C. Coordinate and align public higher education curriculum
Massachusetts has a highly educated and skilled workforce but not in enough numbers for the occupations projecting the greatest growth (health care, technology, and education.
9) Establish formal coordination between public higher education curriculum and workforce development needs
Public institutions of higher education are central to workforce development strategies. In the case of community colleges, virtually all their students enroll to enhance their employment, either directly or by later transferring to four-year colleges. Not all knowledge economy jobs require advanced degrees. Many of the jobs created from research and development in fields such as technology, biotechnology, and healthcare require preparation in the form of associate degrees and certificates that are provided by community colleges. Additionally, community colleges have a strong record of responding quickly to local needs and can create new programs to meet the demand for “technical” education generated by job growth resulting from research and development.
Such efforts to respond to workforce development needs must be based on labor market projections, and the efforts should be coordinated across campuses to avoid redundancy or omissions. Based on such coordination, community colleges can more effectively invest in the programs, facilities, and faculty necessary to meet workforce needs. A state level workforce development task force could work with community and state college presidents and deans, as well as industry, adult basic education, and community-based organizations to develop certificate and degree programs in high skill, high demand occupations. Such an effort should recognize the existing structures that seek to fill this niche at a smaller scale, as well as the important distinctions and specializations between individual colleges and universities.
9.a The Department of Higher Education should establish a workforce development task force and coordinator focused on curriculum alignment
9.b Workforce investment boards should expand their membership to include community college leaders
9.c Major employers should establish “workforce pipeline partnerships” with community colleges
10) Facilitate the creation of new programs in high-demand fields at state and community colleges
Certain high demand fields, including nursing education, occupational therapy, social work, and educational leadership, face a critical and severe shortage of qualified instructors and advanced practitioners. Currently state colleges in Massachusetts are prohibited from granting the doctoral degrees that these instructors and advanced practitioners need, even if the institutions have faculty expertise in these fields and demonstrated student demand.
To help fill the existing gap of qualified practitioners and instructors in high demand fields, the state should give state colleges authority to offer doctoral programs in targeted high demand disciplines. Such expansion should be coordinated with the workforce development coordinating entity described above, in order to prevent redundancy and to ensure that the programs are being created at institutions with appropriate capacity.
Program expansions would also allow state colleges to attract additional funding from grants, foundations, and research programs, while still remaining focused on teaching. With increasing credential requirements in many fields, the institutions must be able to change the way they deliver services in order to meet the requirements of an external environment driven by changing technologies. In addition the state needs to transition, where appropriate, its state colleges to universities to stay competitive with other industrialized states.
10.a The Department of Higher Education should develop a process to expand degree granting authority of state colleges
10.b The legislature should establish a funding pool to support capacity expansion in high-demand occupations
11) Strengthen coordination within the community college system
Investments that build capacity in the community college system must make sense as a whole, across the system, and must also be relevant to the region in which the community college is located.
Metro Boston’s community colleges operate independently with support, guidance, and oversight from the Massachusetts Department of Higher Education. While there is no formal community college “system,” there are several regional consortia of public higher education institutions, such as EdLink in Northeastern Massachusetts and Connect in Southeastern Massachusetts. These collaborations are positioned to link curriculum development at institutions of public higher education with current industry needs provide the institutions with the ability to coordinate their work.
Massachusetts has a much less centralized community college system than do other states. For example, the North Carolina Community College System comprises 58 community colleges operating under the direction of one president. The system has a well-defined mission to provide workforce development, adult basic education, and literacy education, as part of a statewide pre-K-through-university education strategy. The state provides access to $20 million of funds for workforce training annually.
While a fully centralized system may not be appropriate or feasible for Massachusetts or Metro Boston, greater coordination can be achieved by expanding the reach of existing regional consortia or creating new ones.
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