US Community Colleges Offer Clean Energy Training

01Across the United States, students are now looking to community colleges for training in jobs related to climate change solutions.

02These include wind and solar energy, electrification, and protecting water and farmland.

03For example, on the south side of Chicago, Illinois, students learn how to work on an electric vehicle, or EV, in a new technician program at Olive Harvey College.

04About 240 kilometers south, students at Danville Area Community College learn how to fix large wind turbines.

05In Albuquerque, students learn how to work on solar panels at Central New Mexico Community College.

06In Boston, Massachusetts, students at Roxbury Community College's Center for Smart Building Technology learn how to strengthen buildings against extreme temperatures.

07They also learn how to build structures that contribute less to climate change.

08Kyle Johnson is a 34-year-old student at Olive Harvey College in Illinois.

09Johnson has long enjoyed working on gasoline-fueled cars.

10But automobiles are increasingly electric.

11When it came to EVs, I knew that the times are changing, and I didn't want to get left behind, he said.

12Climate change has a lot to do with my decision, he added.

13The job market already has been changing.

14Businesses and jobs that address climate change are growing.

15And now legislation like the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act is adding more investment, which will most likely mean more jobs.

16Millions of clean energy workers are needed to meet targets set by governments and companies to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions.

17Many of these job opportunities are growing faster than overall employment in the U.S.

18Brian Lavelle of Roxbury Community College has seen that firsthand.

19While the students are still in the program, they get employed because the demands of industry are so acute, he said, of the students in Roxbury, Massachusetts.

20Traditionally, people going into these industries gained skills through local employers and labor organizations.

21But now community colleges can help.

22They listen to companies and state officials and create hands-on training for open jobs.

23Kate Kinder is executive director of the National Council for Workforce Education.

24She said, over half of these jobs require less than a four-year college degree and more than a high school education.

25That's prime community college space, she said, of the two-year associate program.

26These job openings draw in students like Tanner Pollyard.

27Pollyard had thought he would become an automotive technician.

28However, after learning about openings in the wind power industry, he enrolled in Danville's wind energy technician classes.

29He said, it really opens the door for people out here for jobs.

30At the same time, community colleges have been losing students, not unlike the rest of higher education.

31Currently, more people are entering the workforce straight out of high school.

32And some community colleges have not recovered from the decrease in enrollment that happened during the pandemic.

33Some schools say investing in these programs is a balancing act between staying up to date and risking a bet on developing technology.

34We feel the pressure, said Monica Brummer.

35She is director of the Pacific Northwest Center of Excellence for Clean Energy at Centralia College in Washington.

36If we create curriculum today for, say, a hydrogen technician, it may not be the curriculum we need in two or three years, because the technology is changing so fast.

37Some schools hope to make the change without new and costly investments.

38For example, Minnesota's Inver Hills Community College launched a climate change program in 2022 using existing areas of study at the school.

39Now administrators are considering expanding that program.

40As well, Cape Cod Community College recently changed from specialized workforce training to a wider sustainable energy study program.

41Other community colleges help prepare students like Sarah Solis for a four-year degree program related to climate change.

42Solis was enrolled at West Los Angeles College, a community college near the Inglewood oil field.

43The oil field is what led her to environmental studies.

44She later changed to the school's climate change degree, which was new at the time.

45Its climate change program has grown since then.

46It is now home to the California Center for Climate Change Education.

47Then Solis went to the University of California, Davis, and earned a degree in environmental science and management.

48She teaches city farms how to deal with a warming future, and she credits her success to her community college experience.

49Solis called her experience at the community college life-changing.

50She added, I would not be an environmental scientist right now if I hadn't gone to West.

51Many other students said the same thing.

52I'm Dan Friedel.

53And I'm Ana Mateo.