LAAP is especially designed to help students in underserved geographic areas, who have limited access to the traditional college campus setting, and who need more flexible education and training opportunities to keep pace with changes in the job market. Simultaneously, the program helps meet the current critical needs of business and industry. New institutional policies and practices that go beyond merely putting more courses online but truly deliver programs that are self-paced alternatives to traditional semester scheduling. Methods of assessing the quality and success of these new distance learning programs by charting the skills and competencies achieved by students, as well as retention and completion rates. LAAP grants are awarded to partnerships involving two or more institutions of higher education, community organizations, businesses, and other public and private agencies.
Partnerships stimulate resource sharing, reduce program duplication, and promote economies of scale.
HETS will pool faculty and staff to develop workforce training and counseling as well as courses for academic credit. The project will serve an estimated 100,000 students enrolled through the nation's Hispanic Serving Institutions. The College of the Mainland in Texas project will partner with some 30 Gulf Coast petrochemical companies to develop a program for industry workers to refresh their skills, learn new technologies and safety precautions, or earn an associate's degree. LAAP grantees are required to provide 50 percent of the total project costs.