Good Jobs and the Role of Universities in Federal Workforce and Economic Development Initiatives

In December 2023, Lewis-Burke Associates LLC and America Achieves co-hosted a webinar event, Good Jobs and the Role of Universities in Federal Workforce and Economic Development.

The webinar featured workforce thought leaders and federal representatives to discuss the Biden Administration’s Investing in America agenda. Investing in America is a multi-billion dollar workforce and broader regional technology-based economic development effort made possible by the American Rescue Plan, Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, CHIPS and Science Act, and Inflation Reduction Act.

Panelists discussed how institutions of higher education and other ecosystem stakeholders can best seize the opportunities presented by these federal investments. They shared ideas for universities to break down the silos that can exist between higher education, workforce development, and economic development stakeholders. A few examples include:

• Increasing collaboration between universities and other economic development stakeholders, including employers, workforce boards, philanthropy, labor unions, and systems of education, from K-12 to postsecondary education and beyond.
• Higher education should improve its mechanisms for sharing information on the students they train and their outcomes. Panelists discussed how institutions of higher education should consider the best ways to serve lifelong learners, students returning to the classroom after stopping out, and other populations that are considered non-traditional students.
• Institutions should invest in credential transparency and work within the workforce ecosystem to develop ways to establish equivalencies between credentials and recognize learning outside the classroom.
• Examples of ways institutions could successfully make progress towards breaking down silos include participation in sectoral partnerships, modularized learning, degree apprenticeships, and becoming more responsive to what credentials and skills are needed by employers through increased and improved approaches to partnerships.

The panelists also highlighted best practices for leveraging the federal infusion of funding for workforce and economic development, completing insights shared by leaders from the National Science Foundation and the U.S. Labor and Commerce departments, and the importance of data in identifying labor market needs and evaluating program alignment. Examples include:

• Institutions of higher education should work to better understand and respond faster to current and future labor market needs. One suggested way to do this is through more frequent engagement with regional employers, especially through sectoral partnerships.
• Applications for federal innovation or workforce development initiatives that require employment commitments to the proposed work, such as commitments to interview or even hire graduates of the training program related to grant proposals.
• Institutions of higher education should consider changes to how they deliver courses and mechanisms to obtain a degree that is designed for working students and students with family care responsibilities.
• Cross-disciplinary partnerships within the institution and with external partners are crucial for the success of applications to regional innovation programs. Institutions of higher education interested in pursuing this funding should develop meaningful partnerships to support the work they would like to have funded. For example, the National Science Foundation’s Experiential Learning for Emerging and Novel Technologies (ExLENT) program supports experiential learning opportunities in emerging technology fields for a wide range of learners and seeks to encourage partnerships with companies.
• Aligning applications for large-scale innovation programs like the EDA Regional Technology Hubs and individual efforts like apprenticeship programs and other experiential learning opportunities with the Good Jobs Principles co-developed by the Department of Commerce and Department of Labor.

The panelists also shared ways that the federal agencies are increasing collaboration with each other to ensure workforce development investments are additive and not duplicative. The event panelists included:

David Langdon, Deputy Director of the Office of Policy and Strategic Planning, Department of Commerce

“Universities have a significant connection to our Department through our bureaus and there are many new and deeper opportunities to collaborate through the Investing in America programs. The main success metric for our Department is people ending up in a job after a Commerce-funded training.”

Jenn Smith, Division Chief, Division of Strategic Investments, Department of Labor

“The Department of Labor is working to support federal investments in workforce development across the government. The idea of the career pathway model is really important to us, as well as stackable credentials and updated models for training and hiring. We need engagement between universities and industry to understand what the current and future workforce needs are.”

Annelies Goger, Fellow, Brookings Institution

“Universities need to be working a lot more with partners because if you are trying to be responsive to what is happening in the economy, having everyday ways to be in touch with what is going on in workplaces is vital. There needs to be a focus on lifelong and non-traditional learners and how universities can serve people moving in and out of the education system.”

Overall, panelists agreed that universities have an important role, if different than in the past, to play in workforce and economic development work and should engage with other stakeholders in these spaces to advance state, regional, and national competitiveness goals.

Resources Shared

Included below are hyperlinks to programs highlighted by the panelists during the event.

U.S. Census Post-Secondary Employment Outcomes Program: It was recommended institutions of higher education that do not already participate join to help increase transparency around education and workforce outcomes and increase awareness of what training works.

Economic Development Administration (EDA) Regional Technology and Innovation Hubs Program: Universities are leading ten of the 31 designated Tech Hubs after EDA’s first round of competition.

Department of Labor (DOL) Strengthening Community Colleges Training Grants Program: Four-year institutions of higher education are eligible to be consortium members in the DOL Strengthening Community Colleges training program and evaluation is an important component of the grant.

EDA and DOL Good Jobs Principles: EDA and DOL jointly developed federal Good Jobs Principles, which are being considered when making federal funding decisions around workforce development.

DOL Registered Apprenticeship Program: DOL has a number of resources for institutions of higher education looking to become involved in registered apprenticeships.

Agency MOU Examples: DOL has entered into several Memoranda of Understanding (MOU) with other federal agencies to support workforce development. An example of an MOU with the US Department of Transportation.

Semiconductor Apprenticeship Example: The National Institute for Innovation and Technology’s (NIIT) semiconductor apprenticeship was highlighted as an example of an apprenticeship in emerging technologies.

IT Workforce Accelerator: Bradley University’s support of IT workforce development via the IT Workforce Accelerator was highlighted as an example of a four-year institution of higher education supporting workforce development.