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Community colleges in our country, according to a new report, must be redesigned as this is a way to enhance our country’s competitiveness. According to leaders from Pennsylvania community colleges, challenges mentioned in the new report will be met by at least 14 colleges.

In order to strengthen student success and community college system, many of the recommended proposals are already adopted and implemented in these colleges. According to Allegheny County community college president Dr. Alex Johnson, to enable enhanced future competitiveness of our country, an honest perspective is given by this report.

Report recommendations such as completion rate accountability and college readiness improvement are being implemented by many of the community colleges in Pennsylvania.
The “Three Rs” of reform namely Reset, Reinvent and Redesign are being supported by the report recommendations. These can be defined as resetting of system to offer student incentives, create strategic partnerships, reinvent role of institutions and redesign educational experience for students to ensure optimum success.

The impact of higher education on US competitiveness is sought through rethinking and reform by Pennsylvania’s community colleges developed five year plan. Strategically aligned with the recommendations of the research, community colleges in Pennsylvania have taken the a few steps.

One of the initiatives adopted by the state, for example, calls for promoting accountability, transparency and rigor through the right practices and policies.

According to a proposal recently implemented in Pennsylvania, placement and assessment of students during the next academic year will be reviewed in keeping with another research recommendation that asks for a dramatic improvement of readiness through development education completion.

The report suggests collaborating with the private sector and government sector focusing on technical education courses and careers courses to close skills gap in our country. In order to meet local and state industries’ requirement of skills, Pennsylvania community colleges have taken an initiative to expand capacity through the $20 million grant.

Colleges will focus on equipping students with credentials that are industry recognized apart from ensuring college attainment. Industries focused upon include information technology, healthcare, energy conservation and advanced manufacturing.

Community colleges in Pennsylvania, through a federal grant initiative will connect to high speed broadband services economic development entities, libraries, health care systems, institutions of higher education and K-12 education systems.

The report says that quality and access to education must be preserved even while striving to enhance completion rates. At least seven Pennsylvania community colleges have shown sustained student success improvement for three years in a row in keeping with eligibility requirements and are now named “Leader Colleges”. This is a part of a plan to enhance student success across the nation by closing achievement gaps through the Achieving the Dream Initiative.

According to one of the Leader Colleges, Montgomery County Community College President Dr. Karen A. Stout, the past decade has seen a lot of effort being put into this work by the community colleges in Pennsylvania. She said that they were examining areas where students encounter obstacles to retention and completion and developing various interventions and strategies to minimize them.