The Maine Community College System’s groundbreaking short-term workforce training program has received another big funding boost after having successfully trained more than 26,000 students in less than three years specifically for jobs employers need to fill.
A third grant from the Harold Alfond Foundation for $75.5 million will help fund the program for the next five years as it offers scholarships and closely works with employers to train workers for jobs where they’re needed or get new skills to keep up with changes in their field.
“Two shifts in workforce training have collided. We need more sophisticated talent but we have less of it,” said David Daigler, president of the Maine Community College System (MCCS). “The pipeline is sloppy and rusty, and this program pumps new life into it.”
Meanwhile, leaders in the program say that while they have been fortunate to get foundation funding and other public money, extending Pell grant eligibility for quality, short-term workforce development education programs would bolster the ability of programs like Maine’s to train and retrain workers. Both chambers have tried to pass legislation to permit the so-called Workforce Pell, but have come up short.
“I don’t have a crystal ball, but I do think Congress will pass it in some form. It makes so much sense and is only fair,” Daigler said. “I think it is not a matter of if, but when.”
While MCCS can rely on the Alfond Foundation and has other sources of funding for the popular short-term workforce training program, MCCS leaders believe Pell Grant support would boost the program beyond the five years for the current foundation grant and stabilize it for years to come.
A mix of private, public support
Through its Harold Alfond Center for the Advancement of Maine’s Workforce, MCCS has worked with 1,638 employers in nearly every segment of the state to train workers for their specific needs, according to Dan Belyea, chief workforce development officer for MCCS and the director of the Alfond Center.
He said the employers that have joined the compact formed by MCCS range from Justin Electric, which has seven employees and Bob’s Cash Fuel with 43 workers, to General Dynamics Bath Iron Works, with 7,000 and MaineHealth system with 10,000. The length of the training through the five state community college campuses and the employers themselves ranges from one day to a year, he said.
The top two areas for the short-term training are in the trades — such as logger training, motor repair, construction, electrical, plumbing, and heating and air conditioning — and in healthcare, in areas such as phlebotomy, medical assistant, certified nursing assistant, licensed practical nurse and surgical technician.
“Our plan was to work directly with employers and meet their needs. When we started the compact, we expected to have 500 employers on board. We have 1,638, and we’re still growing the program,” Daigler said.
While Maine has for some time had a robust workforce training effort, a first $3.6 million Alfond Foundation grant in 2018 helped to train just over 400 workers in three years and began to offer short-term training. Another foundation grant for $15.5 in 2022 provided training for about 26,000 individuals through last year, and the latest grant is expected to fund the program for five more years and provide pre-hire training, incumbent training and scholarships for 70,000 students.
“The key has been public and private funding that gives our students and employers what they want in real time,” Belyea said. “Our students get skills for higher wage jobs and connections to employers that want to hire them. Employers, meanwhile, serve on advisory councils while providing paid apprenticeships and industry instruction and helping to design the instruction. The programs we offer are filling a need within each region of the state served by our community colleges.”
Offering flexibility, support
The programs also are offered throughout the year at industry workplaces, online and through third-party industry-approved instruction, “ensuring accessibility and flexibility for participants and employers,” Belyea said. He pointed out that only one-third of graduating high school students enroll in higher education, and half lack what the business community sees as the necessary credentials to compete in the modern economy.
In some cases, $1,200 stipends also are available to the students, the cost of which MCCS covered in the first year of the compact and shared equally with employers in the second, Belyea said. Now a majority of employers fully support it.
By joining the compact, Belyea says, employers get financial support up to $1,200 per employee, access to scholarships for staff to upgrade skills, training, employee record maintenance and an advisor to “assist employees with course selection, textbooks, tutoring services, and other resources to ensure their continued success.”
“Sometimes in education we believe we live in a world where we just deliver knowledge. We come to the table with answers and we have become less good at listening,” Daigler said. “This is different. Everybody has workforce advisory committees, but at these meetings with employers people are working on solutions. We are working very hard to do two things: build those relationships and hear what they want and need.”
Providing direction
Arianna Bedolla was struggling in a retail position at a popular mall chain store, feeling drained and directionless. She was a good student, but uncertain about a career, and left community college when she began to feel she had to make a more specific decision about her future.
“Unfortunately, I lost a lot of the initial drive and motivation that I started college with towards the end of my sophomore year,” she said. “I ultimately decided to leave Southern Maine Community College and focus on working retail jobs to get by financially while I got my mind straightened out.”
Then her mother told her about the MCCS workforce training program with General Dynamics Bath Iron Works (GDBIW), the 140-year-old shipbuilding company along the Kennebec River. She wanted her daughter to join her and enroll in a free “Intro to Marine Design” course for three weeks, full time, one of several programs GDBIW was offering as a major supporter of the MCCS program.
After completing the training and hands-on work and an interview with BIW managers, Bedolla was selected to continue her studies and work in a department responsible for the maintenance and modernization of existing vessels.
“Much to my surprise, I found a deep-rooted passion for the work,” she said. “I am consistently challenged and always expanding my knowledge. Even when I think I know all there is to know, there is so much more information that will affect the outcome of my final product.”
Bedolla believes her experience isn’t unique and many students find a path forward through these training programs.
“I think back to that decision to take part in the three-week introduction to design course with gratitude,” she said. “That really was the most life-altering three weeks of my life. I hope that people who are experiencing challenges in their lives can see this opportunity as an investment into themselves and their futures.”
Path forward
While MCCS has secured the Alfond Foundation funding, it has also received support at all levels of government and from employers.
“I’ve worked in higher education for 36 years and I’ve never seen anything like this – where so many entities have worked together to make a program successful,” Belyea said.
He reiterated that the key for others hoping to duplicate the effort is working with employers to discover their needs and forming partnerships that provide the training.
“This can be done anywhere if you’re willing to think differently about how to work with businesses and the people needed to run the programs,” he added.
Making Workforce Pell available to students would also help to expand the effort – potentially including many more students and employers who might not initially be involved in the compact or working for employers who are members, Belyea said.
“It might be the cornerstone of the next period for us,” he said. “It would be another set of tools to help get trained workers for employers here.”
