Action Pillars: Pillar 4 | New Jersey Council of County Colleges

Pillar 4: Helping More Adults Get Credentials of Value Through Closer Integration of New Jersey’s Education and Public Workforce Training Systems

To keep up with evolving skills and achieve economic and career mobility, more adult and working learners will need ongoing access to education and training. Some of these needs can be met through short-term nondegree credential programs at community colleges. Many states have developed new programs to provide funding for short-term programs. To help ensure the quality of nondegree short-term credential programs*, many states limit funds to credentials identified as having value, either because they are recognized by employers or because they lead to wage premiums and opportunities for economic mobility, especially for underserved populations. The New Jersey Department of Labor and Workforce Development recently built new quality assurance standards into the state’s Eligible Training Provider List, which is required for any training provider to receive federal or state job training funds.

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Strategy 1: Further expand access to the Community College Opportunity Grant (CGOG) program

State and federal financial aid programs in NJ are focused solely on assisting students who attend credit-bearing degree programs. However, Community Colleges offer a significant number of short-term noncredit programs leading to an industry-valued credential that are not affordable to many students who could benefit from them.

Solution: Amend the CCOG to provide support for individuals pursuing industry-valued noncredit credentials that meet quality standards.

Solution: Modernize New Jersey’s Workforce Development Partnership Fund and the Supplemental Workforce Fund for Basic Skills to establish a New Economy Opportunity Skills Fund that could serve as a source of funding for Community College workforce and literacy programs.

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Strategy 2: Develop a consistent, statewide approach to Credit for Prior Learning (CPL)/Prior Learning Assessment (PLA)

Strategy 2: Develop a consistent, statewide approach to Credit for Prior Learning (CPL)/Prior Learning Assessment (PLA)

Many New Jerseyans start college with knowledge, skills, and competencies they have gained outside of traditional classrooms, including through work; industry training; apprenticeships, internships, or other work-based learning; volunteer and civic opportunities; life experiences; and military training. CPL awards credit to students for validated college-level knowledge, skills, and competencies—wherever they were attained. These can be validated through standardized examinations, faculty-developed challenge tests, portfolio-based and other individualized assessments, and evaluation of noncollege employer or military training by organizations such as the American Council on Education.

Research has found that CPL/PLA is associated with better outcomes for adult learners, including substantially higher completion rates, cost savings, and time savings. CPL/PLA also boosted completion rates for low-income adults and Pell Grant recipients, Black and Hispanic adults, and adults attending community colleges. PLA has also been found to improve the confidence of adult learners and can serve as an on-ramp to postsecondary education credentials and degrees, building bridges between noncredit and credit programs. Awarding CPL/PLA benefits institutions as well: adult students who earned CPL took on average 17.6 more credits than adults who did not receive CPL. However, PLA is underutilized across the United States: only 1 in 10 adult students earns college credit for their prior learning, and PLA usage is lowest among Black students, female students, and Pell Grant recipients.

Solution: NJ should develop a statewide policy to improve consistency of CPL/PLA across institutions; boosting awareness and usage of CPL/PLA; and addressing transparency, affordability, access, and quality to help more residents complete postsecondary degrees and credentials.

Areas of focus for a statewide policy could include:

Ensuring a common approach utilizing best practices for CPL/PLA and ensuring that credits earned through CPL/PLA will transfer to other institutions of higher education,
Allowing for state financial aid to support CPL/PLA,
Developing consistent messaging and strategies to ensure that all students and potential students are informed of CPL/PLA opportunities,
Developing a state CPL/PLA crosswalk for credentials and military training, and/or
Building a common CPL/PLA website.

Strategy 3: Reenvision the state’s workforce development system centered around Community Colleges

Currently, two parallel systems, both funded by state and federal investments, work to serve individuals who are unemployed and underemployed and to meet the needs of employers. These two systems—the state workforce development system and community colleges—have many connection points, but these vary dramatically from county to county, leaving individuals and employers confused about where to receive the assistance they need.

Solution: NJ should launch an intensive planning effort to build a new “opportunity system” that could:

Integrate Workforce Development Boards into community colleges to increase strategic coordination on economic development and to address local labor market needs.
Designate Community Colleges as the preferred provider of postsecondary education and workforce training through the workforce development system.
Establish Community Colleges as the leader of adult literacy programs by utilizing existing funding and in partnership with libraries and community-based organizations. Community Colleges should integrate basic and technical/career skills into the literacy training.

College Examples

Mercer County Community College Registered Apprenticeship with Trenton Water Works

Registered apprenticeship is a proven earn-and-learn model that helps industry meet workforce needs while helping individuals access pathways to careers with family-sustaining wages. Registered apprenticeships generally include a mix of on-the-job training and classroom instruction, with apprentices being full-time paid employees from the start of their program and receiving agreed-upon wage increases as they achieve milestones. MCCC is helping promote registered apprenticeship in New Jersey in several fields, including Health Care. MCCC partners with the Trenton Water Works (TWW)’s Training and Apprenticeship Program (TAP), providing employees with education to prepare them for higher-level jobs in water treatment and distribution operation and maintenance. TAP is supported by the New Jersey Department of Labor and Workforce Development’s Growing Apprenticeships in Nontraditional Sectors grant program, which covers half of the apprentices’ salaries. TWW’s apprentices received 290 hours of training, including 180 hours for MCCC’s operator prerequisite course, which is taught on-site at TWW headquarters by a water industry executive. The TAP curriculum, which includes Occupational Safety and Health Administration and Federal Emergency Management Agency emergency response training, prepares apprentices to become water system operation or water treatment specialists who are eligible to take related state exams after they complete their required number of work hours. There are currently 14 active apprentices.

Rowan College of South Jersey Partnership with Gloucester County Workforce Board

In April 2023, Rowan College of South Jersey (RCSJ) entered a new and mutually strategic partnership with the Gloucester County Workforce Development Board that embeds the Board and its staff into the organizational structure of RCSJ on the Gloucester campus. This partnership is grounded on both institutions’ critical role in expanding economic mobility, preparing individuals to have sustainable careers and opportunities for advancement. RCSJ and the Gloucester County Workforce Development Board have agreed to strengthen coordination, collaboration, and communication in executing a joint mission by merging to create a more efficient, effective, and seamless service delivery model for assisting employers, employees, and job seekers throughout southern New Jersey.

The goals of the partnership include:

Designing individual and cohort-style workforce training programs that provide pathways to industry-valued, stackable credentials and degrees, increasing the percentage of southern New Jersey residents who have earned a postsecondary credential or degree, while focusing on marginalized adult and youth populations;
Ensuring employers have a skilled applicant pool to fill vacancies;
Developing joint marketing and branding services to collectively engage employers, employees, and job seekers;
Intertwining of funding sources to provide education, training programs, and career pathways that have the benefit of allowable services from both institutions; and
Establishing metrics to measure the success of each dual-enrolled student/customer of RCSJ and the American Job Center using Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act funding for training or educational programs to meet dual enrollment goals established by the Gloucester County Workforce Development Board.