Amazon founder Jeff Bezos created quite a stir last year when he predicted that drones would one day help the company deliver packages to its legions of customers. While that reality is still a ways off, the commercial market for unmanned aircraft is surging, and a handful of U.S. community colleges and other institutions have […]

When the North Carolina Community College System kicked off its SuccessNC initiative back in 2010, the goal was to use data and promising practices to create new policies that would raise the bar on student achievement across the state’s 58 community colleges. Little more than three years and several accolades later, educators are promoting a […]

When Arizona’s Maricopa Community Colleges revealed late last year that a breach of its system’s data network potentially compromised personal information and data belonging to more than 2.4 million employees, students, community members and other stakeholders, administrators sprang into action. They sent letters to those affected and agreed to spend upwards of $7 million on […]

As a huge segment of the U.S. manufacturing workforce approaches retirement (the average U.S. manufacturing worker is 50 or older, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics), U.S. Secretary of Labor Thomas Perez knows it’s only a matter of time before a mass exodus from the profession widens the nation’s already troublesome skills gap. That’s […]

There was a time, not long ago, when a community college education made all the difference for disadvantaged students. The thinking was simple: Get students through that open door, help them earn a certificate or a degree in a competitive job field and the opportunity was theirs for the taking. All they had to do […]

A lot has been written about the growing need for skilled manufacturing workers. After losing more than 15 percent of total U.S. manufacturing jobs during the height of the Great Recession, many of those to cheaper labor overseas, the nation’s manufacturing sector has proved remarkably resilient. Since the end of the recession the sector has […]

Will the female scientists, tech gurus, engineers and mathematicians please stand up? Community colleges across the country may be seeing more women graduate with STEM degrees, in part because more two-year schools are establishing promising practices to offer more flexibility and training. According to the latest Commerce Department report on the gender gap in the […]

College is expensive. And the longer a student attends, the pricier it gets. An associate degree might cost a few thousand dollars; a bachelor’s degree —  depending on where a student enrolls — will cost double, even triple, that. And that’s not including graduate school or the need for professional credentials after college. Take accountants, […]

With enrollments beginning to decline in the face of a resurgent economy and budgets being stretched to the brink, you might think that investing in new job-training programs and facilities would be the last thing on administrators’ minds. But the old do-more-with-less mentality has done little to dampen enthusiasm at Illinois’ Waubonsee Community College (WCC), […]