LESSONS IN LEADERSHIP
...
AACC and Goodwill team up in race to help
achieve 5 million additional graduates
On Your Mark
BY JIM GIBBONS AND ROBERT TEMPLIN JR.
Gladys, a 30-something displaced worker and homemaker who needed new job skills to re-enter the workforce, spoke these words on her first day at one of Northern Virginia Community College’s (NOVA’s) six job training programs offered jointly with local nonprofit job-training providers. Once in the program, participants like Gladys co-enroll in
NOVA courses for up to 18 college credits at no cost by leveraging financial aid through NOVA. One year later, Gladys walked across
the stage at NOVA’s commencement with a new
certificate, having already secured a $32,000 office
administrative job with benefits to support her two
teenage daughters.
We’ve all heard calls from national policy experts, the
Obama administration, and influential foundations such as
the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and Lumina Foundation for Education to increase the number of Americans with
postsecondary credentials earned at community colleges by 5
million within 10 years. If community colleges choose to run this
race solo, America will not reach the finish line in time.
On the other hand, college is the only
place where people like Gladys can hope
to obtain an advanced or postsecondary
credential, America’s surest ticket to
long-term success.
Together, America’s 1,200 com-
munity colleges and local Goodwill
organizations form an ideal relay team
to help hundreds of thou-
sands of America’s 97
million adults with
a high school
diploma but no
college creden-
tial achieve
career and col-
lege success.
Goodwill Inter-
national represents
the nation’s largest
network of nonprofit job
training providers, with 158 local Good-
will affiliates in the United States that
delivered job training and employment
services to 1. 9 million clients in 2009.
Goodwill’s nationwide social enter-
prise generates $3.6 billion in revenue
per year to help fund its workforce
development and family strengthening
RADIUS IMAGES/GLOW IMAGES
“Living poor in
America slowly beats
your dreams down.
I came to this
program to lift my
dreams back up.”
Complementary Skill Sets
Community colleges alone cannot effectively serve most low-wage working adults
or displaced workers. Many, such as Gladys, require rapid labor market payoff
and specialized support services that colleges generally do not offer. Fortunately,
nonprofit job-training providers such as Goodwill and others excel at providing
exactly these types of services to help low-income family breadwinners launch new
and higher-paying careers.
