With the changing economy, no one has lifetime employment. But community colleges provide lifetime employability.
The most powerful recent innovation in government is when states aggressively use community colleges for retraining. In Michigan, where large numbers of workers were displaced from the manufacturing industry, we created a wildly successful program: No Worker Left Behind.
Hillary Clinton said we need to bring back vocational education in high school. We need to support community colleges. We need to make sure that people who are not going to finish college have a job waiting for them and the skills to do the job. These are all - have become fairly standard Democratic policy positions.
People look at me like I'm crazy when I say that our greatest partnership here at Ohio State should be with the community colleges.
People need to realize that community colleges really give you a good education. And they do - that's just a simple fact of it.
Community colleges provide higher education where people live, helping to build strong ladders of opportunity that allow people to secure a foothold in the middle class.
Community colleges need to be upgraded. We got to have training for real jobs. We've got a lot of jobs that are going unfilled because we don't have the technology in the heads of graduating college students to deal with them.
Community colleges are one of America's great social inventions a gateway to the future for first time students looking for an affordable college education, and for mid-career students looking to get ahead in the workplace.
Under the leadership of President Obama and a whole host of partners, including nonprofits, foundations, and advocates, the Department of Labor has made historic investments in community colleges, apprenticeships, coding boot camps, and summer jobs.
In the past, there has been a stigma surrounding community colleges, where they were seen as a less viable option because they are not four-year universities. I know differently and so do the millions of people across the country who have received an affordable, quality higher education at community college.
Community colleges are great bargains. They avoid the fancy amenities four-year liberal arts colleges need in order to lure the children of the middle class.
From the outset, the Obama administration has recognized that building a robust skills infrastructure means building strong partnerships with community colleges.
Community colleges play an important role in helping people transition between careers by providing the retooling they need to take on a new career.
I've seen with my own students, community colleges offer an affordable route to four-year college degrees and good paying jobs.
One of the things that make community colleges so special is they do not pick and choose their students - they work with all students.
Because of the flexibility that community colleges afford, many students do not have to choose between an education and fulfilling other responsibilities - they can do both.
So community colleges are accessible, they're available, they're affordable, and their curriculums don't get stuck. In other words, if there's a need for a certain kind of worker, I presume your curriculums evolved over time.
Social networks matter greatly, and our class calibrations are often around what college one attended, leading to gruesome institutional divisions between those who attend, say, community colleges and those who attend top-tier universities.
For laid-off workers, community colleges offer job-certification programs that teach new skills and professions.
Community colleges are the way of the future.
I've said it before, but community colleges are the best-kept secret in the nation.
Community colleges are certainly one of America's best-kept secrets.
It's a good idea to revitalize community colleges, to cut back, to modify the student loan program so it doesn't go through banks.
Community colleges are in every district in this state, they serve Republican and Democratic families and non-partisan and non-political families as well.
There is a stigma attached to community colleges, and we do need to change the narrative.
