President Barack Obama called on Congress Monday to create an $8 billion fund to train community college students for high-growth industries, giving a financial incentive to schools whose graduates are getting jobs.
The fund was part of Obama’s proposed budget for 2013. The overall package aims to achieve $4 trillion in deficit reduction over the next decade by restraining government spending and raising taxes on the wealthy, while boosting spending in some areas, including education.
Obama warned Congress that blocking investments in education and other proposals in his budget would be standing in the way of “America’s comeback.”
“I think he sees that would be the quickest way of increasing employment and productivity in this country,” said Rick Aman, the vice president of instruction and student services at the College of Western Idaho, the two-year community college that opened in 2009.
The White House says the “Community College to Career Fund” would train 2 million workers for jobs in potential growth areas such as electronic medical records and cyber security within sectors such as health care, transportation and advanced manufacturing.
A key component of the community college plan would institute “pay for performance” in job training, meaning there would be financial incentives to ensure that trainees find permanent jobs — particularly for programs that place individuals facing the greatest hurdles getting work. It also would promote training of entrepreneurs, provide grants for state and local governments to recruit companies, and support paid internships for low-income community college students.
“By reducing our deficit in the long term, what that allows us to do is to invest in the things that will help grow our economy right now,” Obama said during remarks at Northern Virginia Community College.
Bert Glandon, CWI’s president, said programs to help entrepreneurs are important because they are job creators. Providing financial assistance so students can participate in internships is also important in helping students get jobs, Glandon said, but the school doesn’t have money for living expenses and child care, which are often a problem for interns. Support for paid internships “would make sense,” Glandon said.
Boosting CWI’s enrollment in programs turning out high-demand employees may not be as easy as boosting federal support. CWI faces a challenge in having enough space, teachers and equipment for all the students who want to enroll in its programs, Aman said.
Typically, 20 to 30 students are enrolled in a professional-technical training program. CWI is moving many of those programs from their old home on the Boise State University campus to the community college’s newest building, the former Sam’s Club store near the college’s main campus in Nampa. The additional room won’t solve all those problems.
“What we need are more trained faculty and more equipment to train with,” Aman said — and Obama’s program doesn’t appear to address that issue.
Obama said community colleges need resources to become community career centers where students can learn skills that local businesses need immediately.
“This should be an engine of job growth all across the country, these community colleges, and that’s why we’ve got to support them,” Obama said.
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