Community colleges have historically served as engines of regional economic development, drawing on strong community integration to translate labor market needs into accessible education. However, rapid technological change and the decline of entry-level jobs now require a recalibration of this mission.
Traditionally, workforce programming has operated in a manner similar to a vendor model. Employers request specific training, and colleges provide it. This reactive approach addresses immediate hiring needs but seldom cultivates sustainable regional capacity.
Instead, the contemporary economy requires strategic partnerships focused on co-designed curricula and long-term worker adaptability. The central question has shifted from whether colleges contribute to growth, to whether they can lead with the strategic vision needed in a labor market transformed by automation and rapid occupational change. Meeting this challenge requires an expanded economic development role — one that goes beyond training transactions toward shared-value partnerships, entrepreneurship ecosystem development and active technology diffusion.
To clarify what should change, it is useful to begin with what has endured. Historically, community colleges have pursued this mandate through three interrelated roles.
Talent pipelines
Community colleges have long served as a pragmatic talent pipeline in U.S. higher education, preparing students for high-demand occupations through short-term certificates, industry credentials and two-year degrees. They educate nurses and medical assistants, manufacturing technicians, IT specialists, logistics professionals, welders, teachers and public safety workers whose work sustains regional economies. Their comparative advantage lies in aligning programs with local labor markets and adjusting offerings as demand shifts.
However, this role now extends beyond preparation for entry-level employment. Increasingly, it involves helping students establish early footholds in careers that demand periodic upskilling and reskilling as business and industry evolve. Program agility, stackable credentials and transparent pathways from K–12 through advanced degrees are therefore central to workforce development strategy. When implemented effectively, this function expands labor supply, improves wage trajectories and strengthens employers’ capacity to plan and invest.
Supporting local business
Small and mid-sized enterprises, as well as startups, often lack the internal capacity to train workers, adopt new technologies or redesign operations in response to shifting market demands. Community colleges address these gaps through customized training, applied laboratories, short-term credentials and supervisory development.
At College of DuPage (Illinois), this role includes rapid-response training aligned with evolving employer needs and extends into small-business capacity-building through Innovation DuPage. As the college’s dedicated center for regional entrepreneurship, it connects founders to resources and mentor networks. Similarly, Houston City College’s Goldman Sachs 10,000 Small Businesses program offers a no-cost 16-week cohort designed to help entrepreneurs grow through business education, access to capital and ongoing support services.
Ecosystem convening
Community colleges frequently act as conveners within regional economic development ecosystems, connecting employers, workforce boards, chambers of commerce, local governments, universities and community organizations to pursue shared objectives. Their credibility and relative neutrality enable them to unite stakeholders, align investments and reduce fragmentation. This convening function becomes especially critical during periods of significant industrial transition or major economic commitments.
When Intel launched a significant semiconductor investment in Ohio, community colleges helped mobilize a coordinated workforce response by aligning programs, equipment and training capacity across institutions. Intel has described its work with the Ohio Association of Community Colleges’ Semiconductor Collaboration Network, which spans Ohio’s community and technical colleges and is focused on building the state’s technician pipeline through semiconductor-specific courses and equipment.
Another example is the Community College Workforce Consortium, convened with support from Jobs for the Future. This consortium brings together presidents and leaders from multiple community colleges across states to share strategies, strengthen employer partnerships, and develop workforce solutions such as apprenticeships and stackable credentials.
Changing context
Economic development now takes place in a labor market characterized by rapid technological diffusion, evolving business models and shorter occupational change cycles. Recent data indicate that the “half-life” of a professional skill has declined to just four years, while 40% of workers’ core competencies are projected to change by 2030. Entry-level roles that once provided stable pathways to the middle class have either diminished or been redefined. For example, in early 2025, the share of entry-level job postings fell 45% below the five-year average. In many industries, these roles now require higher baseline competencies, including digital fluency, data interpretation, customer-facing communication and adaptability to new tools and workflows. Employers are increasingly structuring hiring around demonstrable skills and experience rather than degrees alone.
These dynamics increase the importance of institutions that can rapidly redesign programs and integrate work-based experiences, making learning more transparent to employers. In this context, the traditional economic development roles of community colleges remain crucial, but they require recalibration. Talent pipelines should be designed to support career mobility rather than single job placements. Business support must extend beyond episodic training to include technology adoption and the development of organizational capabilities. Additionally, ecosystem convening should coordinate partners at a pace and scale commensurate with significant transitions.
This shift also broadens the range of partnerships necessary for effective economic development. Colleges must align not only with employers but also with workforce boards, community-based organizations and regional economic development agencies to coordinate services, minimize duplication and connect training to large-scale hiring.
These changes further emphasize the role of community colleges as anchor institutions for inclusive growth. By serving first-generation students, working adults, career changers, veterans, immigrants and individuals seeking reskilling or upskilling, community colleges are central to regional strategies aimed at expanding opportunity while maintaining competitiveness. The challenge moving forward is to leverage existing strengths to develop a more integrated, capacity-building approach that responds to the speed, complexity and equity demands of the contemporary economy.
Rethinking our mission
1) New on-ramps into careers
When traditional pathways become less viable, community colleges must rapidly design purposeful alternatives. This necessitates programs where work is central rather than peripheral, such as internships, apprenticeships, applied projects, micro-internships, credit-for-work models and experiential coursework embedded within academic curricula. In a labor market that values demonstrable capability, these approaches make learning transparent to employers while enhancing students’ readiness and confidence.
New on-ramps also broaden access by enabling working adults to earn while they learn, reducing the opportunity cost of education and allowing career changers to explore fields before fully committing. In this way, pathway design functions as economic development by determining who can enter growth industries and how quickly regional talent can develop.
2) Shared-value industry partnerships
A second strategy is to shift from transactional engagements to shared-value partnerships with industry. Rather than treating training as an isolated service, shared-value partnerships position colleges and employers as co-investors in regional capability. They emphasize joint curriculum design, continual updating of competencies as technologies and job tasks evolve, work-based learning aligned with academic outcomes, and modernization of laboratories and instructional capacity to ensure students train on relevant tools.
This approach strengthens both sides of the talent market. Students acquire credentials and experience that validate their technical competencies in real-world settings, while employers gain more reliable access to talent prepared for current needs and adaptable to future changes. Collectively, shared-value partnerships build regional learning systems that evolve alongside the economy, reducing the lag between industry change and educational response.
3) Entrepreneurial ecosystems
Entrepreneurship serves as a fundamental driver of economic development, rather than merely a supplement to workforce training. Regional resilience relies on expanding the number of firms that generate employment. Community colleges can support the formation and early growth of startups through incubation, mentorship, technical assistance, prototyping resources and structured entrepreneurial education in areas such as customer discovery, finance, operations and leadership. The Innovation DuPage model exemplifies this function by bringing together an entrepreneurial community that connects founders with the capital and networks required to accelerate venture development.
Because community colleges serve first-generation students and other underrepresented learners, entrepreneurship ecosystems should be intentionally inclusive. Informal networks and exclusive access can widen existing gaps. Tailored enterprise support — including targeted coaching, accessible entry into incubators and accelerators, peer networks and practical measures to reduce barriers — can broaden participation and strengthen local business formation.
4) Technology diffusion
Regional competitiveness depends on firms’ capacity to adopt and utilize advanced technologies, including automation, robotics, cybersecurity tools, data analytics and digitally enabled production systems. Many small and mid-sized enterprises, however, lack internal training capacity and face significant risks when experimenting with unfamiliar tools. Community colleges can address these barriers by providing applied learning environments where employers may test technologies and employees can develop proficiency through hands-on experience.
At College of DuPage, laboratories, simulation environments, manufacturing centers and digital learning spaces function as modernization infrastructure for the region. These resources lower the cost of experimentation, accelerate workforce upskilling and support adoption trajectories that might otherwise falter. In this way, community colleges operationalize technology diffusion as a local economic development function rather than merely an abstract policy objective.
Leadership implications
Amid structural changes in the labor market, such as the decline of traditional entry-level work, accelerated technological adoption, and increasing regional vulnerability, the economic development mission of community colleges assumes greater significance for institutional leadership. This expanded mission requires leaders to view the college as an architect of regional opportunity.
For presidents and trustees, the role extends beyond supporting workforce initiatives to systematically shaping institutional systems. This includes aligning strategy across divisions, investing in applied learning infrastructure, cultivating durable partnerships based on shared value and convening stakeholders who might not otherwise engage collaboratively.
This expanded mission necessitates redefining what constitutes “economic development infrastructure.” Leaders must recognize that barriers to student persistence, such as limited access to childcare, transportation gaps and housing instability, function as bottlenecks in the regional labor supply.
Consequently, student supports should be treated as economic infrastructure and funded and strategized with the same rigor as occupational laboratories or technology centers. If a lack of childcare prevents a cohort of technicians from graduating, the region loses essential capacity.
Leadership also demands more precise criteria for success. Community colleges should assess economic development not only by enrollment, completion and placement but also by measuring regional capacity. This evaluation should consider the speed of pathway creation, the depth of employer collaboration, the dissemination of technology to local businesses and the inclusiveness of access to growth sectors.
The central argument is straightforward: community colleges have significantly contributed to regional economies, but the present moment calls for a transition from reactive responses to proactive system-building. Regional prosperity will depend on institutions capable of designing new entry-level pathways as existing ones diminish, integrating academic rigor with industry relevance, supporting firms in adopting emerging technologies and fostering lifelong learning. By embracing this expanded mission, community colleges enhance regional resilience and position communities not only to navigate technological change but also to thrive within it.
