When people talk about innovation and moving the country forward, two-year institutions are often not part of the conversation. In fact, community colleges have for years borne the stigma of being last-choice institutions for students who either weren’t ready for four-year institutions or who needed to reskill to stay relevant in the workforce.
“There’s this limited perception of community colleges — people still having an old-fashioned view that we’re a junior college or we’re serving only students who need remedial help,” says Dr. Charles Cook, provost of the Austin Community College District in Texas. “We do that as well. We don’t want people to think we’ve given up on our original message. Our slogan is ‘ACC is for everybody’ — if you need to learn English, if you want to learn a new skillset, if you’re in a dead-end job,” the local community college is there for its students.
But these institutions are also becoming increasingly a first-choice option, both for students coming right out of high school, and those who have been out for some time — and in many cases, for students who are still enrolled in high school, thanks to the growing popularity of dual-enrollment programs. Much of the emphasis in community college is and has always been around helping to prepare students for jobs.
But from Texas to Maryland and around the country, more and more of those jobs are in STEM fields.
Montgomery College (MC) Vice President and Provost Margaret Latimer says that Montgomery College is focusing on STEM “because that’s where the jobs are for our students in the future.”
“And it’s not just in Montgomery County; it’s really nationwide and worldwide,” she says. “The estimate is that about two-thirds of jobs moving forward will provide some postsecondary training, and a majority of those will require some technical skill.”
Broadening workforce development
