During a House Education and Workforce panel hearing on Wednesday, members from both parties showed that they are eager to keep the momentum going to reauthorize the nation’s main workforce development legislation, which missed congressional passage in December by a hair.
The opening remarks from the chair and ranking member of the Higher Education and Workforce Development Subcommittee mirrored each other in noting that the Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act (WIOA) needs to be updated to better connect job seekers with employers and jobs. Both noted the bipartisan A Stronger Workforce for America Act (H.R. 6655), which in December was initially included in a bill to temporarily extend fiscal year 2025 funding, only to be removed at the last minute.
At Wednesday’s hearing, both sides of the aisle highlighted various aspects of H.R. 6655, which included language to codify the Strengthening Community Colleges (SCC) Training Grants program. Molly Dodge, senior vice president of workforce and careers at Ivy Tech Community College — Indiana’s statewide two-year college system that serves more than 200,000 students annually — told the panel it received a 2022 SCC grant that helped to modernize training for the supply chain and logistics industry and to buy new equipment.
Other aspects of the Stronger Workforce Act that both sides noted include dedicating half of adult and dislocated worker funding to upskill workers and related wraparound services, and allowing states to create a “critical industry skills fund” to reimburse employers, sector partnerships and other intermediaries for upskilling workers in priority industries.
Serving employer needs
Several subcommittee members questioned hearing witnesses about the importance of strengthening and extending training in partnership with business and industry. In particular, Rep. Virginia Foxx (R-North Carolina) asked what makes community colleges the “most appropriate place” for educating workers for in-demand jobs.
Dodge replied that two-year colleges are especially nimble in engaging employers to understand what skills gaps they face and then designing academic and non-credit programs that meet them. She also noted that most community college students tend to remain in the area of their college. At Ivy Tech, more than 90% of graduates stay in their communities and in the state, so community colleges are very much local workforce development drivers.
Dodge provided examples of how Ivy Tech, which is the largest WIOA training provider to the state’s workforce development department, runs a comprehensive career development service that includes identifying students’ interests and career objectives and connecting them with internships and other practical job experiences to build professional networks. Employers are a key part of the process, she said.
Dodge also emphasized that employers must be co-developers in shaping training programs that meet their needs. In addition, she noted the importance of bolstering and scaling credit for prior learning and developing quality short-term certificate training. At Ivy Tech, nearly 14,000 students in 2023-24 completed such training, an 87% increase since 2018-19, she noted in her testimony.
Similar to many community colleges across the country, enrollment in Ivy Tech’s workforce development programs has been growing over the past few years. In 2023-24, the college saw a 69% increase in workforce and skills training headcount, representing its fastest-growing enrollment sector, according to Dodge.
A call for better data
Witnesses at the hearing also addressed the need for better data to improve alignment between training programs and good-paying jobs. Stephen Moret, president and CEO of Strada Education Foundation, said enhancing wage records is critical, noting three data points would provide valuable information: occupation, pay rate and primary work location.
“For the first time, these additions would make it possible to measure how well workforce and higher education programs align with employer talent needs by occupation, region and industry,” he said.
Moret noted one way to secure this information would be to codify and expand Workforce Data Quality Initiative grants, as included in the Stronger Workforce Act. The grants provide resources that help states modernize their data systems, integrate education and workforce data, and develop tools to analyze employment outcomes, he said.
Several Republicans asked Moret why higher education institutions don’t already collect such data to gauge how their programs serve students. He said the data is not readily available to colleges, which don’t have the resources to collect them, he said.
