Recipients Of $450M Job-Driven Training Grants Announced

WASHINGTON– Training America’s workers with the skills they need for a good job can help middle class families and help American businesses grow our economy. While America’s businesses have created 10 million jobs over the past 54 months, the longest streak of uninterrupted job growth in our country’s history, we need to do more to train Americans with the skills they need, and connect them with businesses that are looking for skilled workers.

As part of this effort, Vice President Biden, Secretary Thomas E. Perez, and Secretary Arne Duncan announced the winners of $450 million in job-driven training grants going to nearly 270 community colleges across the country. The funding is part of the Trade Adjustment Assistance Community College and Career Training (TAACCCT) competitive grant program, which is co-administered by the Department of Labor and Department of Education.

The grants will provide community colleges and other eligible institutions of higher education with funds to partner with employers to expand and improve their ability to deliver education and career training programs that will help job seekers get the skills they need for in-demand jobs in industries like information technology, healthcare, energy, and advanced manufacturing.

Building on the strategies advanced in the Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act, these types of job-driven training partnerships were also identified in the Vice President’s job-driven training report released in July as an important way to successfully prepare and place workers in jobs that pay a middle class wage.

Additional Information About Today’s Winners:

• Awarding $450 Million to Nearly 270 Community Colleges Partnering with More than 400 Employers Nationally: Today’s 71 grantees build on nearly $1.5 billion in TAACCCT grant funds that have gone over the past three years to strengthen and expand job-driven training partnerships in communities across the country.
• Partnerships with Hundreds of Employers to Train Low-Wage Workers for Middle-Class Jobs: All grantees are required to partner with employers to develop training programs to enable workers to build skills that will help them obtain good jobs. Partnerships with employers such as Exxon-Mobil, IBM, Delta, Jetblue, CVS, and Habitat for Humanity, and with labor and community based organizations such as SEIU, Goodwill Industries, Urban League and the United Way, will assist in getting thousands of low-wage Americans access to more internships, apprenticeships, and job-relevant basic skills education and training in order to move up the career ladder into better-paying jobs that employers across the country are looking to fill.
• Winners Are in High Demand Fields – Including 25 Focusing on IT and Cybersecurity: 25 grantees are developing new training programs for information technology and cybersecurity jobs, which are growing two times the national average. In partnership with employers such as Lockheed Martin, Raytheon, Booz Allen, and SpaceX, these programs will help alleviate the projected national shortage of IT workers.  According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, there will be 1.4 million additional IT jobs created by 2020 and only 400,000 computer science graduates.

Building on Progress and Moving Ahead

Many of today’s grantees are building on the efforts of past TAACCCT winners, leveraging curriculum that has been developed through strong partnerships between community colleges, the workforce system, employers and industry groups to transform the way they design and deliver courses through accelerated learning strategies.

Consistent with the recommendation of the Vice President’s job-driven training report, community college grantees in this final round will work with business and industry to upskill thousands of low-wage, low-skill workers and expand competency-based accelerated training pathways to in-demand jobs in information technology, manufacturing, health care, and other fields.

The Administration will continue to take action and work with educators, businesses, labor, and other leaders across the country to train American workers, expand the middle class, and grow the economy. The Vice President’s job-driven training report identified a job-driven “checklist” as a tool to maximize the effectiveness of over 25 competitive grant programs, to direct state and local training and employment programs to become more job-driven, to make sure all federal employment and training programs are engaging employers, and to improve information on employment results so we know what’s working well and what’s not.

We must continue to invest in these types of partnerships, which successfully train American workers. That’s why the President’s 2015 budget proposes a $6 billion Community College Job-Driven Training Fund to ensure that we are sufficiently investing in partnerships between our nation’s community colleges and employers to ensure all American have access to workplace relevant skills and training.

The President’s 2015 budget proposes investing $6 billion over four years in a Community College Job-Driven Training Fund. This fund would support competitive grants to partnerships of community colleges, industry and employers to reform job training curricula and launch new programs to train workers for in-demand jobs and careers. This fund will also help to spur the development and adoption of common, industry-recognized credentials and skill assessments to allow employers to more easily identify and hire qualified candidates. $2 billion of these funds will be set aside to double the number of U.S. Registered Apprenticeships within five years.

Full List of TAACCCT Grant Recipients And Pathways to Career Grantees Announced 

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