Training Meets Transcripts | The Rise Report | Issue 11

Last week, we marked National Community College Month with a look at three Colorado institutions — the Community College of Aurora, Colorado Mountain College, and Red Rocks Community College — building the state's workforce pipeline through the Boundless Opportunity Scholarship. This week is the first of three deeper profiles.

We start in Aurora.

Inside the Community College of Aurora's Center for Applied Science and Technology, something new is taking shape — not just on the construction floor, but in the architecture of how Colorado is building its workforce pipeline.

BuildStrong Academy, a national network of accelerated construction training programs, has made CCA its first formal higher education partnership in the country. The two organizations aren't just sharing a roof. They're building something more deliberate: a coordinated model that carries students from entry-level industry credentials all the way to a certificate or associate degree — without losing momentum along the way.

It's exactly the kind of integration the Boundless Opportunity Scholarship was designed to make possible.

From Certification to Career to Classroom — and Back Again

For BuildStrong, the partnership formalizes what has long been an informal aspiration. Students earning HBI PACT certifications through BuildStrong have gone on to pursue CCA's Construction Management Certificate and Associate of Applied Science — but until now, tracking that journey has depended on self-reporting. That changes July 1, when a formal data pipeline will, for the first time, give both institutions a real picture of how students move through the full continuum.

"Being able to launch Coloradans from entry-level skills into more advanced training is a crucial part of building a sustainable workforce pipeline," says Allison Stepnitz, Director of BuildStrong Academy in Colorado — noting that some graduates have come back in ways no one anticipated. One is now a member of BuildStrong's advisory board. Another became a student recruiter.

Dr. Mordecai Brownlee, President of the Community College of Aurora describes the partnership as more than a space-sharing arrangement. "It is a coordinated model that aligns curriculum, employer engagement, and student support. Together, we are creating a system that expands access, improves completion rates, and accelerates economic mobility in a way that neither institution could achieve independently."

Fifty Percent More Capacity — and the Investment That Makes It Real

BuildStrong is working to grow its trades course capacity by 50 percent over the next two years, with plans to add HVAC and, eventually, plumbing to its existing offerings. The BOS investment is central to making that expansion possible — not just by funding growth, but by keeping the program financially accessible to the students who need it most.

"Without that kind of support, our program would be out of reach for many of the people we serve," Stepnitz said.

That's not abstract. Among the 22 BOS scholars currently enrolled at CCA is a Diesel Technology student working for Wagner Equipment — a husband, a parent, and an immigrant navigating school alongside a full set of family responsibilities. The learn-and-earn structure of the Diesel Technology program fits his life. The scholarship makes it financially viable.

"The student income alone isn't enough to support his family," Dr. Brownlee said. "So the scholarship is a big deal."

What Belief Looks Like in Practice

Dr. Brownlee offered a frame worth holding onto: the scholarship doesn't just reduce financial barriers. It communicates something: "It tells students that their goals are worth investing in and that their success matters to this community."

In a region where construction workforce gaps are real and growing, the CCA-BuildStrong model is a proof point that speed and quality don't have to be in tension — and that the path from first credential to lasting career can be paved with more than good intentions.

Next week, we spend time with Colorado Mountain College — where the students training as nurses, paramedics, and first responders are often the same people who will one day answer calls in their own communities.

FutureRise was at the ASU+GSV Summit this week — the four-day gathering in San Diego that convenes 7,000 entrepreneurs, investors, educators, workforce leaders, and policymakers from around the world. Called "the Davos of Education" by Forbes, it is the premier platform for the conversations that shape the future of learning and work. This year's theme, The Power of Fusion, set the frame: how technology, human ingenuity, and global collaboration are converging to change how people learn, earn, and thrive.

I was honored to be part of the program twice — once as a panelist, once as a moderator. Here's what I'm bringing back to Colorado.

Tuesday: Beg, Borrow or Steal — A New American Talent System for an AI-Disrupted World

The FusionX Tuesday Breakfast opened with a provocation: can we build talent systems that deliver results for workers and employers as fast as the economy is changing? Moderated by Jon Schnur of America Achieves, I joined Joseph Fuller of Harvard Business School and MC Belk Pilon of the John M. Belk Endowment on a panel that spent most of its time orbiting one question: what does a real talent system actually look like?

Much of the conversation drew on Singapore, where a delegation of state leaders from five states witnessed firsthand what full integration looks like — education, workforce development, and economic strategy running on the same rail. One moment from that trip has stayed with me: U.S. employers doing business in Singapore said the easiest relationship they have is with the Singaporean government. That's not a small thing.

I talked about FutureRise’s interest in the Governor’s Executive Order to create a new postsecondary talent system in Colorado, integrating the state's higher education and workforce agencies, the $90 million Opportunity Now program and workforce projects, and FutureRise's call to philanthropy to take a new approach of pooling capital in support of programs willing to be held accountable to outcomes. My call to action for the funders in the room: stop funding one program at a time. Join us in funding systems transformation.

Wednesday: Wiring the Workforce Pell Era for Short Term Credentials

On Wednesday, I moderated a session on the policy question that has dominated states’ postsecondary conversations for the better part the last year: Workforce Pell. Panelists Kristin Hultquist — CEO of HCM Strategists and a negotiator on the AHEAD discussion draft — Lee Lambert, Chancellor of the Foothill-De Anza Community College District, and Portia Pratt of the National Governors Association took stock of where Workforce Pell stands and what it will take to get states ready.

A few threads worth bringing home:

On the policy arc. Workforce Pell has been two decades in the making — a recognition that Pell Grants, the federal government's core higher education equity tool, have long excluded the short-term credentials that connect people most directly to jobs. Proposed federal rules have moved the program closer to reality, as the public comment window on the rules closed just days before the summit. What advocates won, deferred, and left unresolved — and what to watch for in the final rule — was the first real question on the table.

On state readiness. The new law designates workforce boards, not higher education institutions, as the governor's mandatory implementation partners. Governors have been among Workforce Pell's most consistent champions across administrations, but the gap between the most and least prepared states is wide.

On operational reality. What changes the day after Workforce Pell becomes real? Lee Lambert grounded the conversation there — and opened the harder question about whether the program's 8-to-15-week duration requirement enables the disruption community colleges need, or constrains innovation already happening in the field.

On equity. Pell has always been an equity tool. Portia Pratt offered a frame I keep returning to: as the line between education and workforce blurs, neither can overshadow the other. Who Workforce Pell is actually for — and how we make sure it becomes a floor rather than a ceiling — is a question Colorado will need to answer for itself.

On durability. The session closed on the question every practitioner in the room was already holding: what's the realistic path for this new program to survive and scale, and what's most likely to derail it? Collaboration, patience, and a commitment to improving the arc of the program were the optimistic responses.

Internships an High School: April is Internship Awareness Month and a Britebound survey of 500 U.S. employers offers a useful snapshot of where high school work-based learning actually stands. The good news: 38% of businesses now offer high school internships, up from 30% five years ago, and employers are largely enthusiastic — 86% say these programs strengthen the industry pipeline, and 81% say they expand the pool of diverse candidates for future hiring.

The harder news is the student side of the equation. Most high schoolers are interested in internships. Only one in three knows of any opportunity available to them. Two percent have completed one. Employers cite real barriers — scheduling, transportation, funding, figuring out what work is actually suited for interns. The report points to intermediaries and state funding mechanisms as the most promising levers for closing the gap.

A $10K College for the AI Era: This week, Khan Academy, TED, and ETS announced the launch of the Khan TED Institute — a new online bachelor's degree program designed from scratch for the AI era, with a target price tag of under $10,000. The first planned course of study is a bachelor's degree in Applied AI, with Google, Accenture, McKinsey, Bain, and Replit signing on as launch partners.

The program will organize learning around three areas: core knowledge in math, statistics, economics, computer science, history, and writing; applied AI skills including app development and financial modeling; and human skills like communication and judgment. Students advance based on competency, not seat time, and could complete the degree in three years or less depending on their prior experience. The institute plans to open for applications within 12 to 18 months.

It's a direct challenge to the traditional degree model — and a signal that the question of what a credential should mean in an AI-disrupted world is no longer theoretical.

Workforce Pell: The Workforce Pell Data Collaborative — a coalition of 19 organizations including Strada Education Foundation, the National Governors Association, SHEEO, and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce Foundation — has published a Model Data Framework designed to help states, governors' offices, and institutions build the data infrastructure the Workforce Pell program will require.

The framework organizes data elements into four pillars: employer alignment, program-level information, participant-level data, and employment and pathway outcomes. A series of free webinars running through July will walk through each pillar in depth: 

On July 23 there will be a session on aligning Workforce Pell data with digital credentialing systems.

The Rise Report welcomes updates from our colleagues across Colorado. Think of this as your one-stop-shop for conference updates, new research + reports, job postings, and career moves.

The Future is High School Bus Tour, hosted by the XQ Institute and the Homegrown Talent Coalition is coming to Denver on April 30. The afternoon convening at Apollo Hall runs from 1:30 to 5 PM and is designed as a high-energy gathering for students, families, educators, policymakers, and community leaders to explore the big ideas shaping the future of American high schools. It's part celebration of Colorado's progress, part rallying moment for what's ahead. Register here.

The NSF ASCEND Engine — Colorado and Wyoming's climate resilience innovation hub — is hiring a Workforce Program Manager to help build and run talent pipelines aligned with emerging industries in wildfire, water, air quality, and soil health. The role spans program management, partner development, grant writing, and external affairs. Based in Fort Collins with hybrid flexibility. Full posting here.

I joined New York Times best-selling author Jeff Selingo and host Joe E. Ross, President of Reach University, on the Apprenticeship 2.0 podcast to tackle a question that's been shaping a lot of my work lately: are higher education and the workforce due for a radical realignment?

The conversation covers what's driving the shift toward apprenticeship and work-based learning, how learner expectations are evolving, and how institutions are — or aren't — keeping up. A few things we landed on: states may increasingly move to connect and merge their higher education and workforce systems over the next decade; affordability has to start with acknowledging it's a design problem, not just a funding problem; and the lines between education and work are already blurring in ways that policy hasn't caught up to yet.

I hope you will listen – and let me know how this conversation resonates with you.

Until next week,

Alison