While most community college leaders verbally connect workforce and economic development, there is often little understanding beyond asserting this connection. As a result, community colleges have been unable to articulate a vision that emphasizes economic development as central to their work.
Questions thus remain. What should be community colleges’ role in economic development? How can community college leaders (i.e., presidents and trustees) intentionally develop initiatives to further this role? As regions compete for billions in semiconductor, advanced manufacturing and clean energy investments, and as federal Pell grants expand to cover short-term programs, answering these questions becomes more critical than ever.
Fortunately, there is a recently completed study by the Education and Employment Research Center (EERC) at Rutgers University entitled “The Hidden Innovation Infrastructure Project: Understanding the Economic Development Role of Technician Education in the Changing Future of Work,” which can help guide these efforts. As an advisory board member for the study, I saw the research up close over the course of this multi-year project. The study is based on a conceptual model developed by EERC that links community college activities with local economic development outcomes in the communities they serve. (The report and other related publications are available on the project website.)
Varying approaches
In this model, the specific activities are linked to an understanding of the community economic context faced by the college. Then, through a series of case studies, this approach is discussed with specific examples of how the colleges promote economic development in their communities.
The report examines eight community colleges in Arizona, Florida, Ohio and Wisconsin, and draws on insights from 73 community college leaders and faculty, 20 employer partners and 32 regional economic development organizations, offering a comprehensive look at how community colleges function as integral components of regional growth and catalysts for innovation.
The case studies are particularly useful because they are in very different communities, which determine how intentional activities of the colleges are connected to the needs of the community. A college situated in a community with significant growth spends less time developing local community development partnerships and focuses more on meeting the needs of new companies than a college faced within a more challenged economic context. In this case, the colleges are more likely to spend more time and effort with other community organizations on economic development plan for their areas.
Second, the actual economic development work in these institutions is often far more extensive than simply providing good workforce training programs. Some of the colleges maintain business incubators to help small and medium-size firms develop new products and services and improve their business processes. Others maintain economic development funds for start-up firms that result in hiring their students. Yet others work in coalition with local community organizations to prepare local low-income residents for jobs in new companies moving into their communities. In many areas, the college serves as a hub for community economic development organizations.
Four strategies
An emphasis on economic development also helps the institution shed the often “transactional” approach many colleges take to workforce programs. To engage in intentional economic development work, colleges need to broaden efforts beyond responding to the specific demands of one company to understand how to meet the needs of their communities at large. For example, case study colleges in Ohio worked collaboratively to meet Intel’s labor needs while also benefiting statewide economic development goals. The Ohio TechNet Consortium serves to bring together the state’s community colleges, technical centers and universities to meet the needs of the manufacturing workforce.
What does it mean to develop a broader strategy? The paper attempts to define these activities into four “approaches” of community college economic development initiatives. The approaches are dependent on the economic context of the communities served by the colleges. These are extremely helpful for community college leaders because they suggest how individual college programs and activities can be woven together in a systematic institutional mission. It advocates a proactive approach by which the college defines its value to the community in terms of what can be done to help promote community development. This will permit leaders to develop initiatives that both fit the needs of the institution as well as the community. It will also allow leaders to connect these economic development initiatives with other major institutional priorities, such as student success and career pathways.
In Arizona, community colleges served as the backbone of a broader strategy by collaborating through the Arizona Advanced Manufacturing Institute, which unites Maricopa County community colleges, regional economic development agencies and local industry partners. Supported by the Arizona Commerce Authority, this collaboration led to the jointly developed Automated Industrial Technology program, building on existing mechatronics programs. Colleges also connected through the Arizona Advanced Technology Network, designed to streamline industry access to workforce training resources.
The colleges examined in the research did not just launch economic development activities as another set of activities within their institution. They intentionally tied them to their core missions to strengthen the institution as a whole. Participating in local economic development work provides far better information on the community’s plans for the future as well as the skill needs of local companies. This aids the student success mission of the institution by enabling career and technical programs to teach the specific skills that companies need now, and a greater knowledge for how these needs may change in the future.
In Florida, skilled workers are needed to support an emerging high-tech manufacturing sector. Daytona State College developed the well-known Federation for Advanced Manufacturing Education (FAME) program in partnership with the local manufacturers association to train technicians to bolster the growing field.
In a period when there is substantial public skepticism of postsecondary institutions and their value to citizens, a more sustained emphasis on economic development will make the community colleges more central to the future needs of their communities.
