In our 2024 Year in Review report, you’ll find:

• Insights into our federal and state policy wins
• Updates on advocacy campaigns advancing our mission
• Milestones achieved by our multiple networks

Looking ahead to 2025, we’re preparing for even bigger opportunities:

• Launching a new strategic plan this fall
• Expanding our focus to critical areas like the care workforce and AI’s role in the workforce
• Building partnerships to improve job quality, including increasing wages and benefits

Explore the full report and join us as we continue shaping a more inclusive economy.

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Through NSC’s Making College Work Student Advisory Council and the Voices for Skills Network, we have learned more about the perspectives and experiences of those pursuing and navigating community college, workforce pathways, and career-focused credentials. Their input and expertise are informing how NSC thinks about and advocates for policy solutions to improve access and completion of quality postsecondary programs.

What Students Want: Students’ Experiences and the Implications of Enhanced Holistic Supports for Non-Degree Pathways unveils that students and workers pursuing non-degree pathways are navigating higher education systems not designed with their realities in mind, and provides insights on the supports they need to succeed. 

Highlights include:  

• The need for financial and holistic supports like childcare, transportation, and coaching. 
• Real stories from students balancing family, work, and education to build better futures.
• Policy recommendations to make non-degree programs equitable and accessible. 

The post What Students Want: Students’ Experiences and the Implications of Enhanced Holistic Supports for Non-Degree Pathways appeared first on National Skills Coalition.

Charting a Course to Quality is a comprehensive handbook designed to guide states in building and enhancing the data ecosystem necessary to evaluate non-degree credential programs. It offers practical steps and examples from states already leading in this area, so others can adapt successful models to their unique contexts. 

This publication is the final installment in a series dedicated to helping states advance their non-degree credential ecosystems. It builds on the foundation laid by our earlier works: 

• The Non-Degree Credential Quality Imperative explores how states are crafting policies to increase access to high-quality non-degree credentials. 

• State Financial Aid for Non-degree Credentials examines the financial aid strategies states employ to support students pursuing these credentials. 

Together, these publications provide a handbook for states committed to ensuring that people from all backgrounds have access to valuable educational opportunities that lead to meaningful employment. 

The post Charting a Course to Quality: A Navigator’s Handbook to a Robust Non-Degree Credential Data Ecosystem appeared first on National Skills Coalition.

For students and employers and states to benefit from non-degree credential programs, states need to design financial aid programs that take into consideration key choices, such as determining student eligibility and how to align these programs with in-demand sectors and occupations.

While there’s plenty of research and analysis into how states offer financial aid for degree programs, few—if any—existing analysis provides a look into how states are doing the same for non-degree credentials. This paper offers a unique insight into existing financial aid programs in six states that support equitable access and strong outcomes connected to NDCs—particularly for students that are not eligible for federal student aid—while also supporting the needs of industry and business.

We offer eight critical considerations for states when designing equitable and outcomes-oriented financial aid for NDC students.

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• 84% of voters want to make federal financial aid available to anyone seeking skills training, not just those seeking college degrees
• 90% of voters want to provide access to digital skills training for workers throughout their careers so they can adapt to new technologies at work
• 91% of voters want the creation of closer partnerships between training providers and businesses to train people for the jobs that businesses need to fill.

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NSC’s new report, College and Career Possibilities Rooted in Place highlights how industry partnerships benefit rural learners and employers alike – and shines a light on the rich variety of rural contexts, state systems, investments, and policies that can help drive and sustain effective partnerships between rural community colleges and local industry.

Read the report to learn about how rural industry partnerships create place based pathways and opportunity, the key factors that make for strong, effective partnerships, and how state and local policymakers, officials, and administrators can support rural community college and industry partnerships.

The post College and Career Possibilities Rooted in Place: How Rural Community College and Industry Partnerships Help People, Communities, and Business Thrive appeared first on National Skills Coalition.

National Skills Coalition’s new report The Non-Degree Credential Quality Imperative encourages state policymakers to invest in quality NDCs; shares how we’ve worked with states to define, measure, and track quality; and offers takeaways for how to advance quality assurance so that policymakers feel confident in investing in non-degree credentials, students have confidence in their training programs, and employers know which programs effectively prepare people for careers.

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Written by NSC’s Government Affairs team, this agenda will guide the strategic work of the organization, and our networks, aligned to our four issue campaigns that prioritize the ways that federal and state policymakers can most effectively expand high-quality skills training and drive toward an inclusive economy:

• Congress should ensure that cost isn’t a barrier to training;
• Congress should help workers and small businesses engage in industry partnerships; and
• Congress should support state and local data collection to measure equitable outcomes.

Skills policy alone can’t correct every economic inequity, but investments in inclusive skills policy can begin to address the disproportionate impact of major economic shifts on workers of color, immigrants, and workers with a high school diploma or less; the essential role of small businesses who hire locally and invest in their people; and the moral and economic imperative to dismantle structural racism within workforce education and training.

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On May 24th, 2022, NSC CEO Andy Van Kleunen was joined by City Colleges of Chicago Chancellor Juan Salgado and a panel of thought leaders for a dynamic conversation about how Future Ready is preparing Chicago residents to rebuild the region’s infrastructure, connecting employers to local talent, narrowing the digital divide, and driving a more equitable, inclusive economic recovery.

In 2021, the City Colleges of Chicago leveraged federal recovery investments to launch Future Ready, offering high-demand, short-term credentials at no cost to Chicagoans who want to advance in their job, start a new career, or harness rapidly changing workplace technologies.

Moderator: Andy Van Kleunen, CEO, National Skills Coalition

Featured Guest: Juan Salgado, Chancellor, City Colleges of Chicago

Respondents:

• Farhad Asghar, Program Officer, Pathways to Postsecondary Success, Carnegie Corporation of New York
• Julie Peller, Executive Director, Higher Learning Advocates
• Matt Summy, Vice President, Strategic Planning for Impact & Inclusion, Comcast

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Rachel Unruh and Katie Spiker get into the details of President Biden’s budget for 2023, WIOA, Short-term Pell, and College Transparency.

The post Skills on the Hill – Episode 14: Biden’s budget, WIOA, short-term Pell and college transparency appeared first on National Skills Coalition.

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