Career Opportunities: Career Technical Education and the College Completion Agenda. Part I: Structure and Funding of Career Technical Education in the California Community Colleges
Author: Shulock, Nancy
Date: 2012-01-00
Type: Reports - Research
Subjects: Higher Education,Educational Attainment,Community Colleges,College Role,Labor Force Development,Human Capital,Certification,Vocational Education,Associate Degrees,Educational Finance,Alignment (Education),Credentials,Educational Needs,Labor Market,High School Graduates,College Graduates,State Agencies,Employment Opportunities

The national college completion agenda is in full swing but the role of &quot;community&quot; colleges in that agenda is under-appreciated. With a large share of projected job openings requiring college education of less than a bachelor's degree and offering family-supporting wages, the nation's community colleges can make a huge contribution toward a competitive national workforce. Community colleges offer a broad array of career-oriented certificates and associate degrees through what is generally called &quot;career technical education&quot; or CTE. Policymakers across the country are hoping to rely heavily on community college CTE programs to recharge their economies. To fulfill this hope, community colleges must tailor their offerings to address labor market needs and must design programs to be accessible and valuable to students with different levels of preparation and at different stages of their careers. Recent high school graduates, under-employed and unemployed adults, incumbent workers looking for career advancement, and college graduates seeking retraining all can benefit from CTE programs that offer clear pathways from shorter-term, entry-level to longer-term, higher-level credentials in their chosen fields. In California, the CTE mission is not realizing its tremendous potential, as the authors explained in their 2011 report &quot;The Road Less Traveled.&quot; Students are not widely encouraged to pursue CTE programs and those who do make far more progress in completing course work than they do in acquiring credentials in their fields. This report is the first in a four-part project aimed ultimately at identifying ways that state and system policy can best support California's community colleges in operating CTE programs that meet the needs of their students and regions. Here the authors provide an overview of the complex structure and funding arrangements for the CTE mission and the closely related economic and workforce development (EWD) mission. CTE primarily serves &quot;students&quot; through credit-based programs; EWD primarily serves &quot;employers&quot; by addressing the education and training needs of industries of economic importance to the state and its regions. Their primary interest is in the capacity of community college CTE to deliver education and training that leads to credentials of value to students and employers and contributes to a competitive state workforce. The authors include EWD in their study because of its potential to help shape a workforce-relevant CTE mission. An examination of the full extent of the EWD mission and its role in state workforce development is outside the scope of this project. Appended are: (1) Research Methods and Resources; (2) State Agency Programs With Connection to Community College Workforce and Training Mission; and (3) Principal Community College Workforce and Training Programs. (Contains 7 figures and 29 notes.) [For related reports, see &quot;Career Opportunities: Career Technical Education and the College Completion Agenda. Policy Brief&quot; (ED534075) and &quot;Career Opportunities: Career Technical Education and the College Completion Agenda. Part II: Inventory and Analysis of CTE Programs in the California Community Colleges&quot; (ED534074).]