Time magazine just put out a good article on the critical role community colleges play in America’s higher education system and how they are important for economic growth. The piece focuses on the Obama administration’s strong push to help community colleges.
Here’s an excerpt from the article:
The President hasn’t forgotten about the 30 or so community colleges he visited during the 2008 campaign. These institutions are our nation’s trade schools, training 59% of our new nurses as well as cranking out wind-farm technicians and video-game designers — jobs that, despite ballooning unemployment overall, abound for adequately skilled workers. Community-college graduates earn up to 30% more than high school grads, a boon that helps state and local governments reap a 16% return on every dollar they invest in community colleges.
And President Obama had this to say about helping community colleges in Sunday’s Washington Post:
We believe it’s time to reform our community colleges so that they provide Americans of all ages a chance to learn the skills and knowledge necessary to compete for the jobs of the future. Our community colleges can serve as 21st-century job training centers, working with local businesses to help workers learn the skills they need to fill the jobs of the future. We can reallocate funding to help them modernize their facilities, increase the quality of online courses and ultimately meet the goal of graduating 5 million more Americans from community colleges by 2020.
The president will present a plan to help community colleges this week, likely during an address Tuesday at Macomb Community College in Michigan.
