Community colleges can help play a role in the current work shortage solution for small businesses. But institutions need more of legislators to maximize their impact, as the witnesses explained during an audience of the house subcommittee on Thursday.
"" It is likely to be one of the most insuffed secrets in higher education and our connection with small businesses have never been more important, "said Anne Kress, Northern President of Virginia Community College.
According to the National Federation of Independent Businesses, 51 percent of small businesses in the United States currently have focused work openings. In September, 67 percent of small businesses tried to hire workers, but 92 percent said they had few or no candidate who were qualified for the positions they were trying to fill out, said a young Kim representative, a Republican of California.
more popular
At the same time, many of those who are currently employed are looking to win new skills and change races, from the beginning of the Covid-19 pandemic, Almost a third of workers under the age of 40 are considered by changing their occupation or field, said Representative Jason Crow, a Democrat of Colorado.
"While most employers face a shortage of talents, training programs can address this crisis by preparing a workers' pipe that have" academic, technical and employability skills necessary to have Success in the workplace, "Kim said." Community colleges play a vital and vital role in supporting their local labor force and the regional economy facilitating workforce development activities. "
Joe García, the Chancellor of the Colorado Community College system, described the ways in which the universities that supervise have helped workers at RESKILL or UPSKILL during the past year, including working with industry partners to develop study plans and programs in the short term that allow people to quickly change to new roles; provide corporate training and non-reconstituted offerings for shorter, shorter programs; or to learning programs in non-traditional sectors, such as information technology, financial services and medical care; and allow students to obtain a postsecundary credit of education of the previous work experience through previous learning assessments. googleg.cmd.push (function () googleg.display ("dfp-ad-article_in_article"););
But the development of the workforce that Community colleges can still be inaccessible for some students, given that students in short-term and non-privileges programs are generally not eligible for federal financial assistance, García said. And the programs with the highest demand, as, medical care and advanced manufacturing, are those that are the most expensive to develop, use more expensive equipment and require more paid payment instructors, he added.
"Adaptations of financial aid, such as pell in the short term, could drastically increase registration specifically for low-income marginalized adult students, who need closer," said García, adding, "to keep our roles As leading training providers of workforce and maintain affordability for students, it is essential that we make significant investments in professional education and technical education infrastructure at our universities. "
Bipartisan legislation was introduced in Both Congress cameras earlier this year, which would expand eligibility. For peel grants to students in work training programs as short as eight weeks, currently, grants for low and moderate income students can only apply to programs that have more than 600 hours of clock or at least 15 weeks long . A provision based on legislation was almost included.
