Strengthening Community Colleges Training Grants

Overview

<p>The Strengthening Community Colleges Training Grants program (referred to as Strengthening Community Colleges or SCC) will build the capacity of community colleges to collaborate with employers and the public workforce development system to meet local and regional labor market demand for a skilled workforce. The purposes of this program are to increase the capacity and responsiveness of community colleges to address the skill development needs of employers and workers, to offer accelerated career pathways to transition from unemployment to (re)employment quickly, and to address challenges associated with the COVID-19 health crisis that necessitates social distancing practices and expanding online and technology-enabled learning and migrating services to a virtual environment. These investments may also support the advancement of industries of the future, including artificial intelligence (AI), quantum information sciences (QIS), 5G/advanced communications, biotechnology, and advanced manufacturing.</p> <p>With the focus of SCC grants on building and enhancing community colleges’ training capacity to improve the employment and earnings outcomes for students, these are not typical training grants. Therefore applicants are encouraged to propose a wide range of leveraged resources, including for participant-specific costs such as tuition, support services, and on-the-job-training from other sources. Applicants must demonstrate how they are leveraging the resources of educational, workforce, and employer partners.</p> <p>The purpose of this grant is:</p> <ol> <li>to increase the capacity and responsiveness of community colleges to address the skill development needs of employers and dislocated and unemployed workers, incumbent workers, and new entrants to the workforce;</li> <li>to offer this spectrum of workers and other individuals accelerated career pathways that enable them to gain skills and transition from unemployment to (re)employment quickly; and</li> <li>to address the new challenges associated with the COVID-19 health crisis that necessitate social distancing practices and expanding online and technology-enabled learning and migrating services to a virtual environment.</li> </ol> <p>Community colleges applying for this funding may propose applications for a single institution that will undertake capacity building at one institution, or for a consortium of colleges that will undertake capacity building and systems change within one state, or across one or more community college districts within a state. Consortia must also involve at least one state- or district-level entity. Both single institutions and consortia will work with a required workforce development system partner, and required employer partners. SCC grants will help community colleges and other institutions of higher education (including four-year colleges and universities) build capacity and leverage expertise and resources that result in increased access for individuals to acquire industry-recognized in-demand skills long after exhaustion of these grant funds.</p> <p>Successful consortia applicants will propose policy alignment across partner institutions to bring institutional changes to scale within a state or community college district(s), such as adopting innovative approaches to accelerate credit accumulation and postsecondary credential attainment; improving and aligning data collection, integration, and use across a state community college system; and transforming in-person college transactions to virtual service delivery. The enhanced career pathway systems will provide new entrants and adult workers a clear and aligned sequence of relevant in-demand industry coursework and stacked and latticed credentials that will enable them to attain or retain employment.</p>