That stat is from the American Association of Community Colleges (AACC)<\/A>, which recently held its annual conference.Our own Bill Boswell presented at the conference with two of our academic partners \u2013 Cincinnati State Technical and Community College<\/A> and Iowa Western Community College<\/A> ona “Closing the Skills Gap” panel.
Here is video summary with some of the highlights of the panel presentation:
http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=rK0G1fLyiic
At the event, AACC delivered an implementation guide titled \u201cEmpowering Community Colleges to Build the Nation’s Future.\u201d The guide followed the organization’s 21st Century Initiative that set a goal to increase college completion rates<\/STRONG> by 50 percent by 2020<\/STRONG>. You can follow initiative at www.aacc21stcenturycenter.org<\/A>.
The increased completion goal is aggressive. A U.S. Department of Education report found that just 18 percent of U.S. community colleges students graduate in three years. Schools point out many community college students attend part-time so a six-year outlook is more realistic \u2013 and others transfer to a four-year institution. The report noted that 72 percent of students with an associate\u2019s degree earn a bachelor’s degree vs. 56 percent that leave without completing.
At the conference there were numerous discussions on ensuring the community college open door doesn’t become a revolving door.
AACC\u2019s implementation guide provides examples of reverse transfer programs, including one in Texas that provides a mathematics pathway from developmental math through college stats. The Mathways project<\/A> includes bridge courses to ensure seamless transitions to all 50 community colleges in the state. Texas also puts an emphasis on postsecondary readiness. It established a goal to be in the top 10 states for graduating college ready students with requirements outlined in House Bill 5<\/A>.
Not all recommendations in the guide provided a specific metric. Yet the guide provides schools with specific actions, i.e. for the recommendation: “close the American skills gap.”
- Understand and communicate labor market trends – requires stronger employer engagement<\/LI>
\t - Develop career pathways – requires stackable, short-term programs and credentials.
(We have been working with organizations like MassMEP and MACWIC in Massachusetts on similar pathways in advanced manufacturing<\/A>.)<\/LI>
\t- Incorporate more work-based, hands-on and tech-rich leaning (internships, apprenticeships, projects and competitions)<\/LI>
\t- Deepen industry partnerships so education\/training matches jobs<\/LI>
<\/OL>
AACC also noted at the conference they are collaborating with the Khan academy to provide online options. It shows the system that is more than 100-years old<\/A> is adapting to new technology and ways of learning.![\"community](\"http:\/\/community.plm.automation.siemens.com\/legacyfs\/online\/wordpress\/images\/2014\/06\/DSC_0073-Medium-300x199.jpg\")
<\/A>AACC panel included Bill Boswell, Siemens PLM Software, Dr. O’dell Owens, Cincinnati State, Dr. Dan Kinney, Iowa Western and Todd Cohen, AACC<\/DIV> <\/DIV>
Leading community colleges like Iowa Western and Cincinnati State are adapting and advancing design and manufacturing education through close working relationships with local industry.
Learn more at www.siemens.com\/plm\/communitycollege<\/A> and engage your local community college today.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"When I started school, my mom went back to school. She attended our local community college and completed an associate\u2019s degree. She went on to complete a bachelor\u2019s degree at that same college throu…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":61893,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"spanish_translation":"","french_translation":"","german_translation":"","italian_translation":"","polish_translation":"","japanese_translation":"","chinese_translation":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[102,1],"tags":[19],"industry":[],"product":[],"coauthors":[],"class_list":["post-646","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-events","category-news","tag-academic"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.sw.siemens.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/646","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.sw.siemens.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.sw.siemens.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.sw.siemens.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/61893"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.sw.siemens.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=646"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.sw.siemens.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/646\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":647,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.sw.siemens.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/646\/revisions\/647"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.sw.siemens.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=646"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.sw.siemens.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=646"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.sw.siemens.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=646"},{"taxonomy":"industry","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.sw.siemens.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/industry?post=646"},{"taxonomy":"product","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.sw.siemens.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/product?post=646"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.sw.siemens.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=646"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
- Incorporate more work-based, hands-on and tech-rich leaning (internships, apprenticeships, projects and competitions)<\/LI>
\t