AUSTIN, Texas - A new national survey of community and technical colleges highlights the importance of job-focused education and training.

It finds 35% of students at these schools are taking non-credit courses that lead to industry certifications and credentials. That's a change from students who used to stick with academic courses designed to transfer to a four year school.

Tamar Jacoby - president of Opportunity America, the group that did the survey - said community and technical colleges offer students, whether they're 18 or 48, an affordable pathway to a career.

"Community college students can be job-focused or not job focused,' said Jacoby. "They can be learning welding or nursing or they can be learning liberal arts and sociology."

Texas' Commissioner of Higher Education Harrison Keller says many students enrolled in non-credit programs later pursue four year degrees, but on average, only 20% of community colleges allow students to leverage non-credit learning for college credit.

According to the survey, of the nation's 10.5 million community college students, about three quarters are older than 25.

Last week, the Austin Community College District announced a new partnership with Toyota Motor North America, called "Technician Training and Education Network," to begin next fall. It's designed to provide a pipeline to careers with Toyota and Lexus.

Chauncy Lennon, vice president for learning and work at Lumina Foundation, said the next challenge is getting more American businesses to cross-promote innovation.

"Get industries to come together and better identify their shared skill needs," said Lennon. "And then, signal those over to the community-college system."

A survey question about partnerships between community colleges and local employers found that only about 36% of employer partners offer workplace-based learning opportunities.

Support for this reporting was provided by Lumina Foundation.

DENVER - On Wednesday, leaders from Colorado's 13 community colleges joined a national effort to help more of the state's adults get credentials and degrees.

Landon Pirius, a vice chancellor for academic and student affairs with the Colorado Community College System, said the goal is to transform programs traditionally designed for 18-to-22- year-olds in order to make education more accessible for adult learners.

"It should help, in this particular case," said Pirius, "adult students of color get additional higher education that can change the trajectory of their lives, and the communities that they live in."

Colleges will work closely with the Colorado Workforce Development Council to ensure that certificate and degree programs match current and future jobs that pay a living wage.

The effort, called the Racial Equity for Adult Credentials in Higher Education (REACH) Collaborative, is funded by a grant from Lumina Foundation.

Pirius said entire programs could be transformed to open career pathways for traditionally under-represented communities. Classes may be condensed to be completed in half the current time, or scheduled on nights and weekends to accommodate older students' schedules and responsibilities.

"Most [older students] have to support their families, they have mortgages to pay," said Pirius. "So, can we stack our credentials so that they can continue to move up in their profession, get more money, while they continue to go to school?"

For example, students who complete a Certified Nursing Assistant credential can start work, and get credits toward a Licensed Practical Nursing or LPN certificate. And higher-paying LPN work will count toward an Associate Degree and license to work as a higher-paid Registered Nurse.

Pirius said the REACH Collaborative will allow states to share these sorts of best practices.

"There's some things that Colorado might do better than, say, Texas or New York," said Pirius. "And there's some things that those states do better than we do. And by linking us all together, we can share strategies, share policies."

Colorado is one of six states in the REACH Program.

Support for this reporting was provided by Lumina Foundation.

INDIANAPOLIS -- As finding a career becomes more difficult for young people, a new report said the U.S. needs a more comprehensive approach to supporting them, through their school years and into the working world.

The study, from the Georgetown University Center on Education and the Workforce, shows how pressures have been building on youth for decades. People used to be able to launch their careers in their 20s. Today, most don't get there until their 30s.

Monty Hulse, senior director of strategic initiatives for the Indiana Afterschool Network, which helps students with college and career readiness programs, said in recent years, school curriculums have become less flexible.

"While there's also the expectation that they would be taking on some of the career and college preparation that they don't have time, and often they don't have the staff, to do," Hulse observed.

He pointed out that is where certain after-school programs can come in, but not all students are able to access them. The report recommends more widespread coordination to ensure students truly are ready to move to the next stage.

Tony Carnevale, research professor and director of the Georgetown University Center on Education and the Workforce and the report's author, said it starts with making sure kids have the same access to education, starting with preschool.

He noted disparities remain in educational outcomes and test scores, and they translate to income disparities for young adults.

"Education and the economy are now linked much more strongly than they used to be," Carnevale explained. "We're getting attempts to connect the dots between the silos in the American education system and labor markets."

The report said Black and Latino youth have higher unemployment rates than their white peers and are more likely to be neither employed nor enrolled in school.

Carnevale thinks the Biden administration's Build Back Better Act could help close those gaps earlier in life, by making preschool available to all families at no cost, and providing more support for the most disadvantaged students in grades K-12.

Support for this reporting was provided by Lumina Foundation.

SACRAMENTO, Calif. -- Community college students in California are being encouraged to take a closer look at their education plans, to see if transferring to a state university makes sense, and new policy changes aim to ease that pathway.

The changes are part of a package of higher-education bills Gov. Gavin Newsom signed into law this month.

Two of them simplify the process for students at two-year schools to transfer to others within the state's public university systems.

Michele Siqueiros, president of the nonprofit Campaign for College Opportunity, which championed the bills, said the changes come amid increased awareness of equity issues in the U.S.

"There are huge gaps in transfer rates, depending on race and ethnicity," Siqueiros pointed out. "You have significantly lower transfer rates for Latinx and Black students, for some southeast Asian students, for low-income students."

She pointed out a lot of the students are the first in their family to attend college, but face financial obstacles in extending their academic careers. A report from the group found among freshmen in California community colleges, only 2.5% will transfer in two years.

Among other changes, a bill signed by the governor eliminates redundancies in labeling required courses.

While an easier transfer path will help, Siqueiros noted other barriers include an insufficient number of counselors, but she hopes a simplified process means it will not be so overwhelming for students making decisions on their own.

"We shouldn't make it so confusing that you actually, you know, need to have hours of counseling session in order to get it right," Siqueiros argued.

She warned there is legitimate concern within the higher-education community about capacity at larger institutions. With the new laws in place, advocates want the state's public universities to ensure they have enough resources to welcome eligible students who plan to take advantage of the quicker pathway.

Support for this reporting was provided by Lumina Foundation.