Lone Star College System (LSCS) has received a $150,000 grant from the Greater Texas Foundation to expand its emergency aid program.
The grant will help ensure that LSCS students have access to vital resources to persist in their educational journey, even when encountering unforeseen financial challenges. Using an emergency aid program established at LSC-Houston North, Lone Star College will build upon it to create a systemic emergency aid framework, LSC CARES, to ensure consistency and equitable student awareness and emergency aid resource access.
“Lone Star College System understands that students often face barriers outside the classroom that impede their success,” said Lone Star College-Houston North President Quentin Wright. “This grant will help the college better coordinate our resources and procedures to address the basic needs challenges of many of our students.”
Under the grant, LSCS will amplify Greater Texas Foundation’s impact through a matching funds allocation, strengthening the resources available for students.
* * *
Another Texas college, Houston Community College Southeast (HCC-SE), was named a 2024 Neighborhood Builder by Bank of America. The distinction comes with $200,000 to launch the Yellow Brick Road Project. The initiative aims to transform access to higher education in southeast Houston’s underserved communities.
The grant will support HCC-SE’s comprehensive strategy to remove barriers to college success for low-income and first-generation students. The Yellow Brick Road Project will create clear pathways from community organizations to college completion, incorporating multiple student support systems.
“In Southeast Houston, where less than 30% of residents have a high school diploma and household incomes are significantly below the county average, removing barriers to college access is crucial for economic mobility,” said HCC-SE President Frances Villagran-Glover.
The Neighborhood Builders program includes both grant funding and leadership development opportunities for the college president and an emerging leader within the institution.
Indiana
With a $21.9 million grant, Ivy Tech Community College will work to strengthen Indiana’s early childhood education workforce. The three-year grant to the Ivy Tech Foundation comes from Lilly Endowment Inc.
With the grant, Ivy Tech aims to increase enrollment in its early childhood education programs by more than 100% by 2027, ultimately graduating 1,950 individuals annually with industry-recognized credentials and degrees.
The college plans to improve its current childhood education programs by, among other things, creating early childhood education micro-credentials, partnering with various agencies to launch federally registered adult-based early childhood apprenticeships, and developing new transfer pathways that enable students to apply their early childhood education associate degree toward earning a bachelor’s degree in elementary education.
“As Indiana’s workforce engine, Ivy Tech has a responsibility to fuel the state’s pipeline of skilled early childhood education talent,” said Ivy Tech President Sue Ellspermann. “We are grateful for the generous support from Lilly Endowment that is enabling us to remove barriers to education and training for early childhood educators. However, we also recognize more must be done to attract and retain talented, passionate Hoosiers to this important profession.”
Maryland
Wor-Wic Community College has received a $5.7 million grant from the U.S. Department of Education to develop pathways for youth with disabilities from high school to higher education. Wor-Wic is the only community college recipient of this competitive grant, which is the largest grant Wor-Wic has received.
With the funding, the college will hire staff who can focus on high school outreach, academic and technology support for students and faculty, professional development for college and high school employees and ways in which Wor-Wic can mitigate the risk of students entering or already exposed to the juvenile justice system on the Lower Eastern Shore.
The overarching goal is to create a regional, holistic program to reduce justice system involvement for youth with disabilities while providing clear, supported pathways to higher education and training that lead to careers, according to Brian Bergen-Aurand, Wor-Wic’s director of learning.
“Wor-Wic will be a hub, connecting high school students, our community partners, law enforcement and corrections, workforce development and local educational agencies,” he said.
Michigan
Two anonymous gifts have given a fundraising campaign at Northwestern Michigan College (NMC) a big boost. The gifts, one for $150,000 and the other of $100,000, will help NMC’s aviation division expand its hangar, purchase additional aircraft and relocate its classrooms. They are the largest gifts received to date by Next Level: The Campaign for NMC Aviation, a fundraising initiative to build the aviation division’s capacity.
The Next Level project, with a price tag of $14 million, will receive funding through a combination of government support, bonding and private philanthropy. The college has received $3.75 million in support from the state and $550,000 in federal funding toward the project. The NMC Foundation aims to raise $1 million in private philanthropy toward the project.
“As the only two-year flight school in the state, we have the unique opportunity to efficiently train the pilots our world desperately needs,” said Alex Bloye, aviation division director. “Expanding our hangar and fleet will increase the number of students, and ultimately the number of future pilots, we can admit each year. It’s a win for them, a win for our regional economy and a win for our world, which is relying more and more on air travel every year.”
The college broke ground on the hangar expansion in October.
North Carolina
Fayetteville Technical Community College’s (FTCC) High School Connections program got a boost with a $5,500 grant from Piedmont Natural Gas.
The program is FTCC’s branch of North Carolina’s Career and College Promise program, which provides seamless dual-enrollment educational opportunities for eligible North Carolina high school students.
The Piedmont Natural Gas grant will go into FTCC Foundation’s Resource Fund for High School Connections. The fund pays for books and other resources for high school students from low-income families.
Ohio
Lorain County Community College students in STEM fields may be eligible for scholarships made possible through a $1.2 million grant from the Ohio Department of Higher Education.
LCCC is one of 46 Ohio higher education institutions that will receive funding from the new round of the Choose Ohio First grant program, which will distribute a total of $32.5 million over the next five years.
LCCC’s partnership with the Choose Ohio First program goes back more than a decade, with the first scholarships awarded to students in 2008. Since then, hundreds of LCCC students have benefitted from scholarships through the program.
LCCC students in STEM majors also have opportunities to participate in a learning community that provides academic support, industry connection and career mentoring to students.
Tennessee
Regions Foundation of Tennessee recently presented the Cleveland State Community College Foundation with a check for $15,000. The grant will provide scholarships for individuals to complete training in entry-level, in-demand, workforce development technical boot camps such as HVAC, welding, plumbing and construction.
Washington
The Area Healthcare Education Center for Western Washington (AHECWW), hosted by Whatcom Community College, will use a $55,000 grant from the Cambia Health Foundation to support substance use disorder professional (SUDP) students.
This grant addresses the financial barriers that exist between an SUDP student and full licensure. The program will assist students with the financial barriers associated with loss of income during required practicum hours. This has been a key barrier for SUDP students, who mostly comprise underrepresented students and face disproportional income disparities.
The program will serve at least 20 students who will directly enter the workforce as entry-level behavioral health professionals or as specialized practitioners.
Youth Build Grants
The U.S. Department of Labor has awarded $99.3 million in YouthBuild Program grants to 71 organizations in 31 states to provide training and employment services in its continuing effort to expand access to Registered Apprenticeships, prepare young workers for quality jobs and equip them with industry skills.
A few community colleges were direct grant recipients. Central Carolina Community College, Kennedy-King College (part of the City Colleges of Chicago), Mott Community College and Valencia College’s Osceola Campus all received about $1.5 million in grant funds.
The YouthBuild Program grants will support pre-apprenticeships to educate and train young people for construction jobs and employment in other high-demand industries. The grants will help deliver education and training to enable participants to build or rehabilitate affordable housing in their communities for people in need.
