Mamie Voight, interim president of the Institute for Higher Education Policy and managing director at the Postsecondary Value Commission, shares how to make postsecondary education in Vermont more equitable. From the Vermont Community Foundation's Insight Hub's "Lessons from the Crisis" webinar on June 23, 2021.
Carolyn Weir, executive director of The J. Warren and Lois McClure Foundation, shares key reflections from the organization's 2020 grantmaking, including collaboration with the Vermont Community Foundation.
Watch the video "Carolyn Weir Shares Four Key Lessons from McClure Foundation's 2020 Grantmaking" »
In 2020, the Community Foundation and its partners granted more than $3.4 million to college and career training initiatives, which boosted enrollment at a time when enrollment nationally was in decline and provided a valuable framework for pandemic-era public policy. This event featured a discussion on how grantmakers can support college and career training in ways that drive more equity and resilience in Vermont.
High school grads demonstrate that even in a time of uncertainty like COVID19, they'll enroll in college and career training when it's guaranteed to be very affordable. Over 600 Vermont high school class of 2020 graduates took the McClure Foundation up on a graduation gift of a free course of their choosing at the Community College of Vermont this fall. Academic advisors and career consultants are now helping these students chart a plan for what comes next.
Vermont has long recognized that demographic and economic trends make workforce development a key challenge—and the Community Foundation has long recognized that making the education and training pathways to good jobs more accessible, more visible, and more affordable is a key strategy for closing Vermont’s opportunity gap. It’s easy to draw the line between investing in career training and helping to close opportunity gaps in Vermont. It’s not as easy to figure out how to thoughtfully fund this issue in ways that lead to equitable and impactful outcomes.
Watch the video "What to fund to help more Vermonters secure good jobs" »
The image most of us have of a college student—the quintessential 18-22-year-old living the idyllic college life—needs updating. According to new data from Advance Vermont, today’s Vermont students are juggling work, family and other life responsibilities like no generation before them. Twenty-five percent are parents. Over a third experience food or housing insecurity. Over half commute and 28% attend online. This requires a reckoning on the part of college and career training systems whose ethos and services are primarily designed to meet the needs of those 18-22-year-old full-time students.