The Transformative Power of Community Colleges and Future Role of Workforce Education: Roundtable Insights

Apr 14, 2025 | Innovation

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To better understand the rapid transformations in higher education and the future of workforce education at community colleges, NCWE convened a pre-conference roundtable with 50 select community college leaders, national partners, and higher education thought leaders in October 2024. With generous support from the Lumina Foundation, attendees participated in an interactive action lab, exploring the programs, partnerships, and policies that both advance and hinder opportunity.

Through dynamic discussions, leaders examined the challenges and opportunities ahead, focusing on ways to amplify the transformative power of community colleges to drive economic prosperity nationwide. The roundtable generated a set of key insights and recommendations that will inform NCWE’s strategies and strengthen support for its network. These findings also highlight critical priorities for community college leaders and outline strategies to fulfill the mission of community colleges in an evolving workforce landscape.

Leadership Development and Institutional Transformation

Developing and Supporting Workforce Education Community College Leaders

  • There is a strong emphasis on developing transformational leaders within community colleges to drive systemic change. Community colleges cannot seize the opportunities of today and solve the problems facing our future by replicating leadership frameworks, strategies, and approaches of the past. Future-focused leaders must prioritze workforce.
  • Effective community college workforce leaders must concurrently focus on what’s possible within existing systems and programs; and what changes are needed at the local, state, and national level to boost collective opportunity. This is particularly pertinent when it comes to blurring the lines between credit and noncredit, work-based learning, holistic supports, and funding (at institutional and student level).
    Workforce leadership training and development should focus on:
    • Environmental scanning – understanding internal and external factors influencing workforce education.
    • Creating access – ensuring DEI (Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion) remains central to leadership strategies to support learners, staff/faculty, and employer and community partners.
    • Policy literacy – knowing what can be done, what cannot, and what needs to change.
    • Institutional advocacy – navigating funding, partnerships, and policy to improve workforce programs.

Breaking-down Institutional Silos

  • Workforce education (noncredit and credit) often operates separately from academic transfer programs, creating inefficiencies and resource gaps for workforce programs.
  • Leadership development should help bridge the academic-workforce divide and align programs and policies to ensure seamless integration.

Expanding Leadership Development Opportunities

  • The pressing issues facing higher education, our economy, and communities require solutions that can be tailored locally and taken to scale quickly. Leaders want more opportunity to ideate and problem solve with peers.
  • There is a need for more structured training in communication and storytelling, so workforce leaders can better advocate for their programs internally and externally.

Centering Students in Workforce Development

Expanding Access and Equity

  • Programs must be designed with students in mind, capturing diverse student voices and experiences.
  • Credit for prior learning is essential for recognizing students’ previous work and education.
  • There is a gap in data collection—non-completers and adult learners often go unaccounted for in program assessments and informal and formal improvement processes.
  • Special attention is needed for adult learners, including English Language Learners (ELL) and incumbent workers, to ensure their work and life experiences are leveraged for career advancement.

Building Pathways for Lifelong Learning

  • Programs should provide clear, stackable credentials that help students progress in their careers.
  • Colleges should develop common processes for incumbent workers to transition to the next skill level to support professional development and the attainment of additional credentials that support career advancement. 
  • Holistic student support is crucial—navigators, career coaches, and public benefit and social service connectors can boost student success.

Prioritizing Student Involvement

  • Former students should be actively involved in program advisory committees to share insights and improve curriculum design.
  • There is a strong push for student representation on college boards, ensuring policies align with student needs.

Strengthening Partnerships within the Workforce Ecosystem

Employer Collaboration & Strategic Partnerships

  • Partnerships should not be transactional—employers must have strategic “skin in the game.”
  • The co-design model is critical—workforce programs should be developed in partnership with employers to ensure real-world relevance and connection to careers.
  • Eliminating redundancies and maximizing quality – There can be competition between K-12, community colleges, for-profit institutions, career centers, and four-year universities, sometimes duplicating efforts with varying degrees of quality and outcomes for learners.

Innovative Employer Engagement Strategies

  • Community colleges need to think beyond traditional models and embrace new models that value competency and skills as employers demand faster responsiveness from colleges and development of work-based learning and apprenticeship programs.
  • Community-engaged learning models can strengthen employer-education collaboration.
  • Resource allocation is a concern—partnerships must balance value-add vs. revenue generation.

Challenges in Partnership Development

  • Colleges must define their value and clearly articulate their offerings for industry and community partners to illustrate the full spectrum of workforce education programs – noncredit credentials to credit career and technical education (CTE) degrees.
  •  Terminology differences create confusion—how workforce education is defined varies across institutions and organizations. An inclusive and expansive definition is needed to improve learning and credential pathways for learners, and talent pipelines for employers.

Policy & Funding Challenges in Workforce Education

Inadequate Support for Students 

  • Many community colleges operate under admission, advising, and financial aid policies that disadvantage noncredit students.
  • The focus on four-year degrees as the norm creates structural barriers for students pursuing workforce education.

Expanding Funding Models

  • Many existing funding models and policies do not adequately fund short-term and noncredit programs (e.g., Pell Grants exclude many noncredit and credit short-term programs).
  • Performance-based funding models (e.g., in Ohio and Texas) have pros and cons—while they reward success, they also risk incentivizing low-value credentials that do not truly benefit learners.
  • Some states (e.g., Virginia and Iowa) have introduced funding pools specifically for workforce education, but these best practices are not widely shared across institutions.

Addressing Labor Market & Economic Disparities

  • The pandemic changed labor market dynamics, temporarily raising wages in key sectors—how can this momentum and focus on improving job quality be sustained?
  • A key issue is the “benefits cliff”—when increased wages lead to a loss of essential benefits and reduction it reduces career progression and financial stability.
  • The rising cost of housing and basic needs is another major barrier—how can workforce education be integrated with social and public benefit policies?

Reframing the Community College Narrative

Stronger Storytelling & Messaging

  • Community colleges struggle to tell their story effectively—they are often overshadowed by four-year institutions.
  • Colleges need to shift the message from “low cost” to “high ROI“—students need to see clear economic benefits.
  • There is increasing competition in workforce education from other entities, making it even more crucial to clarify the unique value of community colleges and importance of credentials of value.

Changing Public Perception

  • Community colleges play a critical role in regional economic development, but the public often sees them as a secondary choice to four-year universities.
  • The “education story” should be personalized and create a more expansive understanding of the value of higher education—featuring students who have benefited from community colleges and workforce education pathways.
  • Institutions should ask, “What does college mean to you?” to shape messaging that resonates with diverse learners.

The Role of NCWE in Advancing Workforce Education

Advocacy & Policy Leadership

  • NCWE should strengthen its role as an advocate for policy change, at the state and federal level.
  • Collaboration with AACC and other policy and research organizations is crucial for shaping funding and policies that benefit workforce education and learners.

Building a National Forum for Workforce Education

  • There is a need for a dedicated space for workforce education leaders and emerging leaders to share knowledge, challenges, and best practices.
  • Peer learning, technical assistance, and resource-sharing should be expanded within the NCWE network, as well as leadership and professional development opportunities.

Expanding Research & Data Collection

  • More data is needed on student success in noncredit programs, including outcomes tracking post-graduation.
  • Colleges need better technology integration for registration and outcomes tracking, particularly for noncredit students.
  • College workforce leaders want to learn from peers and understand how colleges and states are successfully tackling workforce education data and technology system integration.

Summary of Recommendations

The roundtable discussions highlighted critical opportunities and challenges facing community colleges in workforce education. Key priorities moving forward include:

1. Investing in leadership development – Workforce education leaders need better training and visibility.

2. Strengthening dynamic employer partnerships – Co-designed, strategic partnerships will ensure alignment with industry needs and benefits for learners.

3. Expanding funding opportunities – Advocacy is needed to push for more equitable funding models that include noncredit programs.

4. Changing the narrative – Community colleges must tell a compelling, student-centered and ROI-driven story that demonstrates their value and illustrates their impact.

5. Scaling success – Best practices from successful state initiatives, programs, and policies should be shared across institutions.

6. NCWE’s role in advocacy – More work is needed at the federal and state policy level to integrate workforce education into mainstream higher education policy.