With the fourth quarter of 2025 underway and the new year fast approaching, America’s community colleges are preparing for mid-academic-year reviews that will prove critical amid an evolving political and economic landscape.
One intertwined political and economic reality that must stay at the forefront of our minds is the milestone report published earlier this year by the U.S. departments of Labor, Commerce and Education outlining the federal approach to workforce development. The five-pillared strategic plan calls for the development of new demand-driven career pathways that align educational programs to employer needs, providing the American workforce with pathways to sustaining-wage careers and upward mobility.
Furthermore, the plan emphasizes the need to deeply integrate workforce development programs with improved performance measurement systems that foster accountability, thereby preparing the labor force to adapt to an artificial intelligence (AI)-driven economy through innovative reskilling experiences.
Community colleges are well-positioned to be the workforce preparedness engines to drive the federal labor force agenda forward. Yet, as performance excellence demands, our continued evolution requires studying the successes of other sectors to ensure the relevance and responsiveness of learner experiences.
One such sector that should be examined for its commitment to integrating work experience into academic programs and reducing student reliance on grants and loans is federally designated Work Colleges.
What are Work Colleges?
Formerly established in 1992 as part of the reauthorization of the Higher Education Act, Work Colleges became an official institutional designation within the U.S. Department of Education and the Federal Work-Study Program. By design, this institutional designation was established with a premise that originated in the 1970s, with the founding of the National Student Employment Association (NSEA), a community of individual colleges that had established student work programs.
Unlike many of the federal work-study programs present at many of our community colleges today, Work Colleges are built on the core distinction of instituting a comprehensive student work-learning-service program that provides the following over the duration of four years of instruction:
- Participation of all resident students for enrollment and graduation
- Learning objectives, evaluation and a record of work performance as part of the student’s college record
- Consequences for nonperformance or failure in the work-learning-service program, similar to the consequences for failure in the regular academic program
When asked about the mandated integration of structured work and how it shapes students’ character, career readiness and life outcomes, Eric Bolger, provost and vice president for academic affairs at the College of the Ozarks, spoke about the significance of every learner graduating from their institution with resume-building experience, which makes their learners more attractive in the job market.
“Students at College of the Ozarks spend 15 hours per week plus two forty-hour work weeks annually at their workstations,” Bolger said. “This means significant engagement with their work supervisors, much more engagement than they typically have with their professors.”
Bolger went on to share that, “This engagement enables the work supervisor to mentor the student workers and help them develop lifelong habits such as time management, teamwork, effective communication, problem-solving and a good work ethic.”
Collis Robinson, dean of labor at Berea College, emphasized that the philosophy of Berea’s work-learning-service model is not framed as employment, but rather as something much more.
“At its core, it is an educational program, built into the institution in a way that places equal emphasis on purpose, development, and contribution”, Robinson said. “It is an integrated part of a Berea education that helps students grow, serve, and apply what they are learning. Reflection and assessment are central to the design.”
It is essential to note that a key federal requirement of Work Colleges is to ensure that there are consequences for non-performance or failure in the work-learning-service program that parallel those for non-performance in a regular academic program.
Integrating Work College elements into community colleges
When prompted to share what aspects of the Work College model are most transferable to non–work colleges — especially community colleges, Bolger shared, “The most transferable aspect of the model is the ‘work to learn’ or ‘earn to learn’ aspect.”
He says a community college could develop a corporate work program that would directly engage qualified students to connect with local businesses.
“These businesses would train the student for a particular type of work and pay the community college to cover the students’ tuition and administrative costs, and also pay the students,” Bolger says.
Such partnerships are prevalent at many community colleges around the country through apprenticeships — yet scalability remains both an opportunity and a challenge.
Robinson offers the perspective that scaling the ethos does not require replicating every aspect of the Work College model.
“There are elements that traditional institutions could adapt without diluting the core commitments. These include establishing structured student roles tied to learning outcomes, preparing supervisors to serve as mentors, aligning responsibilities with career readiness competencies, and creating opportunities for reflection and skill development.” He went on to share that, “Institutions can also adopt tiered opportunities that allow students to progress from basic roles to advanced, leadership-oriented positions.”
As America’s community colleges continue to lead the charge in advancing workforce readiness and economic mobility, the lessons drawn from federally designated Work Colleges remind us that education and work are not parallel tracks — they are a shared journey that cultivates both skill and character.
When we intentionally weave mentored and measurable work-learning experiences into the fabric of our institutions, we move beyond simply opening doors of access — we become catalysts for purpose, prosperity and transformation.
