Obama administration awards $500 million total to 50 states, District of Columbia

and Puerto Rico as 2nd installment of $2 billion, 4-year initiative
Washington DC - September 19, 2012

Secretary of Labor Hilda L. Solis today announced $500 million in grants to community colleges and universities around the country for the development and expansion of innovative training programs. In Florida, The Board of Trustees of St. Petersburg College will lead a state-wide consortia of 12 community colleges in a $15 million grant. Broward College received funding as a member of the consortium led by Sinclair Community College in Ohio which received $11,996,548; Chipola College, Northwest Florida State College and Pensacola State College are receiving funding totaling $10,083,236 as part of a consortia led by George C. Wallace Community College in Alabama; and Palm Beach State College received an individual grant of $3,000,000.

Speaking in Florida at St. Petersburg College, which is receiving $15 million in funds to lead a consortium of community colleges across the state in developing programs focused on advanced manufacturing, Secretary Solis said: “These federal grants are part of the Obama administration’s ongoing commitment to strengthening American businesses by strengthening the American workforce. This strategic investment will enhance ties among community colleges, universities, employers and other local partners while ensuring that students have access to the skills and resources they need to compete for high-wage, high-skill careers.”

The initiative complements President Obama’s broader goals to help ensure that every American has at least one year of postsecondary education and the U.S. has the highest proportion of college graduates in the world by 2020. Through this initiative, each state plus the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico will receive at least $2.5 million in dedicated funding for community college career training programs.

In total, 297 schools will receive grants as individual applicants or as members of a consortium. The grants include 27 awards to community college and university consortia totaling $359,237,048 and 27 awards to individual institutions totaling $78,262,952. Twenty-five states that were without a winning individual submission will be contacted to develop a qualifying $2.5 million project.

Educational institutions will use these funds to create affordable training programs that meet industry needs, invest in staff and educational resources, and provide access to free, digital learning materials. All education materials developed through the grants will be available for use by the public and other education providers through a Creative Commons license.

These grants emphasize evidence-based program design. Each grantee is required to collect rigorous student outcome data annually and conduct final evaluations at the end of the grant period to build knowledge about which strategies are most effective in placing graduates in jobs.

Learn more about the grant program at http://www.doleta.gov/taaccct. A list of grantees by state, including project descriptions, follows.

2012 TAACCCT Grants for Florida & Georgia

FLORIDA

Board of Trustees of St. Petersburg College
Consortium Leader
Total Consortium Award Amount: $15,000,000

Consortium members: Broward College, Daytona Beach College, Florida State College at Jacksonville, Gulf Coast College, Hillsborough Community College, Indian River State College, Palm Beach State College, Pasco Hernando Community College, Polk State College, Tallahassee Community College, Valencia College

The mission of the Florida TRADE program is to improve upon Florida’s existing training and education system in advanced manufacturing by aligning its vast resources and partnerships and offering wide access to training that will help address the growing critical skilled workforce shortage faced by the state’s manufacturing industry and related industry clusters.

Broward College
Consortium Member — Sinclair Community College Consortium
Total Consortium Award Amount: $11,996,548

Chipola College, Northwest Florida State College, Pensacola State College
Consortium Members — George C. Wallace Community College
Total Consortium Award Amount: $10,083,236

Palm Beach State College
Total Award Amount: $3,000,000

The program enhances health information technology programs through an integrated approach that significantly increases Palm Beach State College’s ability to offer online and technology-enabled learning while simultaneously imploring an intensive, targeted student support services model. The proposed evidence-based strategies and comprehensive plan to work collaboratively with the public workforce system and local employers ensures that the educational and training programs offered meet industry demands and sufficiently prepare Trade Adjustment Assistance-eligible and other dislocated workers, including unemployed veterans for high-growth, high-demand health information technology careers.

St. Petersburg College
Consortium Member — Fortsyth Technical Community College Consortium
Total Consortium Award Amount: $14,998,474

GEORGIA

Athens Technical College
Consortium Leader
Total Consortium Award Amount: $13,551,923

Consortium members: Albany Technical College, Atlanta Technical College

Consortium members are developing an integrated strategy that will add new associate degree programs, introduce stackable certificates for engineering technology and latticed certificates to allow students in closely related programs to bridge into the engineering technology programs, embed basic skills development into entry-level occupational courses, redesign the delivery of learning support coursework, provide additional methods of technology-enhanced instruction, expand prior learning assessments, introduce contextualized, problem-based pedagogy and provide wrap-around support services.

Georgia Piedmont Technical College
Total Award Amount: $3,000,000

The proposed partnership is to provide degreed and industry-recognized training and education programs in multiple transit program areas in the metropolitan Atlanta region and throughout Georgia. The Georgia Regional Transit Training Initiative will serve workers eligible for assistance under the Trade Adjustment Assistance for Workers program and other unemployed, dislocated and incumbent workers. RTTI will provide expeditious training programs in a regional training center to concurrently address the transit industry’s short- and long-term demand for additional well-trained and skilled workers. Multiple transit training programs will be established to meet the growing need for bus and mobility mechanics, electronic technicians, transit and mobility operators, and management supervisors. The RTTI also will serve as a training model that can be replicated nationally by the transit industry.