Community colleges brief committee on career-technical education, enrollments and Wyoming Innovation Partnership work

The Wyoming Community College Commission and several college presidents told the Joint Education Committee that career and technical education (CTE) and workforce training are central to community colleges’ missions and to state workforce needs.

Ben Moritz, executive director of the Community College Commission, described rising CTE enrollment and the sector’s shift toward more certificate-level training and older, returning adult students. “About 10 years ago the number of transfer students was about... 62% of the amount,” he said, noting CTE now represents a larger share of college enrollments.

President Brad Tindall of Central Wyoming College and other presidents said local advisory committees and Perkins federal funds shape program content and keep programs aligned with employers’ needs. Tindall said colleges have hundreds of advisory committee members and “we do a pretty good job at reaching out,” adding campuses must meet national quality standards for programs such as welding and nursing.

College presenters and trustees also described gaps in how the state funding model treats noncredit workforce training: noncredit classes (boot camps, employer upskilling, mobile labs) can be crucial for local businesses but do not generate the same state recalibration funding that credit-bearing enrollments produce. The Commission and presidents asked lawmakers to consider whether recalibration should include noncredit training growth.

The colleges and the Wyoming Innovation Partnership (WIP) described coordinated investments in specialized programs — examples in the meeting included power-line technology, cybersecurity, nursing, and manufacturing programs. WIP executive director Lauren Schoenfeld described WIP as a statewide structure to “strategically support higher education implementation, in partnership with economic development, workforce development, and industry.” Schoenfeld said WIP-funded cohorts and shared curriculum across institutions have produced measurable returns on investment in pilot evaluations.

Presidents said a major near-term need is program-startup funding for capital- and equipment-intensive programs (power-line technology, meat processing, substation training). Community college leaders said the state’s Wyoming Works program had funded many successful program starts but that program-start funds have been exhausted and some colleges cannot begin new programs without a dedicated source of seed funds.

Ending: College representatives asked the committee to consider targeted program-start funding and to explore whether noncredit workforce training should be reflected in state funding recalibration models.