The economy is changing and with it, America’s demand for labor. A high school diploma is rarely enough, but not every student needs a four-year college degree.

Employers and educators in a broad range of settings are rethinking skills training and workforce preparation, and some of the most exciting innovation is taking place at community colleges – one of the few institutions with the reach to deliver career education on the scale that will be needed in years ahead as technological change spurs demand for more sophisticated skills.

What does this innovation look like? How is it changing what students learn and how they learn it? To what degree has the new thinking spread across the nation’s 1,100 community college campuses? What changes can and should be made to policy to keep up with this innovation?

Community College Career Education: Scaling a New Approach released as a Lumina Issue Paper, describes the new landscape emerging on campuses nationwide and considers a range of strategies for scaling the new approach.

An Unknown Landscape: Short-Term Job-Focused College Programs investigates eight short-term, job-focused programs of the kind that could become eligible for Pell Grant funding if legislation under consideration in Congress – the Jumpstart Our Businesses by Supporting Students (JOBS) Act – were to be included in a reauthorized Higher Education Act.