that are still not gaining access And so being proximate to people and making sure that it's relevant to the training that they need So I will give you an example We are now the lead for a consortium of schools in Florida that are launching a commercial truck driving program the CDL program Right commercial truck drivers for weeks of training. It is pretty pricey It can be anywhere from three to five thousand or seven thousand dollars or more You know depending on where you go to get that truck driving license for weeks of training and you can make seventy five eighty thousand dollars a year as a Starting career for you. We're also bundling that with some other certifications But if we don't have access to those life-changing wages for people We're going to continue the cycle of the those that have access to Time and treasure to be able to get to longer credentials are going to continue to have access to higher education with it's still leaving people in the margins and And Wrong here, but in that example there are there are subsidies that are going to make that more affordable They're not usually going to be eating that five. No, so in the example that we're doing for the consortium We have the governor again as invested in his job growth fund into this consortium so that we can bring to life for Broward College Alone, we're one of four schools in the consortium. We're we're training two hundred and fifty Res community members for commercial truck drivers license a year So we have a ten-year launch So we're looking at some eighteen hundred people that we're looking to put into Truck driving because we know that there's a shortage there and it gives people an on ramp into a great career We also are building an articulation model for that so that people can continue to grow and have a career path That's not only truck driving, but it's also bundling other non-credits certifications and supply chain or a OSHA certification or a forklift so that they have a career trajectory and then roll that into associate degree Credentials, but it is subsidized right now through a governor's grant and that will but that will continue to need for sustainability We're gonna need to have some policy change around that for short-term Antonio no definitely what we have explained today is an example of you know like things are changing and We we have to serve the people from our community and not everyone follows the same pathway of the traditional high school to college For your degree full-time and then I graduate I get my first job great that pathway exists But now they're all these alternative pathways for Non-traditional students and to be able to help the students is great It's like funding and until really helps make that happen So definitely support for these programs outside of the traditional You need to have minimum 16 weeks to get some type of financial aid like no There are programs that can actually help you get faster and they're not even 15 or 16 weeks And obviously as Mary Ella said there's four trillion dollars of a job potential support Infrastructure support that may be outside of Pell for a lot of these programs. Well, I want to stop asking my questions I have plenty more. I hope you and the folks online will ask some questions Shailen. How do we how do we turn to them? So I have our first online question to get us started this question comes from Holly Zanville at George Washington University What have you found at Broward in Miami-Dade to be most effective in getting students to know about the non-degree Programs and help them with even choice making deciding which program is the best option for them Would love your thoughts So on our side, I will say that the first thing that we don't do we don't call it non-degree programs because no one wakes up In the morning said I want to do a non-degree program So what what we do to really is to focus on the employment component So for example when you partner with a company like Tesla and you put a job waiting at the end We got thousands without marketing just by making an announcement We didn't hate for marketing for it for this new program Of course, this is an exception because it's Tesla But overall what we put in front of our community is the pathway to a job We don't even sell the pathway to a degree because that will come after that that will come when they are in the program That they see the long term, but our focus is there is a job Short-term program get the skills get a credential get a job And then what we've also done is we Truly believe in the being proximate models So we are delivering the non-credit training and I agree very much with what Antonio is saying Is it's about the employment capability or possibilities at the end? But we Have put those classes proximate to our community members We are in people's neighborhoods in those six zip codes We are partnering with trusted agencies boys and girls club jack and jill children's center urban league of Broward county the ymca and we're actually delivering those services in partnership with those agencies So people are going to their trusted partners for services And then they're working then they're getting a brow access to a Broward college career pathway navigator That's helping them make those choices Helping helping them do needs assessment career planning and education planning all those things that we've had all externally funded by philanthropy corporate donations And it's been a phenomenal model that has really helped us get proximate to our community And not only the community agencies, but also the municipalities that are in those six zip codes So we're leveraging those relationships and those Trusted partners then are pushing out all the information about the inventory of programming that we're offering for free All of our classes are free to the community residents in those six zip codes and we've now expanded to 11 zip codes Quick piggyback on that. I hear this a lot when that's a good deal Do you get skepticism from prospective students about it being real? No, because it's because they're trusted partners Well, yes, because they're working with the trusted agencies that that that they already have a long-standing relationship with and It's word of mouth and then it's a referral and and and we have family stories Of where the daughter took a class and now she brought her mother in and then her her Friend and and the name and it just is spreading throughout the communities And that's been an incredible referrals pipeline for us and we have you know, the numbers to prove to show that it's working And on my side I can tell you yes like when we have this partnership with generation it and non-profit or the generation Helping this non-degree pathway to get certifications and then get a job and it was free like it was a great partnership That is 100 free that when you promise free education with a credentials cover and a job at the end People think that you're lying Like yes, there is skepticism to say oh, that's a scam for sure Like how they got Miami-Dade college name to be on that scam. No, it's not a scam So sometimes it's actually It takes time to really prove that it's true to create the the stories of the students that are doing it and to The word of mouth like yes, I went through the program and it's incredible Like we have done it in it cloud computing like all these areas where they get the credential They get a job is happening But when you make it 100 free like people say oh no that that that cannot be possible and Yes, it happens. Well definitely helps to be a trusted community partner. Of course Other questions online in the room. Don't be shy. Got a few more minutes. You you went first. I think if you have a question Can you actually come back to the microphone? Sorry about that. Thank you I'm trying to keep them brief. We only have about eight minutes here. I think Hi, thanks. Um, do you have access to data to demonstrate that your students are Stacking credentials or to just demonstrate what their labor market outcomes are And if you do, how did you get them? That seems to be a challenge for many colleges So yes, we absolutely do have uh data to demonstrate the number of credentials that a student's students taking and their journey into the degree so we have My latest I don't know why I have all these facts in my head But the the the one that I shared with our faculty this welcome back in august was that We have 200 and in 2021 we have 260 students that are sitting in our college credit classes taking 5032 credit hours that have started with continuing education So it is truly an on ramp into the credit degree programs And it's a nontraditional path. So I was imploring our faculty to consider who they have in their seats they've started their journey in a different way, but they They demonstrated grit and they've earned their confidence and confidence through continuing education And need to continue to have that wraparound support that we've provided them in the community And now they're in their in their classrooms. The labor market data is a bit harder to tackle I would love to have policy discussion around that We all need it at the entire country needs better access to real-time data We do have a shared A relationship and a project that's underway With opportunity insights out of harvard university. Dr. Raj Chetty and working with them on helping us Demonstrate that economic mobility of our of our participants and our students We also have our institutional research team is developing an economic mobility model For our community college students We've seen one from the state university for universities that isn't exactly correct for for community colleges So we have developed one internally that's look and and it's getting validated through the same entities that are working on that Higher of the university one and we really are hopeful because it doesn't exist for community colleges So we're building one. We just believe that there has to be Ultimately, we believe that that's the measure of our effectiveness Is people's ability to change their economic fortune, right? So moving up the income our goal for Broward up is increase economic mobility by two income quintiles or more It's because just one isn't enough. It's not enough to build a resilient wage. So we're we're Partnership with opportunity insights or in building our own But access to real-time labor market data is a challenge for all of us I I see a lot of heads nodding and we're working with the state. We need a better system Antonia no, I will definitely echo We are a recipient of a good job challenge grant from the department of commerce Eda and It's all about good job challenge. It's like you get people with jobs, especially in the tech sector That I've been discussing today. So we do follow Every data from the student from when they get in credentials Rapper on services Are they retention graduation all the data that is in our hands? But I echo noted that What happened when they get a job? Like if we have a depending on the relationship with the companies either we find out because the student wanted to tell us or the Company's told us but many times even the privacy policy from the company say hey I got a lot of your students, but I cannot tell you who they are Right happy for the students, but it's a challenge when we get the data, you know A year and a half two years later That's not relevant anymore for when the student got the job And that's something that definitely we're Looking for solutions and I'm trying to find solutions nationwide right Take me a time for one more quick one Okay, go ahead The conversation around diversity equity and inclusion. I think Conversation around disabled students. It's really relevant In the there's been a lot of conversation about with the there's not A low number of workers. It's just we're not really finding them some curious how your institutions are supporting those who are maybe neurodivergent or have maybe aren't normal quote-unquote and How you're working with that Group because they can fill certain jobs that other people may not want to have So I'm curious if your institutions are working in that kind of space We actually have a a program It has an acronym I'm sorry. I'm not going to be able to tell you what the name is But where we're actually working with individuals with intellectual disabilities and being able to bring them in and give them college experience as well as Workplace experience in a very Collaborative environment with other departments on a campus. That's actually on a campus and it and it's within our It's from a grant from ucf actually university of central florida So it's been a a really great model for us to Work with our many students that come to us and have the desire and and interest and capabilities of Having college experience and it's really giving them that next step forward But it's also partnering with some of our employers to Publix is a good example of an employer that is really fantastic at working with Uh People with special needs and so we're we're built. We built a a training model that then the students can go right into that employment To the same it's actually the same model. Our program is called access and we have eight campuses So we have an access department on each of these campuses to make sure that we facilitate and provide services And and we call them students with special abilities. So There is a very specific approach to make sure that we provide the opportunities and For those jobs that they could be better than anyone else on doing those jobs. So It's already implemented and it from a faculty perspective with disabilities also been demonstrating that yes Even a faculty Can or someone with disabilities can be a faculty at miami the college or get a job at miami the college So it's very active the support Well, we're at time that went fast I want to thank new american lumina for hosting this but mostly mildred nettonia for sharing your expertise Thank you so much For being here, um, i'm iris palmer deputy director for community colleges here at new america Um, and I hope you all are as inspired by that discussion and the conversation that we've had Today as I am So shaylon did a really nice job going over our implementation brief series But what he didn't talk about is that we have a whole suite of policy recommendations both federal And state policy recommendations that can help facilitate scaling and creating these high quality programs in a more systemic way Than maybe they are right now Um, so throughout the three years of the project We heard again and again about how policy could be used to support creating the operation and scale um Of these high quality degree programs and since making policy recommendations is like Our bread and butter and what we do We decided to pull these observations together in One brief a set of recommendations that really Could be given to state and federal policy makers to consider If they want to strengthen and support these programs, which we would think is a great idea Um, I will warn you this is policy. It's wonky. This might sound like a very long laundry list and it is it's a very long laundry list because Frankly, our policy environment right now doesn't do a great job of supporting community colleges and supporting these programs Start-up operation and scale Um, so we I we broke these recommendations into three categories Um, financing really we know where government puts its money and how government spends its money is one of its greatest powers data which we heard mildred already talk about today and then facilitating collaboration between Institutions and also facilitating collaborations between institutions and employers So first financing this is obviously the big one We broke this into federal and state financing policy And our first recommendation around federal financing is really to reform some of those legacy programs The big federal workforce investment the cte federal workforce investment So the workforce innovation and opportunity act and Perkins um So wiowa is and i'm just going to use the acronyms from here on out. Sorry about that. That's that's part of policy Um, wiowa is the largest federal workforce investment and it is a really complicated law Um, but we recommend actually doubling funding for the services provided through title one of wiowa And that's things like the american job centers and individual training accounts And the rationale for this is that that piece of our workforce system has been really horribly underfunded over time Um, and we think that actually doubling funding for that would go a long way to solving a lot of these problems But we shouldn't just do that. We would also create a dedicated funding stream um for training Um, and that would support what we know works with federal training money and that's really sectoral partnerships We have randomized control trial evidence that this is an effective training strategy Um, and this funding would throw up would flow through contracts So a certain number of students would receive training that was directly related to a particular sector We think this would be easier for the colleges to administer. It would be easier for connecting to local um workforce investment agencies and it would be better for connecting with employers So Oh, whoops. I'm advancing too fast. My list is too going too fast. Anyway Perkins is the largest investment in career and technical education And right now the money is split between k-12 and post-secondary education Here once again, we would increase funding because frankly, it's a tiny program. It needs to be bigger We'd build a stronger requirement for collaboration between k-12 and higher education We'd update the performance metrics so we know what Occupation completers actually get jobs in and then we'd create a dedicated funding stream for the innovation and modernization Grants that hopefully would help some of the innovative work that you heard about earlier Really be strengthened and scaled Now to the next one So we would also fund a host of competitive grant programs that would do different things The first one would really um increase the capacity of community colleges to offer these programs I think mary allis mentioned this morning the capacity at community colleges to do this well is um spotty and frankly a lot of staff are asked to do five six seven jobs um, and so either increasing Funding for the strengthening community college training grant or funding tax again That was also mentioned earlier the obama era investment in these programs. We think would be a really really good investment We also would have a program that would support students basic needs Or and or provide emergency grant aid frankly We did this at a huge scale during the pandemic. It had incredible outcomes. I think for students And we would institutionalize that and continue it And we would also support apprenticeships and continue to increase Increase that support. It's already have we already have many grant programs for this But we really think that supporting the infrastructure and tuition costs for those programs is particularly important um, and then Mary allis and actually we've heard this from paul too. Um, there are many many many many investments across the federal government that support training It's a very fractured. I wouldn't even call it a system. It's a fractured funding environment And one thing we've heard again and again in this work is that it's hard for community colleges to focus on equity In these programs and it's really hard for community colleges to focus on job quality in these programs and so we would actually embed priorities around Developing systems to support equity and connect to job quality across some of these really myriad investments that the federal government already has So for states, um states can be more systemic in how they fund their community colleges because they're really funding them more directly less it's less um Vouchers and grant and competitive grant programs and much more direct investment in their colleges So for states that are interested in creating more high quality workforce programs We would actually recommend creating a systemic and sustainable funding programs for startup We heard this is a huge problem for many programs Um, and there's a couple ways that states might be able to do that Um, they could Uh Create a interest-free loan program We've seen this model in states like Kentucky where institutions could get a startup grant and then pay it back over time And it would be even better if they required that institutions use data to demonstrate that these programs Are needed and could be effective. We'll talk more about data later But we think that there are some interesting models around that Next we would recommend creating a dedicated funding stream that would complement a new federal program to support navigation and basic needs We've already seen programs like this in california Oregon and iowa and frankly we heard from some of our cohort colleges that these were incredibly important programs to help them support students through these programs and navigating the post-secondary environment And then we would definitely support continued operations There's a couple there's some ways to do this as well employer funded skills Funds are one really important way to really connect these strongly to employers So the employer pays into the fund its use or lose They can use it to support training of their incumbent or new workers by working with their community college system And many states have these funds, but really making them a heart of these continued programs could be a really strong strategy Funding credit And training through or non-credit through contact hours. So states have a crazy Amount of different systems for doing this or not doing it many states don't do it at all most of them funded at less At a lower level And we've seen in states that have really robust funding for their non-credit systems that those that that non-credit Education can be more easily Connected to I think the for-credit education and their their innovation that goes on there can connect better And then changing the ways state appropriations flow to create incentives for the types of programs and graduates that the states want I'll remain agnostic about how exactly that's created, but we think that that's another really powerful strategy in this And last i'm just going to say community colleges can't create good jobs all on their own And there are powerful state strategies that can support that One is the high road training partnerships that have been going on in california So really supporting employers improving their job quality and the other is and i'm just going to call out allied health here But medicaid pass-through programs that increase wages for our front line healthcare workers And now we get to data So we have recommendations to both provide data to the community college and the people who are creating programs And then also for policy makers and the public So our first recommendation is to provide program level wage and placement data to Colleges and the people creating these programs So this is really looking at outcomes recommend that the outcomes of their student graduates and the people that they serve We talked earlier about how this is really hard. It is really hard And so really states should connect their unemployment insurance data On credit and non-credit programs with graduates and provide those to college at a program level So it's actually something they can use And frankly the federal government should create a student level data network that can help augment some of the state and Fill in some of the blanks in the state Ui records or unemployment records like looking across state lines for employment outcomes Um states should also fund and support the use of labor market information So we think of this as like looking at those online job postings looking at projections for where openings are going to be in work And so colleges can use those and programs can use those to plan effectively for new programs or update in current programs Um and then for prospective students and policy makers There should really be clear access to outcomes data and we hear this a lot when we talk to adult students They want to know how much money they're going to make and what program they should go to And even if that doesn't necessarily always change the choice of program It's important to be transparent about it So states should create dashboards and employment outcomes for programs and graduates california has done an amazing job of this I would want to see it more um across the country And the federal government should strengthen the college the college scorecard and add non credit data to ipads Which unfortunately did not work this last summer, but we would hope that would be revisited um And then last but not least States should support collaboration and frankly the federal government should kick some money into this as well But really this is about um capacity on the ground So states should really support their community colleges implementing practices that support high quality non degree programs And this is true um for supporting sector strategies, but also supporting the implementation of these programs both For good jobs, but also for planning around equity those two sort of Places that we saw needed the most improvement over the course of this work So please keep in touch with us. I ran through that really fast It's all written down in a really long policy brief if anybody's looking for more details And I also obviously I'm happy to answer any questions So as shaylin our team is here to talk more about these we really hope that states and the federal government Sees this opportunity to strengthen the support for these programs um, and with that I want to go ahead and introduce our next panel, which I will be a part of so that's going to be fun Goldie bloomin stick will be our Our facilitator. She's a senior writer at the chronicle Amanda winters who's program director at the national governor's association and g. Hangley who's president and ceo of the association of community college trustees Alex cardell unfortunately Cannot join us. He had an emergency come up and it will not be part of the panel Which we will very much miss him, but I think goldie reached out for some of his thoughts on our policy recommendations So with that if you can help me welcome our panel We're supposed to go to the far end Hi everybody Goldie bloomin stick i'm a senior writer at the chronicle of higher education And I write the edge the weekly newsletter on innovation in and around higher ed So glad to see people here today on the zoom and in Conference here, um, we've led it to be heading running this panel Uh, I just want to start this off at a kind of a high level And I as we start this off And as all of you introduce yourselves just I I mean obviously Iris you don't have to introduce yourself introduce yourself because everyone's met you ready But as i'm just thinking about this Conversation in this topic and we're going to focus a lot more on policy, of course Um, I guess if if you're designing a system of system for providing workforce education Money to colleges and community colleges. I'm guessing it wouldn't look a little like the one we have today Um, it might look a little differently What I mean are there some simple things that you think would would be a little different in this system if you could just design it from scratch Oh, man Think it away, man.  So first of all, my name is Amanda winters. I'm program director for post-secondary education at the national governor's association center for best practices So we are constantly thinking about state systems that serve these types of questions or challenges So certainly some of the things I would change or would want to address Is right now we have a lot of bifurcated efforts probably more than by it's like try and multi-furcated effort Around things like adult education adult basic ed which is over here and talks about its own things We have career and technical education which has its own bucket and planning processes You have your eligible training provider lists and the processes that oversee those which are murky at best Um, and then you have the whole short term Pell related conversations. Um, so all of those conversations happen in different spaces So if I were to make a change The first change I would make would be systems connection to To combine all of those planning processes into one And to start measuring some of those things. So if I was going to talk about Initial changes it would be changing what we measure and and gather data on in states And requiring the interconnection and strategy connection between what are very separate systems right now Great. Yes Good morning, everyone. Uh jiheng Lee. I'm with the acct That's a fascinating question Uh, I would say the thing that for for community colleges and I represent We're obviously a membership association representing community colleges What we have right now is we have these funding buckets as Amanda just Illustrated where there's some small buckets Some larger buckets and she actually You know covered a large number of the department of education buckets But we also have huge buckets like in the department of labor that We essentially at the community college level have to go fishing for some we get very little amount of money Some we get some more money But at the end of the day, it's Essentially a very shotgun approach to the process We have institutions that you know, I I live in northern virginia community college And um, I was told that nova gets Very very small amounts of money for cte programs at their community college Like so such a little bit amount of money that they can barely fund an individual to do cte Just for the whole system of the community colleges So you're talking 60 70 000 students in their system and they're basically funding a half a person and some programs um So if we want to do something that is meaningful, we need to concentrate efforts Especially at our community colleges, but also reprioritize what we want to do and start I wouldn't say funnels all right where but prioritize those resources back down to our institutions as opposed to Uh what we currently are doing which to me is a little too scattered and not focused enough to support our community colleges, which are basically everywhere and are very localized But that's probably where I would come down to Because we do have a very shotgun approach to our workforce adult basic education system and it is not doing It's not doing enough right now for our system of workforce development and higher and higher education And iris, I know you you just spent 15 minutes talking But um, I guess I'm I want to sort of shift to the next Next big thought here, but I also want to mention that alex camera Camer del from the joint policy center who couldn't be here today I spoke to him He said he'd really want to make sure that as we're having this conversation We we think a lot more about the racial equity lens and also the outcomes lens You know echoing the conversation that we had in the first panel as well So please let's all try to keep those thoughts in mind and we'll try to channel him along the way Um, we just had an election obviously and we now know what the Senate looks like We know what the state legislatures and the governor's house governors houses look like Given the current political landscape. I guess I'm wondering from Each of you A lot of the recommendations in this report require a lot more money A lot of them required some policy changes Some of them don't require direct any changes politically But just wondering what's the political environment now you think How positive negative will it be towards some of the recommendations that have been laid out in some of these reports? I just want you to take that. Yeah So, I mean, it's a really really good question. I think it's always obviously difficult to get more money But unfortunately, I think that it's really really necessary in this case So even with the democrats in control Of the federal government, we went from an incredibly ambitious american jobs american families plan to a Slightly less ambitious build back better plan that had had quite a bit of money for workforce development at community colleges to Base, I don't want to say nothing There is some money in like chips in the infrastructure act and in The inflation reduction act for training, but it is minimal And so one thing I would just like to say is that it's not a guarantee that these Issues will be a priority no matter who is in charge, but obviously Um politicians who are willing to spend more money is like a benefit to maybe creating more Systemic and well funded and well run systems of supporting Workforce education cte education at community colleges So with our current political environment, I'm not sure I mean obviously jihang you spend a lot more time on the hill than I do For these issues, but I would say I'm not sure we'll see A significant additional investment in these programs For the foreseeable future what I would hope we can see is additional money going towards the strengthening community colleges grants at labor Maybe additional money for something like a tax investment I feel like those are frankly the least we can do to continue to strengthen these programs at the federal Level and at the state level, it's just so diverse I will allow a man to sort of pull that out It definitely depends on the politics of your particular state And what's going on there with the workforce because some states are feeling much Stronger pinches of workforce issues than others and those states are actually I think doing a lot around Administering changing the way they collect data the way that they fund the way that they think about these programs at the state level So I'll just leave it there. Yeah, you guys. Yeah G hang on Why don't you follow up in the third level and then we'll come down till you can explain 50 states to us in But I mean this is always sort of Some portrayed as a much more bipartisan way apart might be more bipartisan than some some funding for just, you know Elite higher education But how strong does that bipartisanship go you think for not even just for the money, but even for some of these policy changes Well, I think uh, so I yesterday I think that was announced that the republican conference committee Gave a waiver to virginia fox to continue to serve to serve as chairwoman Of the education and probably the workforce committee Question mark, they'll probably change the name of the committee. Uh, and when we start the 118th congress And I think the big thing that uh, if you saw previously during the summer, they introduced a piece of legislation Uh, the the ranking member, uh, fox, uh, they they outlined some provisions that they're interested in and one area That's key to them is short-term Pell Uh, and so we're interested in seeing that type of policy shift You know the reauthorization of the higher education act has always been pending and has been pending for a long period of time Yeah, you know, I was like, you know, that was the last time we reauthorized it So it's been pending since uh, 14 is what we always like to say Uh, and I think that has bipartisan support. There is a piece of legislation You know poor men in caneville and there's a competes act passed out with a bipartisan Votes in earlier this year in february out of the house So we we have hope that that will be a bipartisan vehicle Uh, whether or not this year or the forthcoming congress In terms of the funding vehicles, um, we do have some concerns that there might be some attrition on funding As you are already seeing it kind of percolate a little bit What do you mean by attrition? You know cutting a little bit here and there You know, you you know, you see kind of this conversation already relative to Already setting some mile marks so to speak on the debt limits and other things about cutting some entitlement programs So we are watching that to and hopefully these aren't things that will impact many of our higher education programs like the program program like the other higher education programs like gear up trio Strengthening institutions programs And then well then ultimately impact like the strengthen community college program So we are trying to put some markers For our institutions to to advocate for and you know, many of our colleges will be coming To washington dc in february to do our legislative visits But so that's something that we are trying to do But we do know that there are going to be some significant policy changes and bipartisan support Uh, we just don't know on the funding side how that's going to be playing out. Good. Yeah. Um, I was wondering and I'm sorry to like I'm sure Do you have any um insight on the a possible omnibus versus cr and if there might be additional resources in that Oh, we're really going deep down. Sorry. We are in dc Well, you know, I think, you know, there is a strong push to try to get an omnibus this year dawn prior to You know a cr is You know, no one really loves a cr because Cr just means everything is level funded And then we love the funded till all the way to the next fiscal year, which is basically september 30th So I think many people would prefer an omnibus, especially those individuals Who are retiring so one of those individuals that's retiring is a ranking member of the senate Help the the appropriations subcommittee on the health education subcommittee He has a lot of airmarks Um, uh, community-based projects. This is actually just an incredible lesson because it's like we have this policy paper in three years of Research and and so much deep thinking about expertise on the hill and it's like some guys are gonna retire So that's going to affect what what happens in the policy window.  Um is that Certain policy provisions and something this is how we make policy in washington dc. This is how things are made And so senator blunt retiring You know, senator shelby's retiring. So, you know, or so these are the things that we are watching I don't know Senator blunt is retiring and so he has a number of community-based projects that are being funded I doubt he wants to lose those As part of the process. So amanda it's so much more rational in the space. I know I mean, I obviously we can't go by 50 states But maybe what would be some of the Factors some of the principles like conditions in certain states that might make this Some of these changes in state policy some of the funding formulas that have been recommended More or less likely over the next year. Yeah, and I think I um, I have the great benefit of working with states And not having to worry that much about what happens at the federal level Um, we implement stuff that happens at the federal level, but that doesn't stop us from doing stuff States are still moving their work forward and are not waiting What congress to do so which is amazing and another thing that's also amazing is all the 55 governors of the states and territories Would call themselves a workforce governor And so the fact it truly is a bipartisan topic Certainly they approach it in different ways and there's different strategies That are being brought to bear for these things to happen in their states And there's different sectors that they're working on but the conversation around workforce is a universal one How can we get more people into jobs? How can we get more people off of public assistance? Which is great because that speaks to the equity conversation or whether we call it equity or not Getting people into good paying jobs. This is not this is not a An issue that pushes governors apart when they get in the rooms together They're talking about these issues in a unified way And they're really thinking about their employer communities. They're thinking about how to serve them They're thinking about how to best leverage their state and federal dollars to get this done And I think one thing that we learned through All the covet money flowing to states is that just chunks of money doesn't solve problems It's not easy to spend money at a state level It's complicated. It's complex It's necessary to have strategies so you can't just push it out the door In a couple months So money itself doesn't solve the things that we're trying to solve Certainly strategic investment In certain spaces can drive change But money itself is not the savior here We need to be thinking about how to better leverage our current systems Again, I'll throw a foot stomp on the data That we need that we don't have at the state or the federal level to make these kinds of decisions So what I do think is great is that we have the environment at the state level No matter who's in the governor's chair To talk about workforce in meaningful ways and right now we're doing a lot of sector specific conversations around workforce Infrastructure bill certainly drove has driven a lot of that we're talking about transportation Talking about energy So we're talking about all of those Pathways into good jobs Which we're super excited to help the states on we're also thinking a lot about the health care workforce with states Certainly hopefully coming out of the pandemic We are the we have been decimated in our health care Workforce space and we need desperately to rebuild And so all governors are talking about that together. How are we going to make these changes? How are we going to move this needle? So while I think sector conversations are driving us right now and some of those investments are really sort of spurring our thinking around this It does connect to this non-degree pathway As we're thinking about short-term pathways into these good jobs That then can take us into the future and prepare us for some of these infrastructure or cyber jobs or energy jobs that are emerging That people need to be adaptive for as they think about their career pathways So I think we're in a in a better space at the state level. I always think we're in a better space at the state level, so but Because we're able to move we're able to be more Responsive we're able to leverage our community college systems And the work that they do without waiting for a federal move And do you think it'll be really sort of economically Driven by the sort of needs of the economy even more so I mean not just We need to have better job training programs, but we need better job training programs in this sector Especially not necessarily this sector. Yeah, right now. There's three sectors We're almost every day when we talk to them it it's health and it's advanced manufacturing Those are the three top ones. Certainly energy Is an emerging one as we see some investments in that space and some real changes in the infrastructure conversation there But we're able to have conversations across these diverse Economic spaces because the sectors are the same, right? They're the ones that are driving each of the needs of the workforce Um and sort of the emerging spaces in states So we're able to talk across states about these things and those are the drivers of the workforce conversation It's not necessarily jobs overall But it's where do our employers with the pain post in effect to the pain points that were to the previous conversation um So we all had a chance to look at iris at the report iris shared with us in advance and I Scared it really carefully and I never found the word Pell Grant in the report for a short-term Pell I was looking really hard and it wasn't in there So iris, I know there was sort of a deliberate reason that you didn't put short-term Pell in there But I went to net here for you quickly why and then she hang I think you had some thoughts on that So thank you for asking Goldie. Um, obviously that is the the elephant in the room. Um, so We and I'll just actually just say me. I'll just say me. Um, I believe that Um, I love the Pell Grant program. I think it's a very effective wonderful program. I hope we double Pell I hope we do all the things with the Pell Grant program, but Um, there's very little accountability around the Pell Grant program and what we found from this research is that um, there are incredibly unequal outcomes for programs that are less than the current Pell minimum And unless there I know that a lot of the proposals around short-term Pell are trying to address this by building additional right additional accountability into the the the the program but Frankly having worked at the department of education us department of education for three years and having studied Title four for quite a while. I am skeptical that they can pull off Some strong accountability measures in those programs and what I fear is what we saw in HPOG or some of these other programs where you end up putting a whole bunch more money Into short-term programs that get people really bad jobs and I don't want that to happen And while I think that non-degree programs are Really important and can be really amazing and amazing pieces for economic mobility they are not guaranteed to be that and so that's why we just are I decided to Increase funding for Title one in WIOA and go the WIOA route where we created additional training funding That hopefully would get at what we would get from Short-term Pell but do it with a lot more data and a lot more support for the capacity building at community colleges to assure That these are going that people are going into really good jobs I mean it implies sort of a confidence that these other programs have you know Although WIOA programs do have all this accountability measures attached to them and there are problems with that There are definitely problems with that But what I will say is there's data there at least there's something Whether it's great or not and we can talk about that in my new detail if you'd like but um, I would just say like Right now we don't have anything coming out of Pell grants And I don't believe that there's necessarily the capacity at either colleges or the department to implement something coming out of Pell grants Whereas in WIOA and what we currently have we have a structure around data reporting and data accountability That is at least there so you could see what's happening to people going through shorter term programs And that they have an expectation that they will have a good job and that they will have a wage and what we see in um Short-term programs that aren't particularly high quality is that they tend to serve women They tend to serve people of color and they tend to put those people into jobs That are not necessarily family sustaining and don't necessarily have the kind of working conditions that we would want for them So that was sort of um my thinking around creating the sort of focus on WIOA at the federal level and leaving out Sort of the title one Pell conversation Um That so there you go Ji-Hang what did you think of that? So, uh, I'll tell you a little bit about acct's perspective in community colleges. Obviously from our perspective We support short-term Pell um as a broader policy provision, but we do know uh, we acknowledge iris's perspective Mary Alice Amy if you're watching I'm sure you are um, we acknowledge all of these, uh, policy Arguments and I think you know from our standpoint and the consumer advocates And so, you know a couple of the things that we Have started to have conversations around especially and you saw that in the kind of the competes act conversation Uh is one we know that whenever we do a short-term Pell rollout, let's say that Not all of the short-term programs will be eligible for short-term Pell There'll be a small subset of programs with a broader ramp up That's number one number two wages will be a strong part of the conversation about the eligibility for these programs We do not from our community call sector do not want to offer programs That don't provide a sustaining wage to these individuals. Um, and that's kind of the conversation that I have globally Regardless of the short-term programs Because what I can tell you right now is where you know I was in Iowa driving through the cornfields of Iowa to a conference And you can go to mcdonald's stop on the way 15 dollars an hour starting salary with benefits So I go to our conference there and say how many of your programs have a minimum starting wage of 15 dollars an hour with benefits That's the conversation we are having with our members So that's the same conversation around short-term Pell So we do know data is going to be important wages are going to be important Uh, and you know the other guard rail that was included was that we did not want to have these students take out loans So institutions would have to provide some additional wraparound services as part of these short-term programs And then the other a guard rail that was included as part of the competes So it would be only open to uh, non-profit institutions of higher education So I think from the community college perspective. We tried to create as many guard rails to be as responsive to the consumer advocates as possible So that we can at least initially get some additional data That showcases that many of these programs can lead to sustaining wages But we do know and you know iris is right there are programs that won't lead to x You know, they just they won't be able to be eligible for short-term Pell We we realize that and so we won't we won't offer those programs or try to get eligibility for those programs Yeah, Amanda in the states. I mean, I know obviously states have a lot of money going to a workforce things It's not necessarily coming out of their educational grant programs, right? It's you know, aren't that many cal grants you can't use cal grants for a lot of these kinds of programs or New york's suni, um, you know, new york state tag money or that right? Yeah, so it comes from different spaces Within states some states are a little bit more innovative with their funds And pull them from some different places to support some of these programs again Many are sector specific and that money flows through specific places But I do think to speak to what's already been said around sort of some of the guard rails um What states are struggling with and we're working with several of them right now thinking about sort of skills for You know adaptive skills for the new emerging economy Is what is good when it comes to the you know these short term credentials? What is going to be valued? And so there is a whatever you might say about some outcomes about degrees associate's degrees or bachelor's degrees There is an assumption That employers will make if you come with a degree When you come with a short term credential or a non-degree credential or a non-credit credential, which Can be two different things They could all be the same, right? Um We don't know What employers value And so there's that what should we invest in because we need to know if it's going to be valued on the other end And I think what complicates this and I always try to throw this in when we're talking about sort of like colleges working with employers Is that employers don't speak with one voice Either sometimes we act like oh, we need to be responding to the needs of employers and employers Tell us what it's not like There's one Clear voice saying this is what we need. It's every employer telling us What they need and certainly community colleges are at the hub of that having all their employers say here's all the different things We need and we don't value that credential. We value this industry credential And so how are we going to decide on investment? I think that really complicates the state picture around workforce education And this because it's not just weowa. It's small w workforce. It's thinking about a whole workforce pipeline And so sometimes that can get muddled too because then people think we're just talking about weowa programs But really thinking about building a workforce And the fact that we're trying to respond to the needs all the needs of all the employers at the same time And there's a back and forth that many times doesn't happen Around valuing and so we do these shorter term credentials one of the possible pitfalls is A bunch of employers won't value this when they get out there. How are we communicating the value? And then you've just invested a lot of money in something that nobody wants exactly That's I think what states are trying to avoid but they're struggling with some of the same questions that were just brought up Some of the models that are described in the program in the in the report that um, we are shared with us And that you'll all be reading soon They talked about you know models, you know, some some colleges are offering a lot of free training You know because because they're these funding streams that are coming through or they're pretty affordable or pretty low cost But I guess I was wondering about free Like in this in this market is free always the best thing is free necessary to get people into these programs or Should these programs have some other kinds of price tags and some you know, as you're thinking about this more policy perspective You know, what what seems to work best You want to jump into the community college professor Oh, this is a great cup of conversation. Um, so I am I am always of the perspective and you know, you saw this from the GAO report around That just came out two days ago. I guess earlier this week around Financial offer letters The lack of transparency lack of transparency. Let's be clear here. Here's here's the thing Free denotes something Okay, it provides a dollar amount, you know, california where I was raised And went to you know elementary school and middle school high school, but I didn't go to college in california They've long had something called the border governors of fee waiver.  Why can't we just say that? What you know, why do we make it so hard for individuals to think about college? Um, and I you know, I think about the you know the financial offer letters and other things like that We make college too difficult To aspire to and So for me free to note something It it's an entry point and if you want to set a dollar level and say if you're a family of four making $200,000 below go for free Easiest pie everybody can understand that and you think that applies in the non-credit field in the short term training every They're probably even it's even more important for that group subset of individuals Because they're they're you know, for the most part, they're probably they don't have Somebody to lean on their parents probably don't have a backward degree or somebody that can go to say Can you read this financial offer letter or to figure out what this means to me? Um, because we're always leaning on the person who you know, I had to lean on my sister And I thank god. I don't know you know how my sister leaned on to read my offer letter But you know, these are things that we always lean on the next person And who do these individuals lean on to read these letters when they don't actually know what's in them Everyone I was at probably everybody in this room has written something about financial aid letters at this point. Um From the state level though politically the program is free better or something of what people are saying You pay a phenomenal amount or you know, the state's investing your investing. There's a mix of approaches First of all, there's quite a few states that think you know students need skin in the game In order to find value In what they're getting Otherwise for free even if it might be refundable later. Yeah, or like you need to stay and work here in the state like there's there's a lot of Legislatures and states that are thinking about different ways In which to approach getting people affordable pathways Into college And then also one of the things I just have acknowledged that we're fighting against right now in the political spectrum I mentioned that all these governors are workforce governors, but we're fighting against The conversation around the ROI of college Um, of course, I I think there's a good ROI for college I'm the program director for post-secondary education. So right I want people to go to college But I feel like this when especially we're talking of bringing in alex's comments at the beginning When we're thinking about the equity piece here One of the things I think I'm certainly trying to avoid as I work with states on some of these shorter term options Is making sure that we don't create alternatives for some And then all the people we're going to go to college in the normal traditional sense We'll continue to do that and have that path for them. And then we create alternative Pathways that we that are then sort of like marked as like well, you didn't go to college You took the skills route or you took the This kind of different route Making it separate in the way we talk about it at the state level the way we measure it The way we message it to employers There's a lot of possible pitfalls as we move in this direction of creating a separate system for those people who Are not meant for college or not everybody needs to go to college. I feel it's that's dangerous rhetoric I feel like they everybody should have the opportunity to do whatever the heck they want And if they decide not to go to college, totally fine But also I think some of the rhetoric too is some of this is college work But we just don't call it college because it's not a degree pathway Certainly community colleges sit at that hub. They do a lot of work. That's post secondary and it's strong And has great outcomes for students, but we don't call it college Even though it's administered by our community colleges And we even had to change where I sit now. I changed the name of my team from higher education To post secondary and the reason was I heard from a governor's education policy advisor Oh, we don't work on higher education. We work with our community colleges I was like, I don't know what to tell you What the reality is And so just even those words that separate, you know, the alternative and the higher education and these different I think I'm I'm struggling to cut those out of the way I talk about some of these pathways So that we're thinking about it in a unified sense around sort of all pathways leads to opportunity in the post secondary space And we're not bifurcating like the alternative and then Everybody else gets, you know, the regular people go here and then the alternatives go here So I do think that that's when we're talking about sort of the funding of college There is a struggle there between the desire to get people quickly into jobs And possibly creating this alternative pathway that gets funded And then the conversation around the ROI of actual college degrees That in the political sphere just creates a tension Around where money is flowing where attention is given from state policymakers And sort of what their approach is to Funding these pathways whether they're funding degrees or they're funding these shorter term immediate work. Yeah, let's talk a little bit more This whole what about these funding formulas because that's a big piece of the report as well Talks a little bit about, you know, maybe different approaches that aren't just about contact hours Different approaches that are more about maybe even outcomes funding. Um, you see some possibilities particularly Iris obviously you've identified a few in the report, but jane and amanda are there some places where you could see more states wanting to do a funding formula that was maybe even And back to alexa's point maybe even outcome funded funding formulas where it's not just about you producing these programs What you're producing programs and they have You know, they show these results Are states in their position to do that? There are certainly some states that are thinking right now about integrating workforce Workforce focused programs into their outcomes based funding models. We're very excited to see even for non degree. Yes. Yes And so, um, again non degree not non credit different Yeah, and to throw that in there even though there are some states that are starting to pilot Um gathering some information around non credit programs, but um, But thinking about that non degree there are certainly some states who are thinking about integrating those into their outcomes based funding formulas excited to see that kind of information gathering and that outcomes pointing to those outcomes Being a part of state data systems one of the things I just heard from the community college research Center recently is that some of these shorter term credentials that have shown to have great benefit are people who are reskilling And so then that's a data point that we need to consider to people who might already have a degree Um who are taking some additional training to shift and go into a new space So we need to understand entry points and transition points and Including these and outcomes measures I think are going to be super valuable. So we are seeing some desire to do that Um full implementation will be exciting in those states so that we can learn from that but certainly community colleges She hang on that. I mean that sounds great on paper But the reality is trying to you know develop those kinds of outcome measures for colleges It's going to be really hard and very cumbersome and can I mean so the funding formula could show up But then slowly the colleges have to sort of you know come up with all this data and you know monitoring is doable Uh some states are better than others. Uh is always a good is always a good mantra that I always Correct and you know obviously some of our ruler institutions that are Have you know their it directors their ir director, you know, it's it's it's it's a lot of work to data crunch on some of this stuff But you know, I think what a manager just denoted is We have system of system of higher education where we have entry points of individuals that are high school graduates High school dropouts baccalaureate degree individuals Complete we have master's degree individuals They're all coming back to their community colleges at some point in time to get extra credentials skills based learning other things Refresh of course. We have people coming for and so at some point in time We have to still track We're tracking them because we're trying to get credit so that we get funded from the states So we are doing that but we're not necessarily able to track them Post level And especially if they leave the state And so therefore we do need better data systems That's especially at the federal level so we can get credit and see how well they're doing And so, you know, some level of transparency relative to earnings would be helpful for us To see how well the those Individuals are doing post Our community college So you're thinking even if there were these kinds of outcomes measured funding at states You're not you're thinking that the measurement would have to come from the state level Couldn't come from the colleges themselves. It would have to probably come from the most of this comes from a statewide data system Either through their state department of taxation or somewhere else. It's a level above Of a community college There are many states that already do it. Oh, sure. Um, I think the Evidence on what the impact is is mixed. Um, but What I was really excited about was integrating the workforce programs More thoroughly into this and understanding how those function because we do see some of these systems that actually prioritize Transfer and like transfers great and they should definitely get bonuses for transfer But making sure that um states are thinking through what they need out of their workforce and how they're going to create Incentives for community colleges to do more of this and give them actually more resources to do it Well, um, it's something I'm really happy to hear Amanda that that states are thinking about more thoroughly because they Generally thought about outcomes based funding In the context of traditional academic programming. I would say yeah primarily academic, right I want t