Career Pathways

Career Pathways seeks to connect adult educational programs with employer needs, including on-the-job training and support services, that enable students to combine school and work. The goal is to provide adult students with the opportunity to advance to better jobs while improving Ohio's economic base.

KnowledgeWorks Foundation introduced Career Pathways in Ohio by providing nearly $1 million to three community colleges. Career Pathways, which grew out of our Bridges to Opportunity Initiative, paves the way for low-wage working adults by creating partnerships between education institutions, employers, and agencies serving low-wage workers, including community and technical colleges, adult career centers, workforce development systems, social service providers and government agencies.

Following on the foundation’s successful pilot of six career pathways sites from 2004 to 2008, the state has invested in career pathways statewide since May 2008. There are now 41 different pathways with 4,123 participants across the state, with growing numbers monthly.

Helping low-wage workers advance

Linking Ohio's community and technical colleges, adult career centers and local employers to the workforce development system is one of the fastest ways to provide the education and training that will help Ohio's low-wage workers advance in their careers:

Adult career centers and community colleges are uniquely positioned
Currently enrolling about one-third of all postsecondary students, Ohio's community and technical colleges are positioned to provide low-wage workers with the educational advantages they need. They offer a regional focus, open admissions policy, short-term training programs and a deep understanding of the needs of working adults.
Community colleges and adult career centers offer flexibility
Adult career centers and community colleges are flexible enough to partner with other institutions. For instance, they may partner with employers to offer on-site programs to boost their employees' skills; state agencies to offer training programs to welfare recipients; and other adult and career schools to create unique education programs centered on employers' needs.
These institutions can also develop nontraditional ways of repackaging coursework so that coursework and education programs are more flexible for adult students.

Regional partnerships

KnowledgeWorks Foundation awarded $900,000 worth of grants and technical assistance to three Ohio Career Pathways partnerships in March 2005. Each institution received $225, 000 and technical assistance over three years to fund Career Pathways in their regions.

Washington State Community College in Marietta — healthcare

James A. Rhodes State College in Lima (Central Ohio Manufacturing Consortium) — advanced manufacturing

Great Oaks Institute of Technology and Career Development/Cincinnati State Technical College in Cincinnati — healthcare

Three additional sites were introduced later.

Lakeland Community College in Kirtland — healthcare

Youngstown State University in Youngstown — healthcare

Pickaway-Ross Career and Technical Center in Chillicothe — healthcare

New careers and you

Green jobs

Greener Pathways: Jobs and Workforce Development in the Clean Energy Economy explores the kind and quality of jobs in the clean energy economy; the skills needed to fill these jobs; and how existing businesses and their workers can move to the center of the clean energy economy.

Jobs for older workers

In August, the U.S. Department of Labor awarded $10 million to organizations that connect older workers to jobs. About $1 million each was given to 10 organizations to retrain workers age 55 and older for jobs in high-growth industries such as healthcare and green jobs. The organizations were in Indiana, Louisiana, Maine, Maryland, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Texas, Vermont, Washington and Wisconsin.

Adult classes, a la carte

Community colleges have long tailored courses to meet the demands of local employers, but Kellogg Community College’s Regional Manufacturing Technology Center in Battle Creek, Mich., has done away with traditional classroom-bound courses altogether and, instead, has cut up its offerings into more than 1,200 individual skills, or “modules,” that students can take whenever they wish on a walk-in basis.