NLC workforce programs meet the president's standards
By Andrew Turner, North Lake News-Register Web Editor

President Barack Obama spoke to Congress and the American public on Jan. 25 in the annual State of the Union address. The speech, a montage of the recent accomplishments of the administration, as well as his plans for the next year, was a lengthy battle cry for the future of the United States. While many different issues were mentioned in the president’s address, the role of community colleges in both combating the economic recession now, as well as training a workforce for the future, were integral to the topic.

The president challenged educators by setting a goal of training over two million individuals in skills and information that will directly lead to long-term employment.

“Now, you need to give more community colleges the resources they need to become community career centers,” Obama told Congress.

While the president’s goal is ambitious, the success of training students for careers at the community college level has already been implemented in certain places, and North Lake is a sterling example of one such program.

North Lake offers a variety of programs, degrees, internships, nd partnerships with employers to help students navigate the path to a career. One such resource is the Workforce Development Center (WDC), located in the lower level of the library on the Central Campus.

Lynne Smith-Brush, interim dean for Technical Occupation Programs, including continuing education and workforce development, elaborated on the extent of occupational-oriented programs North Lake offers.

“We have 15 technical programs that are directly job oriented; everything from computer programming, network administration with Cisco-Microsoft, UNIX, mortgage banking, real estate, construction trades, video technology, [and] computer graphics,” Smith-Brush said.

The purpose is essentially to make sure that North Lake students have multiple opportunities to learn the skills necessary to find employment in a volatile job market, but North Lake also offers classes and financial grants to small business owners whose employees need occupational training.

“Any sort of classes we offer they can send [themselves or] their employees for our classes,” Smith-Bush explained.

But while North Lake already exceeds the president’s challenge for workforce development, many U.S. colleges do not. This fact and his acknowledgement of the constantly rising cost of tuition made the rest of the President’s speech more severe. To that end, President Obama issued an ultimatum to colleges concerning tuition increases by saying, “If you can’t stop tuition from going up, the funding you get from taxpayers will go down.”

Moreover, the President narrowed his focus to the interest rate on federal student loans and the fact that that rate is set to increase in July if Congress does not intervene.

“At a time when Americans owe more in tuition debt than credit card debt, this Congress needs to stop the interest rates on student loans from doubling in July,” he said.

With the country still suffering the effects of an economic recession and the costs of college attendance on the rise, there is no doubt that education and employment will be significant topics over the next year and certainly a centerpiece of the 2012 presidential election. The future for education remains uncertain, but one thing is for sure: NLC is ready to hit it head on.