One model for how to meet these needs, the Community College Growth Engine by the nonprofit Education Design Lab, has been helping institutions mount new microcredential programs with a system of mentors, partnerships and fundraising.
Launched in 2020, the Community College Growth Engine now works with more than 100 colleges in 20 states to create these programs, according to a recent news release. Since its founding, the Growth Engine has helped design about 300 micropathways, with 129 launched and 156 in development.
Lisa Larson, CEO of Education Design Lab, said community colleges in particular are often looking for ways to best serve non-traditional learners, and hearing feedback or even seeing policy that asks for workforce-aligned programs. She said micropathways can be a good answer, but bridging the gap between recognizing the need and implementing change requires funding and expertise, both with curriculum design and navigating states’ policies on these kinds of programs.
Larson said the Growth Engine offers colleges a design mentor who meets regularly with staff, looping in community employers or campus leaders to ensure communication. It also provides philanthropy and seed money to free up staff time.
To develop a micropathway, Growth Engine staff start by engaging with employers in the region to identify specific skills and competencies most in demand, Larson said. From there, college faculty and staff collaborate with the Growth Engine’s design team to translate those skills into curriculum, deciding how long the pathway will take, whether it will be credit or non-credit and how it will incorporate work-based learning opportunities. Each pathway is designed to be stackable, so students can build toward additional credentials or degrees, while remaining flexible. The process iterates to ensure the product prepares graduates for jobs they are aiming for, Larson said.
These in-demand competencies are often technology related. Larson estimated that a quarter of the micropathways in the Growth Engine include IT, whether that’s software, help desk or data analytics training.
“It’s the first step in the doorway to these sectors,” Larson said.
In St. Paul, Minn., one college has been working with the Growth Engine for about two years. One of the first micropathways they created was focused on IT.
“We were keeping in mind high demand, high wage [industries],” Jennifer Huston, director of workforce training and community education at St. Paul College, said. “We really thought IT and manufacturing would be good starting points.”
The college's IT program connects students with paid internships supported by county workforce funding, and then links them directly to employers for full-time continuation opportunities. For St. Paul, the Growth Engine helps meet the evolving needs of students, providing funding and a blueprint that Huston said made this kind of program possible. It also helps the school, as they’ve seen some students return to St. Paul to pursue additional education. Huston said increasing enrollment is always a goal for the college.
Without the partnership with the Growth Engine, Huston said, “I don’t think we would have figured it out on our own.”
Now that she has the training and guidance, Huston said she feels confident in creating additional micropathways more independently. The college is currently creating programs in health care, she said.
Looking ahead, Larson said the Lab is shifting more of its work to the state level, where policies around credit transfer and funding often determine whether these pathways can scale up.
“How can we help drive scale and spread of micropathways, and affect policy [related to] credit for prior learning or workforce Pell?” she said. “How can we help them really address those bigger issues?”
