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Articles by Iris Palmer
Workforce Pell Success Might Depend on Career Coaching
As colleges nationwide scramble to prepare for the rollout of the newly enacted Workforce Pell grant program in July 2026, one challenge is making sure that programs lead to economic mobility. To stay eligible for federal financial aid, newly eligible Workforce Pell grant programs must demonstrate both program completion rates and job placement rates of 70 percent or higher.
Old Lessons for a New AI Moment in Community Colleges
Late last year, I had a conversation with a community college president who told me something intriguing. Rather than asking staff to analyze data for him, he was using a large language model to ask questions of the dataset himself. It was a revelation. College leaders are often slow to use data effectively, and when they do, it usually involves staff building spreadsheets or dashboards that are clunky, static, and never quite answer the questions leaders actually have.
Workforce Pell Implementation Matters Beyond 2026
When Workforce Pell launches in July 2026, it will mark the first time federal Pell dollars can flow at scale to short-term, workforce-oriented programs, including many noncredit programs. But the real opportunity does not lie in the launch itself. It lies in the long implementation runway that follows. Workforce Pell will require years of refinement, learning, and system adjustment to meet its potential.
How States Can Complement Workforce Pell with Smart Aid Design
Workforce Pell represents one of the most significant shifts in federal financial aid policy in over fifty years. For the first time, Pell Grants will be available for very short, career-focused training programs, including non-credit offerings as brief as eight weeks. This expansion has the potential to reshape workforce training and strengthen the role of community colleges in meeting rapidly evolving labor market needs.
A Ready-Made Model for Workforce Pell
Before Workforce Pell goes into effect in July 2026, colleges will need to determine which of their programs are good candidates for the new funding stream. And states will implement approval processes to ensure that eligible programs lead to good jobs. At the same time, there are a lot of requirements for Workforce Pell that don’t apply to standard Pell, like a 70 percent graduation rate and a very specific program length, which may be challenging for states and colleges to navigate.
What Bossier Parish Community College Can Teach Us About Data and Workforce Pell
As states and colleges prepare to implement the new Workforce Pell legislation, one issue rises to the top again and again: data. For the first time, Pell Grants will flow to very short, non-credit programs that articulate to credit (see here for all of the eligibility requirements in the law). But many colleges don’t yet have the infrastructure to track non-credit students alongside their for-credit peers.
Turning student jobs into paid internships
Paid work-based learning opportunities lead to higher wages for graduates. Yet, many working community college students cannot participate because they are so busy with school and their jobs. Most work-based learning opportunities don’t pay enough to replace regular employment. But what if community colleges could work with a student’s current employer to create a paid on-the-job learning opportunity? Central New Mexico Community College (CNM) is doing just that.
Scaling Community College Workforce Support
Community colleges are on the frontline of workforce development. They provide credit and non-credit opportunities to help people change jobs and excel in their careers. Yet the staff charged with creating and managing these programs rarely get any ongoing professional development to innovate and improve. It doesn’t have to be that way. Delivering sustainable, state-based professional development to community college workforce staff is possible. Iowa has already shown us how.
What states can do to help college students get child care support
Child care in the United States is failing families. It’s too expensive for parents and pays too little to caregivers. In 45 states, the average monthly cost of child care for two children exceeds the average mortgage payment. In all 50 states, it’s higher than the average rent. Even more shocking, in 39 states, the yearly cost of infant care in a center is higher than in-state college tuition. Now imagine paying for both college tuition and child care at the same time.
Colleges Can Provide Drop-in Care
Life as a parent of small children can be logistically challenging. Every parent knows the Tetris-like challenge of piecing together childcare that covers a full workday. The stakes of this “game” are particularly high for parenting college students. If the care students cobble together falls through because of weather or illness, they could fall behind in their classes and eventually have to stop their studies, jeopardizing the investment in their education.
How State Funding Shapes Non-Credit Enrollment
Policymakers often highlight non-credit workforce training programs at community colleges as a promising way to develop a strong workforce. Many students agree. Approximately four million students enroll in noncredit programs at community colleges nationwide. However, data on the number of these programs, who they serve, and how well they perform is very limited. For instance, the number four million comes from an American Association of Community Colleges analysis of its membership database.
Child Care Centers on Campus Alone Don’t Solve the Problem
Policymakers and advocates often view child care centers on college campuses as a solution for student parents looking for adequate care. That is why there has been so much alarm about declining access to this option. The share of public college campuses with child care centers has dropped significantly, decreasing from 59 percent in 2004 to just 45 percent in 2019.
Increasing Enrollment: Successful Strategies from Three Community Colleges
Nestled in the rural hills of northwest Massachusetts, Greenfield Community College (GCC) has been recognized for several years as a top-ranked community college in the state. However, like its counterparts across the state, GCC faced declining enrollment because of a regional decrease in population as well as other socioeconomic factors. In 2022, under new leadership, the college began to reverse that trend.
Are Microcredentials a Path to Good Jobs? Sometimes.
In recent years, there’s been growing enthusiasm for microcredentials as an alternative to traditional college degrees. Media outlets like NPR and The New York Times have spotlighted these shorter and therefore cheaper programs, framing them as pathways to well-paying jobs without the burden of college debt. But are we at risk of overstating their potential? While it’s true that some certificate holders find decent-paying jobs, the reality is far less clear-cut.
Balancing Dual Enrollment & Community Needs: A Challenge for Community Colleges
Alpena Community College is located on the shores of Lake Huron in the small town of Alpena, Michigan, population 10,000. It seems like a typical, rural community college at first glance, but Alpena is extraordinary: 66 percent of its students are still in high school, the highest rate in Michigan. While high school students are an important group to serve well, this enrollment makeup could spell trouble for the college’s budget and its ability to serve adults in the community.
Restructuring work-based learning for persistence (opinion)
You have /5 articles left. Sign up for a free account or log in. Tommy/DigitalVision Vectors/Getty Images With the disastrous rollout of the new Free Application for Federal Student Aid, many are facing a time crunch packaging student financial aid. At the same time, community colleges that were using the data to inform students of their eligibility for other government benefits, such as the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), now have to pause, leaving many students in a lurch.
Building the workforce of the future through community colleges
Community colleges are at the forefront of efforts to train workers, address workforce gaps, and prepare for future job demands. Aligning workforce development with regional economic development strategies is crucial, especially as technology reshapes workplaces, requiring workers to reskill. Unfortunately, many community colleges lack the strategic capacity to align workforce training to longer-term regional economic development.
Labor Market Information and Community Colleges
Labor market information (LMI) includes various data such as unemployment rates, labor force participation, economic indicators, industry trends, occupational data, wage statistics, and employment forecasts. Community colleges can use this information to plan new programs, update current programs, support fundraising, and provide career counseling to students. However, it can be challenging for community college leaders to collect and use this data.
Building a Better Workforce Community College
In July 2023, we announced New America’s Workforce Transformation Cohort, consisting of 15 community colleges across the country taking steps to improve their ability to provide high-quality workforce programs to their communities. Almost a year later, we wanted to share the projects each college is focused on. They are working to improve in one or more of the following areas: Data Collection & Use, Better Aligning Programs with the Local Economy, and Finance.
Work-Based Learning at Community Colleges: What Do We Know About What Works?
Paid work-based learning like internships, apprenticeships, and co-ops offer valuable opportunities for students to gain work experience and expand their professional networks. In fact, research indicates that participation in such programs can enhance graduation rates and boost labor market outcomes for students. While traditionally more prevalent in four-year institutions, many community colleges have been expanding their offerings of work-based learning opportunities.
What Makes a Good Job for a Community College Student?
Paid work-based learning has proven benefits for students, like increased wages after graduation. But it takes a well-developed strategy to make work-based learning opportunities like internships and work-study accessible to the majority of community college students who work. We conducted focus groups with current working learners to understand how they juggle school and work and what they think about work-based learning opportunities offered through their college.
To Communicate with Adult Students about Work-Based Learning, Lean Into the Classroom
Effectively communicating internship opportunities and support services to students can be a challenge. As we learned recently, that is particularly true for adult community college students who are already working and may only be loosely connected to their school. Last year, New America partnered with Lake Research to conduct two focus groups of working adults attending community colleges in Georgia and Texas.
Meet The Community Colleges That New America Will Be Partnering With To Understand Child Care Access For Student Parents and Single Mothers
We are excited to announce the community colleges New America will be partnering with to explore the most effective ways to support student parents and single mothers in accessing child care. Through interviews with community college student parents, we confirmed that access to affordable, convenient, and high-quality child care could make their academic careers more manageable and fulfilling.
Is "Internship" a Bad Word?
For a long time, the policy world has believed that college students need work-based learning opportunities. Ideally, these opportunities should be related to their area of study, well-paid, and flexible enough for students to focus on their education while making connections that will help their careers. Indeed, paid internships can create a vital link between education and employment for students.
Announcing the Community College Workforce Transformation & Implementation Cohort
Artificial intelligence is poised to disrupt work as we know it. The OECD is predicting up to a third of jobs will be automated over the coming years. At the same time, the American labor market is slowing, particularly for Black Americans, with rising interest rates meant to rein in inflation. American workers face an uncertain future. To address these challenges, we need a system that supports people retraining for the jobs that are available and can sustain a family.
Announcing the Community College Workforce Transformation & Implementation Cohort Program & Advisory Committee
Community colleges play a critical role in helping people connect to careers. After the Great Recession, community colleges emerged as the workforce and economic development institution filling the gaps left by traditional higher education for non-degree career education, meeting the needs of local employers and communities for emerging skills.
A Community College’s Journey to Further Equity Through Economic & Community Impact
In October 2022, President Williams of Montgomery College set an ambitious goal as part of his inaugural speech, about a year into his tenure. He promised, “that 100 percent of the College’s credit and non-credit offerings will be mapped onto a credential of economic, social, and community impact.” In doing so, President Williams sought to make every credential offered by the college connect to a job with a family-sustaining wage.
Community College Bachelor’s Degrees and Traditional-Age Students
A growing body of research points to the considerable benefits of community college baccalaureate (CCB) programs for adult learners, both in the form of higher earnings and career advancement opportunities. Community college bachelor’s degrees fill a critical gap in the supply of affordable and accessible baccalaureate education for adult learners, as evidenced by the fact that CCB students do tend to be older than traditional students.
How to Use Data to Improve Non-Degree Workforce Programs at Community Colleges
Despite the growing demand for and availability of non-degree workforce training, outcomes for these programs are mixed. For some, non-degree programs are a faster, more affordable pathway to a good job, and, more importantly, a career that offers economic security—they represent the future of education.
The Job: The Bottom Line
Nondegree Credentials New America partnered with 12 community colleges for research on what goes into quality nondegree program design and recently released two briefs in a three-part series on the project. The group conducted site visits at each college to understand what works and what doesn’t with nondegree tracks. The brief series is designed to help community college leaders better plan, deliver, and improve high-quality programs. Read the full newsletter here.
Suggested Alternative Names for ‘Noncredit’ Programs
Our event "Getting Non-Degree Community College Programs Right: Centering Quality in Workforce Education" led by Shalin Jyotishi and Iris Palmer was covered by Inside Higher Ed in an article discussing alternative names for "non-credit programs".
Using Policy to Support High-Quality, Non-Degree Community College Workforce Programs
Policy and program improvement organizations have been focused on supporting data-driven decision-making at community colleges for many years. But using data to plan, design, and improve non-degree programs was not as common as we had hoped in the field. To support data availability and its use, states and the federal government need to make the following changes: Provide Program-Level Wage and Placement Data Many colleges do not have systems to track post-graduation outcomes.
How to Deliver High-Quality, Non-Degree Workforce Community College Programs
This brief covers five essential steps to make non-degree program plans a reality. 1. Fund Your Program Predictable and adequate federal and state funding for non-degree workforce training is essential for effective workforce programming.
Building Financial Structures to Support Community College Bachelor’s Degrees
Arizona is taking innovative steps towards increasing the number of residents with bachelor’s degrees. Educational attainment in Arizona trails the national average. In 2020, only 34 percent of working Arizonans had at least a bachelor’s degree compared to 39 percent nationally. And attainment gaps are particularly large in rural communities, where fewer students pursue a postsecondary education.
When to Outsource Online Learning, and When Not To
A report by Iris Palmer was cited in an article about whether colleges should outsource their online learning programs (through Online Program Management) or handle it in-house. Like a lot of professors whose field of study is higher education, Jeffrey C. Sun frequently gets asked by administrators at his institution to weigh in on thorny issues they’re debating.
Colorado has big gaps in who finishes college. Can a post-pandemic push turn the tide?
Colorado’s low college-going rates have deep roots and complicated causes. Only half of all high school graduates enroll in college at all. Black and Latino high school graduates, who often attend under-resourced schools and have less support, go at much lower rates. When they get to college, many never finish. And the state has underfunded higher education for years, which means schools have less money to support students to graduation.
Addressing America’s Affordability Crisis
Community college students experience high levels of basic needs insecurity, which includes going without food, difficulty paying rent and bills, and homelessness. An April 2021 survey of 195,000 students at 202 colleges and universities in 42 states, found that almost 40 percent of community college respondents had experienced food insecurity in the preceding month. Housing insecurity affected over half of respondents and almost 15 percent of students reported struggling with homelessness.
How Can We Free the Data to Support Community College Improvement?
When Van Ton-Quinlivan started at the California Community College Chancellor's office in July of 2011, she quickly received an earnest request from a college administrator to “free the data.” When she looked into what that meant, she found that “local data was being uploaded into the state repository, captured – or ‘locked’– into a cycle of compliance reporting but offered little added value back to the colleges.” This discovery and the belief that we value what we measure led her to...
How Can Community Colleges Further Equity in Enrollment?
About an hour from New York City sits the idyllic county of Morris, New Jersey. Full of historic charm, the county is one of the wealthiest in the state. But this wealth hides a disturbing fact. Thirty percent of County Morris households make less than a living wage. And the situation is worse for Black and Latino residents: almost 50 percent of Black and 45 percent of Latino households fall below that threshold. On a hill sits the County College of Morris (CCM).
Free college: How do you pay for it?
In The News Piece in The Hill Iris Palmer is quoted by The Hill regarding current free college plans and federal funding. However, the reality of the federal government taking up free college proposals anytime soon appears bleak. First lady Jill Biden confirmed in February that the president’s proposal to make two years of community college free for eligible students did not garner enough Democratic votes to pass through the Senate.
Three innovative ways community colleges can plan for and fund non-degree workforce programs
Enrollment declines are putting financial pressure on community colleges at a time when they need to innovate to contribute to the economic recovery. Simultaneously, more workforce-oriented colleges and their employer partners are exploring how more affordable quality non-degree (credit and non-credit) workforce programs, such as certificates, industry certifications, apprenticeships, and bootcamps, could attract students back to school.
Community colleges and American Jobs Centers must work together to maximize their impact on education attainment and workforce development.
One-Stop Career Centers, also known as American Job Centers, are locally-operated and federally funded, through Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act (WIOA), to support a wide range of employment, training, and career education services available to employers, workers, job seekers, and youth.
“Unpaid internships should be illegal:” Why colleges should reconsider unpaid internships.
Congratulations! You just received an offer to intern in our nation’s capital. After wooing the search committee with your resume, impressive writing sample, and acing your interviews for a federal internship, this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity seemingly feels within reach. But not so fast. A significant barrier still stands in your way.
Ten Take-Aways from the New Government Funding Package
Today, President Biden signed the Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2022 (the Act) into law. The package provides funding for the federal government for fiscal year (FY) 2022, which runs through September. The product of a lengthy appropriations process, the Act launches new initiatives, increases funding levels for many existing programs, and focuses on providing support for low-income and traditionally underserved communities.
What makes a community college excel at workforce development?
They say if you want to know an organization’s priorities, don’t look at the strategic plan—look at the organization’s budget—revenues and expenditures. We know that community colleges are responsible for varied missions from transfer pathways to workforce training, but we also heard that these competing priorities can result in a lack of focus that might leave local employers, labor groups, economic developers, and even students frustrated and looking for alternatives.
Building California’s Health Care Workforce through Labor Management and Community College Partnerships
Blog Post Photo by Irwan iwe on Unsplash Nov. 16, 2021 Health care in California has a problem. Like many places in this country, the state needs thousands more allied health workers than it is on track to train in critical roles like licensed vocational nurses and certified nursing assistants. Current and future allied health workers should be able to access training that fits into their lives with wages and benefits that meet their needs.
Building TAACCCT Better
Photo by Bhargav Nunna on Unsplash Nov. 5, 2021 After a whirlwind week in a whirlwind year of negotiations on a reconciliation package, two community college investments are now in the Build Back Better Act.
Federal Support for Subsidized Jobs at Community Colleges
Brief By Ivy Love , Iris Palmer , and Wesley Whistle Sept. 13, 2021 A number of recent surveys indicate that a primary factor driving a young adult’s decision to leave school during the COVID-19 pandemic was the need to earn money. A recent New America survey, for example, found that 41 percent of respondents said they dropped out or did not attend school as planned because they needed to work to support themselves or their families.
Federal Higher Education Policy During COVID-19
The COVID-19 pandemic was a disruption like no other, and its impact on higher education has been significant. Rarely in higher education has change come so abruptly, for so many. Overnight, colleges were forced to shutter their campuses and move to remote learning in order to avoid a public health crisis. Millions of students who have only ever been in face-to-face courses were thrust into a new modality.
Apply for New America's New Models for Career Preparation Workforce Innovators Cohort
New America seeks six exemplary community colleges to join us in uncovering the institutional factors that empower institutions to offer high-quality, non-degree workforce programs that lead to quality jobs. Blog Post Jennifer G. Lang / Shutterstock.com Aug. 23, 2021 Over the past decade, millions of Americans without a college degree emerged from the Great Recession in jobs that were low-wage, insecure, and lacked benefits like paid leave, and COVID-19 made matters much worse.
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