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PRESS RELEASE Contact: Carmon Cunningham 617.728.4446 ccunningham@jff.org     SIXTEEN COMMUNITY COLLEGES SELECTED FOR NATIONAL INITIATIVE Breaking Through Aims to Make Higher Education Possible for Many Adults Who Are Now Poorly Prepared for Postsecondary Programs or Good Jobs San Antonio, TX, October 22, 2005  Sixteen community colleges have been selected to participate in a multi-year national initiative to increase the number of low-skilled adults who enter and complete occupational and technical degree programs in community and technical colleges.   Breaking Through: Helping Low-Skilled Adults Enter and Succeed in College and Careers will be managed by the National Council for Workforce Education and Jobs for the Future. The Charles Stewart Mott Foundation made a $751,000 grant to JFF this year in support of the initiative, which is designed to use community colleges as a vehicle to help low-income people advance in the labor market and to enhance their income. Six colleges will play leadership roles in the initiative. Each already has demonstrated a strong commitment to, and significant progress toward, the goal of advancing low-skilled adults. These leadership colleges will receive funding and technical support to expand and institutionalize their approaches. They are: Albuquerque Technical Vocational Institute, New Mexico Community College of Denver, Colorado Cuyahoga Community College, Cleveland, Ohio Owensboro Community and Technical College, Kentucky Portland Community College, Oregon Southeast Arkansas College, Pine Bluff, Arkansas In addition, 10 institutions have been selected as learning colleges. These colleges already have begun to restructure their offerings to support the advancement of low-literacy students to degree programs, and they have demonstrated their commitment to doing more. They will benefit from opportunities to learn from one another and also will receive technical assistance from NCWE and JFF. They are: Cerritos College, Norwalk, California Charles Stewart Mott Community College, Flint, Michigan Community College of Southern Nevada, North Las Vegas, Nevada Houston Community College, Texas LaGuardia Community College/City University of New York, New York North Shore Community College, Danvers, Massachusetts Northampton Community College, Bethlehem, Pennsylvania Piedmont Virginia College, Charlottesville, Virginia Tallahassee Community College, Florida York County Community College, Wells, Maine “These 16 colleges are innovators at helping low-skilled adults gain the valuable skills and credentials that are the gateway to family-supporting careers,” said Jim Jacobs on behalf of NCWE. Jacobs, who is director of workforce development and policy at Macomb (County) Community College in Michigan, says this demonstration project has two goals: to improve substantially community college efforts to serve low-skilled adults; and to draw national attention to this challenge. “The evidence is persuasive that a postsecondary credential is the key to careers that pay family-sustaining wages,” said Jerry Rubin, JFF vice president, building economic opportunity. “Yet almost 90 million adults cannot enter community college occupational or technical degree programs in part because they are not able to pass those programs' qualifying tests. Breaking Through responds directly to that challenge by creating effective pathways through pre-college and degree-level programs.” “The Mott Foundation has a longstanding commitment to innovative strategies that help low-skilled adults achieve economic success,” said Jack Litzenberg, senior program officer at Mott. “This initiative should help demonstrate how community colleges can make a meaningful difference in improving the odds that low-income, low-skilled adults with a high school education or less can earn college-level occupational or technical credentials.” Jobs for the Future (www.jff.org) seeks to accelerate the educational and economic advancement of youth and adults struggling in today’s economy. JFF partners with leaders in education, business, government, and communities around the nation to: strengthen opportunities for youth to succeed in postsecondary learning and high-skill careers; increase opportunities for low-income individuals to move into family-supporting careers; and meet the growing economic demand for knowledgeable and skilled workers. The National Council for Workforce Education (www.ncwe.org) is a private, nonprofit, professional organization committed to promoting excellence and growth in occupational education at the postsecondary level. NCWE, an affiliate council of the American Association of Community Colleges, provides a national forum for administrators and faculty in occupational, vocational, technical, and career education as well as representatives of business, labor, military, and government, to affect and direct the future role of two-year colleges in work-related education. The Mott Foundation (www.mott.org), established in 1926 in Flint, Michigan, by an automotive pioneer, is a private philanthropy committed to supporting projects that promote a just, equitable and sustainable society. It supports nonprofit programs throughout the United States and, on a limited geographic basis, internationally. Grantmaking is focused in four programs: Civil Society, Environment, Flint Area and Pathways Out of Poverty. The Foundation, with year-end total assets of $2.52 billion, made 558 grants totaling $98.7 million in 2004.