Community College Excellence
Investments in Community Colleges for Workforce Development
As Governor, Chet Culver’s plan for community college excellence would include:
I. Public-Private Partnerships to Prepare Our Workforce for the Future
The community college system has grown and expanded to become a part of an invaluable vocational education system as well as a center of lifelong learning and community education courses. Now, it’s time to update our community colleges for the mission of reorienting Iowa’s workforce to the challenges of the new economy.
Public-private partnerships will be the mechanism for filling those specific needs. Already, employers are requesting that state job-training dollars be tailored to the specific needs of an industry or company. The state has a role in creating that partnership, and along the way we will strengthen community colleges by expanding their course offerings and bringing the expertise of industry professionals to the classroom.
Chet Culver will commit a combination of job-training, economic development and higher education dollars totaling $12.5 million with a target of attracting an additional investment of $12.5 million by private companies who will partner with the community colleges to create innovative new skills-training programs for Iowa workers.
II. All-Iowa Opportunity Scholarships
Too many Iowa students do not go to college, and some do not even apply, because they believe that they will not able to afford the cost of tuition. This is particularly true now in Iowa as Community College and state University tuitions have increased dramatically in the past several years.
Access to the American dream - a good job with good benefits, a home, and the ability to start and raise a family - increasingly requires a college education. Every child in Iowa deserves access to quality higher education and we should take steps right away to provide more college opportunities to Iowa’s students.
In his first legislative session, Chet Culver will propose the rapid implementation of an All-Iowa Opportunity Scholarship Program for Iowa’s high school juniors in the fall of 2007. He will propose that the state start off with up to a $25 million commitment to a new All-Iowa Opportunity Scholarship Program in 2007-08, enough to provide at least 5,000 new college scholarships in the first year of the program.
The All-Iowa Opportunity Scholarship will pay for up to a year of college at the regents institutions or up to two years of community college and will substantially expand Iowa’s current needs-based grant programs and make college more accessible and affordable to students of lower and middle income families.
III. Senior Year Plus
Virginia Governor Mark Warner has instituted a program in which high school students can access college course offerings in their own high school classrooms (through distance learning programs) and/or at local community colleges.
This program provides high school students with an opportunity to earn up to a full year of college credit by the time they leave their high schools. The “Senior Year Plus” program makes available all of the college freshman-level courses, at very low or no cost to the high school student who demonstrates an ambition and a commitment to achieve first year college level course work. Students, the local school district and the state share the expenses of the course work. For example, students purchase their own books for many courses.
Chet Culver will invest up to $3 million in an Iowa Senior Year Plus program. He will bring together local school districts, community colleges, Iowa’s private colleges and major universities and state government to set protocols on who pays for the transfer of college level credits when a student graduates from high school and chooses a college in Iowa. Under the Iowa Senior Year Plus program, high school students will be allowed to pursue academic coursework or selected advanced technical training in the field of his/her choice. For example, a student interested in dentistry could begin work toward a certificate in dental assisting, a good way for students to help pay for some of the costs of their own education.
