In an editorial published in the Washington Post July 12, President Barack Obama said community colleges can help build a new foundation for the nation’s recovering economy.
Setting the stage for talks later this week about his goals to train individuals for a competitive and ever-evolving economy, Obama said community colleges will be instrumental in rebuilding the nation’s workforce. His assertions underscore the continued growth community colleges will likely experience as individuals seek re-training opportunities, economic hardships deter more students from four-year institutions and the economy increases demand for workers with some postsecondary experience.
“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,” Obama said. “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.”
To reach this goal, Obama proposed to reallocate funding to help community colleges modernize facilities and increase the quality of online courses. In turn, he said he believes such investments would poise the nation to meet the objective of graduating 5 million more individuals from community colleges by 2020.
“Providing all Americans with the skills they need to compete is a pillar of a stronger economic foundation, and, like health care or energy, we cannot wait to make the necessary changes. We must continue to clean up the wreckage of this recession, but it is time to rebuild something better in its place,” Obama said.

Tags: community colleges, Job training

This entry was posted on Monday, July 13th, 2009 at 2:31 pm and is filed under Public Policy. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.