Washington Watch: Workforce Development

Presidents’ forum explains benefits of ATE grants

The 2022 Advanced Technological Education (ATE) Principal Investigators’ Conference began this week with a virtual session for community college presidents to learn from their peers about how to use ATE grants from the National Science…


Bye-bye, IRAPs

The U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) on Friday announced a final rule to rescind the Industry-Recognized Apprenticeship Program, ending a fledgling effort to expand apprenticeships that was marred in politics from the start. DOL said…


Washington Watch: A recap of Advocates in Action

The American Association of Community Colleges (AACC) hosted its Advocates in Action meeting last Thursday and Friday, an event that hasn’t been held since 2019 due to the Covid pandemic. More than 70 community college…



Washington Watch: What the CHIPS Act offers community colleges

The recently passed CHIPS Act, which approves multi-billion-dollar investments in American semiconductor research and manufacturing, includes items of interest to community colleges, including reauthorization of the Advanced Technological Education program. Congress in late July passed…


Washington Watch: House committee approves key workforce bill

The House Committee on Education and Labor on Tuesday approved the Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act of 2022 (WIOA), which would reauthorize the statute that governs the federal workforce development and adult basic education programs….




Washington Watch: Recent federal STEM grant opportunities

To promote STEM education (science, technology, engineering and math), several federal agencies — including the U.S. Education Department — recently announced a few STEM-related funding opportunities.  In April, ED released two notices for fiscal year…


Washington Watch: JOBS Act gets the job done

Businesses need employees with the right skills. Meeting this goal is a constant challenge. Pre-Covid-19, 7 million job openings went unfilled, attributable in large part to a skills gap. The economy recovering from the pandemic…