WNC applauds community college plan

Western Nevada College President Carol Lucey Monday praised President Obama's plan to pump $8 billion into programs that train community college students for high-growth industries.

"Who knows if that will come through but just the fact people are starting to talk about a different way to educate young people and the unique role community colleges can play is, from our perspective, a good thing," she said. "It's high time."

Obama called on Congress Monday to create the fund as part of his proposed budget for 2013. The overall package aims to achieve $4 trillion in deficit reduction during the next decade by restraining government spending and raising taxes on the wealthy, while boosting spending in some areas, including education.

Obama warned Congress that blocking investments in education and other proposals in his budget would be standing in the way of "America's comeback."

"By reducing our deficit in the long term, what that allows us to do is to invest in the things that will help grow our economy right now," Obama said during remarks at Northern Virginia Community College.

The White House says the "Community College to Career Fund" would train 2 million workers for jobs in potential growth areas such as electronic medical records and cybersecurity within sectors such as health care, transportation and advanced manufacturing.

A key component of the community college plan would institute "pay for performance" in job training, meaning there would be financial incentives to ensure that trainees find permanent jobs - particularly for programs that place individuals facing the greatest hurdles getting work. It also would promote training of entrepreneurs, provide grants for state and local government to recruit companies, and support paid internships for low-income community college students.

Obama said community colleges needs resources to become community career centers where students can learn skills that local businesses need immediately.

"This should be an engine of job growth all across the country, these community colleges, and that's why we've got to support them," Obama said.

Lucey said Tony Carnevale, head of the Center on Education and the Workforce at Georgetown University, has extensively studied the relationship between different levels of post-secondary education and economic outcomes.

"His data clearly indicates the role these occupational programs have on improving economic outcomes," she said.

Lucey said the president's Community College to Career Fund would build on the programs and relationships WNC and area businesses have already developed.

Those include an intensive program that turns classes of 20 at a time into machinists with eight weeks in the classroom and eight weeks of internship.

She said community colleges will be key to restarting the economy because "four year bachelor's programs are not going to fix everybody's problems."