Virginia's Community Colleges

DuBois, Glenn

Inquiry: The Journal of the Virginia Community Colleges 
Volume 25 
Number 2 A Lasting Legacy Pt. 2 Article 16 
12-14-2022 
Virginia's Community Colleges "Make It Work" 
Glenn DuBois 
Virginia Community College System 
Follow this and additional works at: https://commons.vccs.edu/inquiry 
 Part of the Higher Education Commons 
Recommended Citation 
DuBois, G. (2022). Virginia's Community Colleges "Make It Work". Inquiry: The Journal of the Virginia 
Community Colleges, 25 (2). Retrieved from https://commons.vccs.edu/inquiry/vol25/iss2/16 
This Article is brought to you for free and open access by Digital Commons @ VCCS. It has been accepted for 
inclusion in Inquiry: The Journal of the Virginia Community Colleges by an authorized editor of Digital Commons @ 
VCCS. For more information, please contact tcassidy@vccs.edu. 
Virginia’s Community Colleges “Make It Work” 
 
These remarks for the VCCS Higher Education Conference at the Homestead were delivered on December 5, 2012. 
 
 
adies and gentlemen: good afternoon. It’s a pleasure to see so many friends joining us for this 
year’s Hire Education Conference. 
 
I remember the first one – just over a decade ago. There were only about 30 of us in attendance. We 
have roughly ten times that number attending this year’s conference. 
 
That growth is a reflection, I believe, of three things: 
 
• One is the growing importance our community colleges are placing on workforce 
development. We’re no longer just talking about a couple non-credit cooking classes in the 
back of your campus. The opportunities we are offering today are highly sought after by 
employers and leading to great jobs; 
• Two is the growing importance our communities are placing on the workforce development 
our colleges offer. Time and again, we are providing the training and education that seals big 
economic deals – and helps existing employers compete and grow; and 
• Three is the success that we have enjoyed through partnerships with many people and 
groups throughout this room, and throughout Virginia. Our colleges are at their best when 
they can bring a community together to work through a challenge. And we are doing this 
every day in workforce development. 
 
You are in great company at this event. Sitting in the room with you today are folks from all 23 
Virginia community colleges; our State Board; the Virginia Workforce Council; many workforce 
investment boards; chambers of commerce and a number of other diverse organizations ranging 
from Goodwill Industries to the Virginia Manufacturers Association to the Commonwealth Catholic 
Charities. We’re delighted you are here and excited about what you can add to the conversation. 
 
I would like to talk with you briefly today about three matters. The first is to give you a report on 
our statewide, six-year strategic plan, Achieve 2015. We’re halfway through that plan now. I have 
some great news to share about how we are doing. 
 
Second, I would like to talk briefly about just a few of the legislative priorities that we are talking 
about with lawmakers. Specifically, I want to talk about the priorities that affect what we do in the 
workforce arena. There are a lot of moving pieces that will influence the 2013 General Assembly 
session so I won’t get into the entire agenda. But I want you to understand that we put a great deal 
of importance on the work you are doing.  
 
Finally, I would like to talk with you about the need to share our community college success story; to 
share it better; to share it more. We need to get out of the “Best Kept Secret Business.” We need to 
get out of the bachelor’s degree or bust mindset that can keep people away from pathways that lead 
to great careers. Throughout our communities, our commonwealth or our country, people don’t 
know what it is that they don’t know and that isn’t serving anyone well.  
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Achieve 2015 Update 
Let’s begin with the good news. Some four years ago with the help of a dream team of community 
college leaders we introduced an ambitious agenda called Achieve 2015. It was a bold six-year 
strategic plan. It framed a public agenda, focused on meeting community needs. It began with a 
series of open town hall meetings that, by design, included many community and business leaders. 
Eighteen months, and a lot of work, later the taskforce produced the five-point plan you see behind 
me. 
 
Having reached the halfway point of the plan earlier this year, we thought it was time to dig in and 
take a close look at what we have done. The results were surprising. We got most of it right, but not 
all. 
 
We were right about the plan. Achieve 2015 gave our community colleges a head start on those larger 
public policy goals that would follow it from both Capitol Square and Capitol Hill. We were right to 
set these stretch goals. It made us nervous at the time. The economy tanked as we were putting this 
plan together. It would have been easy to just lower our sights and hunker down. Instead, we looked 
around to see how many more people we could help. 
 
So, what did we get wrong? We underestimated how many people would seek their future with us. 
And we overestimated how long it would take us to achieve these ambitious goals.  
 
Many of the goals contain references to something called a URP. That’s education-speak. The initials 
stand for Under-Represented Populations. It’s a reference to students from lower-income families; 
minority groups; or those who are the first in their family to attend college. In fact, I was a URP 
when I enrolled in community college many years ago. When you consider the URP-related goals 
tucked within those five focus areas, you see that we actually have eight goals contained within 
Achieve 2015. 
 
As we stand here today, ladies and gentlemen, it is a pleasure to share with you that we have already 
met five of those goals! Moreover, we are on track to complete the remaining three. 
 
Let’s take a quick look. Our first goal has two parts: 
Increase the number of individuals who are educated and trained each year by Virginia’s 
Community Colleges by 50,000 to an annual total of 423,000, with emphasis on increasing 
the number from underserved populations by at least 25,000 individuals. 
 
We are on track with the first part, now serving more than 400,000 people a year. We have already 
surpassed the second part of the goal, however, increasing the number of URPs we serve by well 
over 50,000. 
 
The next goal deals with affordability and it also has two parts:  
Maintain tuition and fees at less than half of the comparable cost of attending Virginia’s 
public four-year institutions, and increase the annual number of students who receive 
financial assistance through grants and scholarships by 36,000. 
 
We are well within our tuition promise. Our comparable charges are just over one-third of what the 
universities charge, well below the one-half point. And we are making substantial progress on the 
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second part of the goal dealing with scholarships, where we are now awarding scholarships to more 
than 71,000 students. 
 
Our student success goal is another two-parter: 
Increase the number of students graduating, transferring, or completing a workforce 
credential by 50%, including increasing the success of students from underserved 
populations by 75%. 
 
To date, we have met both parts of this goal – another victory. We sought to break down some silos 
through Achieve 2015, so our workforce mission is interlaced with our academic mission in areas 
like student success.  
 
However, our next goal focuses on our impact with employers: 
Double the annual number of employers provided training and services to 10,000, with a 
particular focus on high-demand occupational fields. 
 
Because of your hard work we are scoring yet another victory on this goal. To date, we have served 
more than 11,000 employers across Virginia. 
 
And last, but by no means least, we have a fundraising goal that continues to pace our work of 
diversifying our resources: 
Raise at least $550 million in cumulative gifts and grants to support the mission of Virginia's 
Community Colleges. 
 
This is yet another goal where we are further along in progress than we are in time, and we feel 
confident that we will meet or exceed this goal.  
 
Every person in this room can rightfully celebrate this news. Each of your 23 colleges should be 
proud of what they contributed to this. So please give yourselves a round of applause. 
 
So, what now? Standing pat simply isn’t an option for us. Now is not the time to coast. The unmet 
needs our colleges were designed to address are simply too urgent. We’re talking some guidance 
from some geniuses – musical geniuses, that is: The Blues Brothers. Like John Belushi said in that 
1980 classic movie, “We’re getting the band back together, man.”  
 
We have reconvened the original taskforce that created Achieve 2015. They will recalibrate our goals 
and see if perhaps we should add another – specifically in the workforce arena. That panel has been 
hard at work and will submit a revised strategic plan to our presidents this month and to the State 
Board for its January meeting. This is not to be confused with the on-going work of the VCCS 
Reengineering Taskforce. That panel has 30 workgroups underway pursue aggressive strategies to 
help us work better and smarter – so much material that I’ll save all those details for another speech. 
I would invite you, however, to follow their work on our website: rethink.vccs.edu. 
 
2013 Legislative Priorities 
Second, I would like to share with you some of the priorities that we are pursuing for the upcoming 
General Assembly session. 
 
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As we continue to shape and articulate these priorities, we are mindful of a few things: One, 
Virginia’s financial picture is not as dire as it was a few years ago. It remains strained, however, and 
there is little to no appetite among state leaders for expensive new propositions. 
 
Two, Governor Bob McDonnell and the General Assembly made an investment last year in higher 
education that at least halted the year-over-year budget cuts that were becoming sadly routine. 
 
And three, the “fiscal cliff” debate in Washington will impact Virginia’s budget, as is the case for all 
50 states. We just don’t yet know the end of the story. 
 
Federal and state funding 
streams are woven 
together, tapestry style, on 
so many government 
functions that it’s often 
hard to tell where one 
ends and the other begins. 
We’ll begin to understand 
that further when the 
governor unveils his 
budget plan in a few 
weeks. 
 
That said, the VCCS 
legislative agenda is just 
like the VCCS mission, 
and our Achieve 2015 
strategic plan: It prioritizes 
community needs, not 
institutional wishes. And it is designed to leverage previous investments and bolster proven, 
effective strategies. 
 
Let me share with you two of our priorities: 
 
Workforce Services 
A moment ago, I mentioned that we are serving more Virginia businesses than ever before when it 
comes to customized training and other workforce development services. We need to keep our edge 
to keep that going. That’s why we are asking for our Workforce Development Programs to be 
included in the state’s Equipment Trust Fund, eligible to use up to $4 million of that fund. 
 
This inclusion would help us replace outdated equipment. Employers want our students trained on 
the most up-to-date equipment available and rightfully so. This is incredibly important in fields like 
advanced manufacturing, engineering and health sciences where the evolution in what businesses 
need is fast-paced. This is a matter of Virginia’s global competitiveness. Ensuring that our students 
are learning the latest technologies and skills is critical to helping our existing employers, and 
attracting new ones. 
 
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Affordable Access 
And we are pursuing several initiatives aimed at keeping college cost down for Virginia families. The 
one that would seem to most directly impact your work is our request that lawmakers create a tax 
incentive for contributions to our community college foundations that support scholarships and 
equipment for STEM-H fields. 
 
Perhaps you could call this the Heywood Fralin Tax Credit. We all cheered when he donated $5 
million this past fall to Virginia Western Community College, mostly to fund STEM-H scholarships. 
How many more philanthropy leaders and employers could be nudged to make similar investments 
if this tax credit existed? 
 
The General Assembly adopted a similar model last year to support scholarships for private school 
students. Why not community college students? Why not for those pursuing industry certifications? 
We think the model could help us leverage public-private investment in some key areas where 
everyone is demanding we develop more talent, including our non-credit offerings. 
 
Help Wanted: Storytelling 
Whether we’re talking about advocating on behalf of these priorities or even just increasing the 
awareness of what our colleges offer there is something we must collectively do better: We must 
become better storytellers. 
 
History, it is said, is a good story well told. Along those same lines, I believe our community colleges 
are an amazing story that can be told better. Our community colleges helped create America’s 
middle class; we made the American Dream tangible for millions of people; and we are routinely the 
lynchpin for transformative economic development deals. 
 
We change lives. We elevate communities. Yet, we bear the burden of an outdated image as high 
schools with ashtrays. We bear the burden of an outdated reputation as the place you go when you 
can’t get into a quote-unquote “real” college; And we bear the burden of reflexive comparisons to 
four-year universities -- comparisons which are often as helpful as comparing ducks to turtles 
because, you know, they both spend some of their time in the water.    
 
We must do a better job at sharing our story. We give people a chance when others won’t. We give 
people a second chance when others can’t. Much like Ellis Island years ago, our community colleges 
are a beacon of hope to hundreds of thousands seeking the American Dream. We customize our 
offerings to cater to what employers need and need now. 
 
We are the only institutions of higher education in America that focus on unmet community needs. 
My neighbors don’t understand this. Do yours? As community college leaders and supporters, we 
are community college experts.  
 
I wonder: is that expertise getting in the way? I wonder about what we miss because of what’s called 
the Curse of Knowledge – the assumption that those around us know what we know. 
 
Just like the people we hope to enroll, the people we ask for support don’t know what an FTE is. 
They don’t understand why the nurse we just graduated came through a credit program while the 
welder we just graduated came through a non-credit program. The ins and outs of accreditation bore 
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them to tears. And a General Fund Budget, to many of them, sounds like something George Patton 
would use to buy cigars. 
 
Our community colleges practice an alchemy that transforms resources into opportunities for 
individuals and, ultimately, better lives. These people need to see, to hear and to feel the impact we 
have throughout our Commonwealth. All of this room have the ability – and I believe the duty – to 
help them see it better. 
 
Now is Our Time 
The stakes have never been higher for our community colleges. Never in my 30-plus-year career has 
the nation so desperately needed us to shine. 
Today’s politics inspire little unity or agreement. But the need for more college graduates – and the 
roll that community colleges will play in producing those graduates – earns attention and support 
from across the political spectrum and at all levels of government. This is our time. 
 
Last summer, we saw no shortage of headlines when America’s student debt surpassed a trillion 
dollars. One out of every five American households now holds college loan debt. Those who are 
lucky enough to have jobs have seen their pay cut or stagnate. Despite all that, college dreams are 
alive and well. And smart people are aggressively hunting for affordable ways to pursue them. This is 
our time. 
 
Today’s global economy, as you well know, is driven by the staggering pace of technology. The 
concept of lifelong learning is no longer just a warm-sounding idea. Instead, it’s becoming a means 
of survival for families. Those moms and dads can no longer count on working the same job for 30-
years and retiring with a full pension and a gold watch. This is our time. 
 
The wisdom of those who created our community colleges is only beginning to be understood. Our 
community colleges are nimble; flexible; responsive; and geographically-dispersed. In other words, 
they are exactly what’s needed to meet Virginia’s and America’s 21st century challenges. In fact, soon 
after this century began, a sitting Virginia governor said to me that if we didn’t already have 
community colleges we would have to create them immediately. And another Virginia governor – 
one who was just elected to the U-S Senate – told me that community colleges are as important to 
Virginia as the air that we breathe. This is our time. 
 
When the odometer turns over again, when the 22nd century arrives, I believe people will look back 
and say, yeah, this was the time when community colleges really came into their own; met their 
potential; and shined brightly.  
 
Though it’s a humbling thought: Our fingerprints, our names, will be all over that. What we are 
offering you at this Hire Education Conference, I hope, will be some important steps on that 
wonderful journey. 
 
Thank you. 
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English

Virginia\u27s Community Colleges  Make It Work

Inquiry: The Journal of the Virginia Community Colleges 
Volume 25 
Number 2 A Lasting Legacy Pt. 2 Article 31 
12-14-2022 
Remarks at GRASP Reach for the Stars 
Glenn DuBois 
Virginia Community College System 
Follow this and additional works at: https://commons.vccs.edu/inquiry 
 Part of the Higher Education Commons 
Recommended Citation 
DuBois, G. (2022). Remarks at GRASP Reach for the Stars. Inquiry: The Journal of the Virginia Community 
Colleges, 25 (2). Retrieved from https://commons.vccs.edu/inquiry/vol25/iss2/31 
This Article is brought to you for free and open access by Digital Commons @ VCCS. It has been accepted for 
inclusion in Inquiry: The Journal of the Virginia Community Colleges by an authorized editor of Digital Commons @ 
VCCS. For more information, please contact tcassidy@vccs.edu. 
Remarks at GRASP Reach for the Stars 
 
These remarks were delivered at Boling Haxall House in Richmond, VA on October 7, 2016. 
 
 
adies and gentlemen: good evening. It’s a pleasure to be with you. While I see a lot of friends 
in the room, I want to acknowledge someone who is both a great leader and a great advocate 
of education: Senator Walter Stosch. 
 
We share Walter, you know? He is not only a co-founder of GRASP, but he was a big community 
college supporter in the state Senate, having helped create the Two-Year College Transfer Grant 
Program. And while his retirement from the Senate is Virginia’s loss, it’s our gain. Walter now sits 
on the Virginia State Board for Community Colleges. Thank you, Walter, for your steadfast 
leadership for higher education. 
 
Walter was kind enough to invite me to speak with you this evening. And I’m delighted to do it. I 
want to discuss three things with you: 
 
• I want to share with you my story, and why I’ve dedicated my career to community college 
education; 
• I want to talk about the growing role community colleges are playing in the 21st century. I 
think there are some things there that will surprise you; and 
• I want to talk about where Virginia’s Community Colleges are going. We’re honoring our 
50th anniversary this year, celebrating the progress and promise of our first half century. As a 
big history buff, I love that kind of look-back. But as a community college leader, I’m even 
more excited about what’s coming 
over our next 50 years. 
 
The DuBois story 
Let me begin with a little bit about my 
background. More than 35 years ago, I 
was walking across the stage at my 
high school, picking up my diploma, 
wondering how in the world I had 
even graduated. If I didn’t graduate 
last in my class, I was certainly in sight 
of it. 
 
But you know what? I didn’t care. I 
just wanted out. I didn’t know, and 
really didn’t care, what the future held 
for me. I wanted a job. What I really 
wanted was money in my pocket. And so, I got my wish – a job washing dishes in the restaurant in 
my neighborhood. You know, I had never even considered formal education. No teacher, no coach, 
not even a friend of mine had even put the idea of college in my head. We didn’t have any GRASP 
coaches. 
 
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Dish-pan-hands, my friends: that was the extent of my aspirations. The good news is after only a 
few months, I opened my eyes and raised my goals and thought yeah, I can move up. And I did, 
which meant that I was busing tables. I figured if I could get on the floor, I could at least see my 
customers. At the time I considered that an aggressive and bold career move. 
 
My mom wasn’t impressed. And I’m grateful she wasn’t. She thought I had more in me than that – 
even if I couldn’t see it. So every day, it seemed, as I clipped on my red bow-tie and put on my thick, 
cotton, fashion-free, fire engine red busing jacket, Mom would harass me about it.  
“Glenn, you need to go to college,” she would say while shoving a community college application 
into my hand. “Fill this thing out, now. You can do this.” We’d go back and forth about it. But you 
know how mothers are. I eventually caved in. 
 
I was shocked – shocked! – when an acceptance letter came through the mail. In fact, I was 
convinced it was a mistake. Maybe someone in the registrar’s office got my name confused with 
another. But I decided to go to class. I wasn’t taking any chances, however. I kept the acceptance 
letter in my shirt pocket for proof. I was certain that someone would eventually spot me, realize the 
college’s mistake and ask me to leave. 
 
My next surprise was that I found the classes to be engaging and interesting. Gradually, I developed 
meaningful relationships – especially with my instructors. It changed me. I felt a growing 
confidence. Busing tables wasn’t going to be enough. I felt like I was on a launch pad, curious to see 
just how far I could go. As I look back on that time, one of the best – if not the best – feature of 
earning an education was the opportunity to interact with inspiring teachers. My teachers inspired 
me to become a teacher – specifically, a community college teacher. 
 
Today, I have the pleasure of serving at the helm of the vibrant and dynamic community college 
system in Virginia – one of the nation’s largest, and certainly the nation’s best. I hope that gives you 
a sense of why postsecondary education is so important to me. Community colleges are like Ellis 
Island, on-ramps if you will, to a great career and a great life … even for a short-sighted busboy. 
 
No longer high schools with ash trays 
The second thing I want to talk about is the growing role that community colleges are playing in the 
21st century in Virginia. And I want to ask for help from all of the GRASP coaches who are here 
tonight. 
 
See, when I began my career in community college education, we were often seen as high schools 
with ash trays. We were the place to go if you couldn’t get into a quote-unquote “real” college. But 
that’s an outdated stereotype, and it’s a disservice to people who could benefit from the 
opportunities we provide. 
 
That’s not the only outdated stereotype, however, that’s holding people back. The other one is the 
“Bachelor’s or bust” myth that depicts a four-year university as the only avenue to success. For 
those who are university-bound, community college can be a tremendous resource. 
 
We offer, perhaps, the greatest transfer environment of any state in the nation. We hold guaranteed 
transfer agreements with more than three-dozen public and private universities. If a bachelor’s 
degree-bound student begins with us and earns an associate degree before transferring to a 
university, he or she could save as much as $45,000 on that BA degree. Or let me put that another 
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way, you can start your son or daughter at a community college, buy him or her a brand new BMW 
4-series convertible cari, and then use a transfer agreement and still come out ahead of the game 
financially. 
 
That calculation does not include the Two-Year College Transfer Grant that Walter Stosch 
championed in the General Assembly. Obtaining one of those grants could increase the savings by 
as much as $5,000. Those savings are real, and they’re tangible to middle class Virginia families, 
especially for those with two or more children. 
But that’s not all that we offer. Increasingly, our postsecondary industry-recognized certifications are 
opening doors in high-demand fields to careers that pay enough to support a family. That includes 
traditional careers like welding, truck driving and electricians. It also includes growing, 21st century 
fields like cyber security, health care and energy. 
 
These credentials take only weeks and months to earn, not semesters and years. And thanks to a 
brand new, first-in-the-nation, pay-for-performance plan approved earlier this year by the General 
Assembly, they are more affordable than ever before. Thanks to the Workforce Credentials Grant 
program, students will pay, on average, only between $100 and $1,500 for this training. 
 
I’m talking about the fastest-growing credentials in higher education today, and they are stackable – 
a flexibility that helps working people earn their way up the ladder one rung at a time. We know that, 
nationally, one out of every three people who earn one of these credentials go on to later earn a 
traditional college degree. 
 
The business community is supporting this training in a big way, eager to get skilled and trained 
people in the doors for jobs they have open now. Elected leaders are supporting this in a big way 
because they know that with the unique pay-for-performance model, Virginia is buying results, not 
efforts. Community colleges aren’t getting paid unless they produce the credentials. And economic 
developers are supporting this in a big way because they know that no other infrastructure 
consideration today – not roads, not tax breaks, not incentives – are as important to attracting 
businesses as evidence that credentialed, trained talent exists in a market, or there is a nearby 
community college ready to create it. This is now the factor determining economic development 
deals. And finally, families are supporting this – when they know about it. We need to do more to 
educate people about these options. Not enough people know about them.  
 
But we know that there are 1.1 million people in Virginia with some college experience but no 
college credential. And we know that many of them are working at Starbucks and Target, trying to 
make student loan payments; we know that there are people who are ready and eager for a chance 
like these credential programs offer. This, ladies and gentlemen, is what I mean when I say that 
bachelor’s degrees are not the only avenue to success. 
 
Our next fifty years 
And lastly, I wanted to share with you a sense of where community colleges are going as we move 
forward. Again, Virginia’s Community Colleges are celebrating the progress and promise of our first 
50 years. We have a lot to be proud of. 
 
In 1966, a newly elected governor convinced Virginians to take a chance. Through a referendum, 
they accepted a tax they didn’t want for a promise of something that they had never had: a 
comprehensive community college system. We’ve served more than 2.6 million people since.  
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Mills Godwin, the governor who created us was right when he later said, “Whatever else our 
community colleges may accomplish, they have taught us that we can never again think of a college 
education as something that belongs to the privileged or the few.” 
 
Our mission is both urgent and timeless: We were created to do what no one else would, to address 
Virginia’s unmet needs in higher education and workforce training. Our world evolves; our 
communities change; our colleges move from training punch card operators to preparing 
cybersecurity analysts; our mission shines. 
 
So, where do we go from here? What does the next 50 years of community college education look 
like? What’s today’s big challenge left unmet? I’ll tell you what it is: We strive to see a college 
graduate in every Virginia household. 
 
That’s an audacious-sounding goal. And it’s a necessary one. Labor economists say that 97 percent 
of America’s good jobs – fulltime positions with healthcare and retirement benefits – 97 percent of 
those good jobs have gone to college graduates since the Great Recession endedii. Across Virginia, 
we must fill 1.5 million jobs over the next 
decade. As many as two out of three of 
those jobs will require a postsecondary 
credential, ranging from an industry-
recognized certification to an associate 
degree, and beyond. 
 
The American Dream is an amazing story. 
We have reached a new chapter, however, 
where just working hard is no longer 
enough. The workplace is too technical; 
the marketplace is too global; the odds are 
too daunting to seize opportunity without 
a college credential. 
 
For our next 50 years, Virginia’s Community Colleges will convince every family that not only is 
their child “college material,” but he or she simply must become a college graduate. Think about 
what it would mean for a future Virginia governor to lead a trade delegation, anywhere in the world, 
and proudly say, “There’s a college graduate living in every Virginia home.” Think about what that 
would mean for Virginia’s existing businesses, planning for their future needs. Think about what it 
would mean for the sake of equity, for every Virginia child to grow up in families unafraid of the 
myths and mystique that, today, can make college feel so far away. 
 
Let’s make the phrase, “First Generation Student” obsolete in Virginia. America has a proud legacy 
of innovation and rising to a challenge: From the electric light to the microchip; from curing polio to 
organ transplants; from being the first in flight to the first on the moon.  
 
This is our higher education moon shot. President Kennedy challenged us to send a man to the 
moon and safely return him to the Earth. America accomplished it in less than eight years. They 
were starting from scratch on that one, and they figured it out along the way. We have a running 
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start on our challenge. We’ve been producing college graduates for a half-century – hundreds of 
thousands of them. 
 
I have faith in Virginia’s Community Colleges. I know that we can do this. But we can’t do it alone. 
So, I’m inviting you to join us – organizations like GRASP that care deeply about connecting more 
children with higher education opportunities and willing to work to make it happen. Together, let’s 
build on our first 50 years and make the next 50 even better. Let’s put a college graduate in every 
Virginia home! 
 
Thank you. 
 
 
i 2017 BMW 4-Series from $41,650 http://www.motortrend.com/price/40-50k/  
ii Source: Georgetown University Center on Education and the Workforce, America’s Divided Recovery: College Haves and Have-Nots, 2016 
https://cew.georgetown.edu/cew-reports/americas-divided-recovery/#full-report  
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DuBois: Remarks at GRASP Reach for the Stars
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Remarks at GRASP Reach for the Stars

Inquiry: The Journal of the Virginia Community Colleges 
Volume 25 
Number 2 A Lasting Legacy Pt. 2 Article 40 
12-14-2022 
Remarks at the Botetourt Chamber of Commerce 49th Annual 
Dinner 
Glenn DuBois 
Virginia Community College System 
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DuBois, G. (2022). Remarks at the Botetourt Chamber of Commerce 49th Annual Dinner. Inquiry: The 
Journal of the Virginia Community Colleges, 25 (2). Retrieved from https://commons.vccs.edu/inquiry/
vol25/iss2/40 
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Remarks at the Botetourt Chamber of Commerce 49th Annual Dinner 
 
These remarks were delivered at Virginia Mountain Vineyards in Fincastle, VA on May 15, 2018. 
 
 
hank you and good evening. Before I begin, I would like to thank just a few of the many, 
many friends I know here in the room this evening. 
 
Delegate Terry Austin has been a good friend for some time now. He was indispensable when it 
came to the Shared Services Center deal, and he’s been a reliable partner in the General Assembly 
for the community college agenda. Ken 
McFadyen, the director of the county’s 
economic development department and 
a member of the VEDA Board was 
essential in that deal as well. Ken, thank 
you for your good work. Gary Larrowe, 
the county administrator, has been a 
wonderful partner in our work as well. 
Thank you, Gary, for all of your help. 
 
And let me thank the Roanoke Valley 
Economic Development Partnership. 
Your ability to come together as region 
is encouraging – and I can say this as an 
outsider – it makes working with you 
more attractive and easier to do. 
 
I would also like to thank two people – 
who are here tonight – that you know 
well: Dr. Bobby Sandel is the president 
of Virginia Western Community College. Dr. John Rainone is the president of Dabney S. Lancaster 
Community College. They share the privilege of serving Botetourt County. I think you’re in good 
hands there. Bobby and John are two of our best. 
 
And, finally, let me thank the Botetourt Chamber of Commerce for the kind invitation to speak this 
evening. I’m happy, really, for any excuse to get out of Richmond – and this is a good one. 
 
Impressive Botetourt 
After all, it’s not every day that you are invited to speak to the economic development capital of 
Virginia. I tip my hat to all of you in this room. While there are plenty of places that are talking a 
good game when it comes to economic development, Botetourt is out there scoring deal after deal – 
and earning headlines and praise across the commonwealth. 
 
Ballast Point Brewing and Spirits… ELDOR Corporation… Altec Industries… Arkay Packaging 
Corporation… When it comes to relocations and expansions, those are just a few of your recent 
hits.  You’re bringing new companies in, and expanding the ones who are already here. 
 
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DuBois: Remarks at the Botetourt Chamber of Commerce
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The short story is that what’s happening here is impressive. I say that as someone who is proud to 
live in rural Virginia, and glad to see that success is not limited to Virginia’s urban crescent. I say that 
as a life-long educator, eager to be a partner in educating and training your workforce. And, I say 
that as a customer, proud to affirm years after the fact, that locating our VCCS Shared Services 
Center right here in Botetourt was absolutely the right decision.  
 
Workforce development 
So, what can our community colleges do, what can we offer, to help you advance? Community 
colleges are unique in that respect. We take the word “community” seriously. Our colleges were 
created more than 50 years ago to do what no one else would – to address Virginia’s unmet needs in 
higher education and workforce training. 
 
For the most part, we got that access to higher education part right. Nearly every Virginian lives 
within 30 miles of a community college campus. But I would like to talk for a moment about that 
workforce training side of our mission. 
 
1:2:7 challenge  
A few years back, we became aware of a business challenge that we describe as the 1-2-7 problem. 
If you are a business owner, or a hiring manager, you know exactly what I’m talking about. Here’s 
how it works for every job that requires an advanced degree – think doctor, lawyer, engineer – you 
need two bachelor’s degrees to support that job – think administration, HR, public relations – and 
you need seven front-line technicians to get the work done – think certified nursing assistant, 
welder, electrician. 
 
Well, businesses have no problem finding the ones and the twos. In fact, they can recruit them from 
practically anywhere in country, and often the world. But the sevens are a different matter entirely. 
They have to be there already for a business to succeed. And if they’re not there, there has to be a 
way to create them quickly. 
 
FastForward 
Understanding that challenge – and helping policy-makers understand that challenge – is what let to 
our FastForward program. The tagline is “Credentials for a Career that Matter.” That captures it 
perfectly. FastForward – and the Workforce Credential Grants that make the training so affordable 
to students – is the nation’s first pay-for-performance workforce training program. 
 
We’re nearly two years into FastForward, and we’re proud of the results. In fact, those state grants I 
mentioned have sold out each of those first two years. We’re hoping to see more money for those 
grants when the state budget is finalized. To date, nearly 9,000 Virginians have enrolled in those 
short-term training programs, leading to jobs in an estimated 40 different career fields. 
 
Nine out of every ten people who enroll complete their course of study. So far, those graduates have 
earned nearly 6,000 credentials. And the real story is what happens after people finish those 
programs. They are moving into jobs that increase their take-home pay anywhere from 25-percent to 
50-percent. What’s not to like about that? 
 
We’re also finding two important factors in the numbers that bode well for Virginia. The average age 
of those enrolling in our FastForward programs is 36. And unlike much of traditional higher 
education, where female students typically outnumber males, men are the majority of our 
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FastForward program. I say that bodes well for Virginia because it’s an important step in expanding 
higher education offerings to meet the true needs of Virginia communities. 
 
ALICE  
We are serving fewer younger people in Virginia today in higher education. That’s true in our 
community colleges and it’s true throughout the universities. You see, as we ride Virginia’s 
demographic waves there are simply fewer younger people to serve. In fact, our nation’s fertility rate 
has declined 12 percent since the year 2007, and that will have consequences. 
Beginning in 2026, we will see a decline in the traditional college-age student that is more dramatic 
than we’ve ever seen in our lifetime. And while we will continue to need new bachelor’s degrees in 
Virginia’s economy, they alone won’t meet the needs of our workplace. The 1-2-7 challenge 
demands greater diversity in both skills and knowledge.  
 
All of this to say that our future depends on a lot more than just 18-year-olds and bachelor’s 
degrees. We have to help more adults earn postsecondary credentials. We must prepare more of 
them for career opportunities that didn’t exist when they were the age of traditional college students, 
but could help them support a family today. 
 
You know whom I’m talking about. We have an untapped pool of talent that lies beneath every 
community. It includes people who began but never finished college. It includes people who are 
working two – or more – jobs trying to make ends meet. It includes parents. And it includes many 
single parents. They have a car payment or two, and they pay rent or a mortgage. Some of these 
folks are included in Virginia’s poverty rate. But many are not. 
 
I recently learned a new way to describe such folks. It comes from a big report published by the 
United Way. They refer to these folks with the acronym, ALICE. It means Asset Limited, Income 
Constrained, Employed. ALICE. Despite working, many of these folks are having a hard time 
affording the basic cost of living. Statewide, the number of households who qualify as ALICE is two 
out of five. In parts of Southwest Virginia, it may be as high as three out of five. These folks feel 
locked out. You know, they are connected by social media to people they graduated high school 
with, and they see the lives those former classmates lead as college graduates and they are desperate 
for a way in. 
 
The truth is, however, very few will pursue a typical college degree. They see the obstacles, not the 
opportunities, of it and often they lack the confidence. And too many of them are unaware of 
programs like FastForward. The tradition of the community college mission calls on us to help these 
people find their way back to a shot at joining the middle class. FastForward credentials are a great 
first step in that direction. But it won’t be our last. Doing more for these people, expanding 
postsecondary credentials to a growing and diverse Virginia is essential to the vision that I have for 
Virginia’s Community Colleges.  
 
A college graduate in every home 
In 1966, a young governor convinced Virginians take a chance. Through a referendum, they 
accepted a tax they didn’t want for a promise of something that they had never had: a 
comprehensive community college system. We’ve served more than 2.6 million people since. Mills 
Godwin, the governor who created us put it this way, “Whatever else our community colleges may 
accomplish, they have taught us that we can never again think of a college education as something 
that belongs to the privileged or the few.” 
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DuBois: Remarks at the Botetourt Chamber of Commerce
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So, where do we go from here? How do we leverage that legacy of responding to community needs, 
and where does that take us next? I’ll tell you what it is: We strive to see a college graduate in every 
Virginia household. And when I say graduate, I mean with anything from a postsecondary credential 
to a traditional college degree.  
 
That’s an audacious-sounding goal. Yet, it’s a necessary one. Labor economists say that 97 percent 
of America’s good jobs – fulltime positions with healthcare and retirement benefits – 97 percent of 
those good jobs have gone to college graduates since the Great Recession ended. Across Virginia, 
we must fill 1.5 million jobs over the next decade. As many as two out of three of those jobs will 
require a postsecondary credential, but less than a bachelor’s degree. 
 
The American Dream is an amazing story. We have reached a new chapter, however, where just 
working hard is no longer enough. The workplace is too technical; the marketplace is too global; the 
odds are too daunting to seize opportunity without a college credential. 
 
Moving forward, Virginia’s Community Colleges aspire to convince our friends and neighbors in 
every Virginia home how earning a postsecondary credential will lead them to success. Think about 
what it would mean for a future Virginia governor to lead a trade delegation anywhere in the world 
and proudly say, “There’s a college graduate living in every Virginia home.” Thank about what it 
would mean to say that there’s a college graduate living in every Botetourt home. Think about what 
that would mean for existing businesses, planning for their future needs. Think about what it would 
mean for the sake of equity, for every Virginia child to grow up in families unafraid of the myths and 
mystique that, today, can make college feel so far away. 
 
Let’s make the phrase, “First Generation Student” obsolete in Virginia. America has a proud legacy 
of innovation and rising to a challenge. This is our higher education moon shot. President Kennedy 
challenged us to send a man to the moon and safely return him to the Earth. America accomplished 
it less than eight years. They were starting from scratch on that one, and they figured it out along the 
way. We have a running start on our challenge. We’ve been producing college graduates for a half-
century now. 
 
Closing 
So, in closing, let me say that I’m passionate about this work because I’m a community college 
product. Though my family had been in this country for six generations, I’m the first to attend and 
graduate from college. I had no aspirations, no direction when I finished high school. All I cared 
about was getting a few dollars in my pocket from a job washing dishes. 
 
I can’t imagine where I would be today if a community college didn’t take a chance on me. I don’t 
know what I would be doing right now if I hadn’t found my classes interesting and my professors 
engaging. Moreover, while I could have ultimately pursued a number of different careers, I don’t 
believe any of them would as been as satisfying as the one I choose, focused on preserving and 
expanding opportunities for those who come behind me, just like the chance I got. 
 
Thank you for all that you do, and for the chance to be with you this evening. Good night.  
 
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Remarks at the Botetourt Chamber of Commerce 49th Annual Dinner

Inquiry: The Journal of the Virginia Community Colleges 
Volume 26 Number 1 Article 1 
4-17-2023 
Front Cover (Spring 2023) 
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 Part of the Art and Design Commons, and the Higher Education Commons 
Recommended Citation 
(2023). Front Cover (Spring 2023). Inquiry: The Journal of the Virginia Community Colleges, 26 (1). 
Retrieved from https://commons.vccs.edu/inquiry/vol26/iss1/1 
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et al.: Cover
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Video: Looking Back

Video: The Future of Community Colleges

Inquiry: The Journal of the Virginia Community Colleges 
Volume 25 
Number 1 A Lasting Legacy Article 2 
4-6-2022 
Table of Contents 
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 Part of the Higher Education Commons 
Recommended Citation 
(2022). Table of Contents. Inquiry: The Journal of the Virginia Community Colleges, 25 (1). Retrieved from 
https://commons.vccs.edu/inquiry/vol25/iss1/2 
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et al.: Table of Contents
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Hamel, Dana B.

Inquiry: The Journal of the Virginia Community Colleges 
Volume 25 
Number 1 A Lasting Legacy Article 3 
4-6-2022 
Letter from Dana B. Hamel 
Dana B. Hamel 
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 Part of the Higher Education Commons 
Recommended Citation 
Hamel, D. B. (2022). Letter from Dana B. Hamel. Inquiry: The Journal of the Virginia Community Colleges, 
25 (1). Retrieved from https://commons.vccs.edu/inquiry/vol25/iss1/3 
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Letter from Dana B. Hamel

Inquiry: The Journal of the Virginia Community Colleges 
Volume 25 
Number 1 A Lasting Legacy Article 8 
4-6-2022 
Improving the Military Friendliness of Virginia’s Community 
Colleges 
Glenn DuBois 
Virginia Community College System 
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 Part of the Higher Education Commons 
Recommended Citation 
DuBois, G. (2022). Improving the Military Friendliness of Virginia’s Community Colleges. Inquiry: The 
Journal of the Virginia Community Colleges, 25 (1). Retrieved from https://commons.vccs.edu/inquiry/
vol25/iss1/8 
This Article is brought to you for free and open access by Digital Commons @ VCCS. It has been accepted for 
inclusion in Inquiry: The Journal of the Virginia Community Colleges by an authorized editor of Digital Commons @ 
VCCS. For more information, please contact tcassidy@vccs.edu. 
Improving the Military Friendliness of  
Virginia’s Community Colleges 
 
This speech was delivered at Reynolds Community College on November 21, 2011. 
 
 
 
hank you for the opportunity to speak today about what Virginia’s Community Colleges are 
doing to serve military-related students – and to talk about how our work could be enhanced 
moving forward through strategic partnerships and resources. 
 
Virginia’s Community Colleges were created 46 years ago to address the commonwealth’s unmet 
needs in higher education and workforce training. We were founded, in essence, to do what no other 
higher education provider was willing or able to do. Time and again, we have seen the flexibility and 
responsiveness of that mission serve the commonwealth well – bringing the opportunities of higher 
education to people who were separated from it by reasons of geography, of finances, of culture, 
and other circumstances. 
 
It’s easy to bask in the altruistic notions of our mission. But the truth is that our mission is 
increasingly selfish – selfish on behalf of the commonwealth’s benefit. Competing for and securing 
opportunity in the 21st century is harder than it has ever been before. Virginia doesn’t have the 
luxury of wasting the talents and contributions of any single person. That’s especially true when it 
comes to the men and women who are willing to wear our nation’s uniform. 
 
Rebuilding community, commonwealth, and country 
It has been said that America is the land of the free because it is the home of the brave. Since 2000, 
Virginians serving in every branch of our nation’s armed forces have been called to duty in no fewer 
than a dozen foreign countries including Afghanistan, Iraq, Pakistan, East Timor, Haiti, Somalia and 
Yemen. We have asked these men and women in many cases to go to places they’ve never before 
been, to help people they’ve never before met with challenges they’ve never before faced. 
 
It’s time, I believe, to take that experience, that courage, and that passion and translate it into 
opportunity that will not only benefit these young people and their families but also our country, our 
commonwealth, and our communities. Just as we cannot expect members of our military to carry 
out their mission without resources and training, we cannot expect them to meet their potential at 
home without resources and training. That’s where their community colleges step in. 
  
Who are they? 
Virginia’s Community Colleges, today, serve more than 31,000 military-related students. That 
number includes active military and reserve members, spouses and dependents, and veterans. We 
believe that number may be even higher because that is a self-reported statistic, from students 
enrolled only in our academic credit programs. 
 
Let me give you a better sense of what that number means: if all of those people were to appear in 
one place, you would have a student body about the size of Virginia Commonwealth University. I 
would invite you to read just a few of their stories. We brought with us today copies of the most 
T 
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DuBois: Improving Military Friendliness of VCCS
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recent VCCS annual report that includes some student profiles in a special veteran’s section. You 
can’t help but be impressed, if not amazed, if you read a few of those stories. 
 
There are some subtle, yet significant, differences between these military-related students and their 
classmates: 
• Our veterans are more likely to be men. Seven out of ten veterans that we serve are men. 
That is nearly the opposite of our non-veteran student enrollment, where six out of ten 
students are women. 
• Our veterans are more likely to be older students. Most of our veteran students are 25 or 
older. Fewer than 8 percent are younger than that. Meanwhile, six out of ten students in our 
non-veteran enrollment are under the age of 25. 
• Our students who were veterans are more likely to be minority students generally and more 
likely to be African-American than the rest of student population. 
• Veteran students at Virginia’s Community Colleges come to us with lower average incomes 
and earn slightly higher average financial aid packages. 
• Two out of ten students who were veterans are also the first in their family to attend college. 
That compares to three out of ten for our non-veteran students. 
• Veterans are nearly twice as likely as their counterparts to pursue degrees in science, 
technology, engineering, mathematics and healthcare – or what’s often called STEM fields. 
• And it’s about even money between veteran and non-veteran students when it comes to 
examining who are pursuing transfer degrees. 
 
There are some promising signs when you look at those statistics. That’s especially true with the 
significant percentage of male veterans who are enrolling – bucking the gender trends being seen 
across the nation. That’s also true with the higher percentage of veteran students who are pursuing 
STEM degrees. Just as there is near-universal agreement on the need for more college graduates 
across our commonwealth and country, there is similar agreement on the need for more science, 
technology, engineering, and mathematics – and healthcare – majors. 
 
Serving our veterans 
So, what are Virginia’s Community Colleges doing to serve active duty members of the military and 
reserves, veterans and their families? The answer is that the focus, personnel, and resources that our 
individual 23 community colleges offer to these students are calibrated to match the demand in their 
college service region. Accordingly, the parts of Virginia that military-related students and their 
families most often like to call home – Northern Virginia and Hampton Roads, for example – are 
where you will find our most significant offerings for those students. 
 
An example of that is the Tidewater Community College Center for Military and Veterans 
Education, which was established just this year at the college’s Virginia Beach Campus. That center, 
in many ways, represents a blue print for what community colleges can be to military members, 
veterans and their families. According to the Virginia National Guard, the TCC Center is the only 
public college or university in the Virginia actively supporting their “Yellow Ribbon Reintegration 
Program” working with their soldiers and families before and after over-seas deployments. The TCC 
center is also working with the Department of Defense, the Veterans Administration, the 
Department of Labor, the Office of Personnel Management and others to develop the E-2-I 
wounded warriors Education Employment Initiative. This work is aimed at working with wounded 
warriors early in their recovery to identify the skills and knowledge they have and need to earn the 
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postsecondary credentials that will position them to secure high-wage, high-demand jobs to get them 
back into the workforce. 
 
The TCC center is working on a similar project with the Navy’s Center for Personal and 
Professional Development to design and pilot the Navy’s Disability Transition Assistance Program. 
Through the center, TCC is a candidate for a Military Spouses Community Blueprint Network Grant 
to ensure that military spouses have the skills and credentials they need to secure good jobs in the 
private sector. 
 
The TCC center, like Northern Virginia and many of our other community colleges, also acts like a 
bridge connecting military-related students with employers who are in need of skilled-up workers. 
That work can take many 
forms. For example, they 
are partnering with 
Dominion Virginia 
Power and the Troops to 
Energy Jobs program to 
help veterans make a 
smooth transition from 
their military careers into 
skilled utility and 
engineering position 
within the energy sector. 
Along with the Virginia 
Employment 
Commission and Easter 
Seals, the TCC center is 
promoting the Veterans 
Employment Program Green Jobs Initiative. A customize certification program, created along with 
the Virginia Center for Weatherization is showing promising results. Every single veteran who took 
part in initial pipeline course this year got a job. You can’t ask for much more than that. 
 
Efforts like this, in various shapes and sizes can be found across our 23 community colleges. 
Virginia Western Community College, in Roanoke, is the first higher education institution in Virginia 
to officially start a chapter of SALUTE, the nation honor society for veterans. Patrick Henry 
Community College, in Martinsville, has a Veteran Coordinator who boasts an impressive track 
record of connecting veterans with employers who are seeking them. Eastern Shore Community 
College is working with their local Virginia Employment Commission to offer monthly workshops 
for veterans focused on jobs and career services. 
 
A number of our institutions are connected to Veteran’s Upward Bound Programs and others are 
working with local chapters of the Wounded Warrior Program to bring their services to recovering 
veterans. Our statewide foundation, the Virginia Foundation for Community College Education, has 
adopted support for military-related student resources as one of its key priorities. And, of course, 
military-related veterans have access to resources like non-credit workforce training programs, 
academic, financial aid and career coaching, and resume-building networking-assistance at every 
Virginia Community College, just like their classmates. This is simply a small taste of what Virginia’s 
Community Colleges are offering veterans and military-related students. 
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DuBois: Improving Military Friendliness of VCCS
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Improving the Military Friendliness of Virginia’s Community Colleges

Inquiry: The Journal of the Virginia Community Colleges 
Volume 25 
Number 1 A Lasting Legacy Article 13 
4-6-2022 
Email on Same-Sex Marriage Benefits 
Glenn DuBois 
Virginia Community College System 
Follow this and additional works at: https://commons.vccs.edu/inquiry 
 Part of the Higher Education Commons 
Recommended Citation 
DuBois, G. (2022). Email on Same-Sex Marriage Benefits. Inquiry: The Journal of the Virginia Community 
Colleges, 25 (1). Retrieved from https://commons.vccs.edu/inquiry/vol25/iss1/13 
This Article is brought to you for free and open access by Digital Commons @ VCCS. It has been accepted for 
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VCCS. For more information, please contact tcassidy@vccs.edu. 
Email on Same-Sex Marriage Benefits 
 
On October 7, 2014, this email was sent to all faculty and staff in Virginia’s community colleges. 
 
 
ear colleagues: 
 
 
As you have likely know, the U.S. Supreme Court made an historic decision yesterday to effectively 
allow same sex marriages to be legally recognized. In response, Governor Terry McAuliffe 
announced that our state government is working to bring all of its policies and practices into 
compliance so that marriages between same-sex partners will receive the “full faith and credit they 
deserve,” and signed Executive Order #30 to begin that process. 
 
The Virginia Department of Human Resource Management (DHRM) will soon release guidance to 
all agencies, including Virginia’s community colleges, regarding policy changes to include 
information about health care benefits, flexible reimbursement accounts, the Family Medical Leave 
Act, and other relevant employee benefit matters. 
 
That information will be shared with you and your colleges as soon as it is available. Once that 
occurs, please direct any questions you may have to your college’s human resources department. 
They will assist you with 
policy and rules 
interpretation and assist 
you with enrollments and 
related affairs. 
 
Further, these policy 
changes are in keeping 
with the spirit of the 
Chancellor’s Task Force 
on Diversity that was 
charged with identifying 
“Strategies, actions, 
programs, and policies 
that will enable the VCCS 
to build an inclusive and 
representative community.” Our State Board approved the group’s final report earlier this year and 
we are in the process of implementing it. 
 
The VCCS honors diversity in all of its dimensions, understanding just how integral that is to 
serving all of a growing and increasingly diverse Virginia. 
D 
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DuBois: Email on Same-Sex Marriage Benefits
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Email on Same-Sex Marriage Benefits

Inquiry: The Journal of the Virginia Community Colleges 
Volume 25 
Number 1 A Lasting Legacy Article 14 
4-6-2022 
More Credentials Essential to Individual and Business Prospects 
in Virginia 
Glenn DuBois 
Virginia Community College System 
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 Part of the Higher Education Commons 
Recommended Citation 
DuBois, G. (2022). More Credentials Essential to Individual and Business Prospects in Virginia. Inquiry: 
The Journal of the Virginia Community Colleges, 25 (1). Retrieved from https://commons.vccs.edu/
inquiry/vol25/iss1/14 
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More Credentials Essential to Individual  
and Business Prospects in Virginia 
 
This op-ed, co-written with Barry DuVal, the president and CEO of the Virginia Chamber of Commerce, was 
published in the Richmond Times-Dispatch on December 17, 2015. 
 
 
irginia is on the verge of taking an important step forward in filling the job vacancy backlog 
that exists in our state by bridging the gap between a skilled workforce and quality career 
choices. The plan Governor McAuliffe unveiled yesterday will put more people to work and help 
businesses fill vacant positions by expanding certification programs at Virginia’s Community 
Colleges.  
 
Certifications are a growing and increasingly important part of Virginia’s postsecondary picture, 
driven by employer needs. Some of Virginia’s fastest-growing industries, like cybersecurity 
healthcare and advanced manufacturing, boast the greatest needs for these credentials. Meanwhile, 
other industries that Virginia relies on daily are seeking ways to replace an aging workforce in 
essential positions like HVAC, electricians, plumbers, and truck drivers. 
 
Our commonwealth today invests in individuals who pursue anything between an associate degree 
and a doctorate. Virginia needs all those credentials. The need is just as great, however, for the 
postsecondary certifications 
that denote critical skills, 
essential to keeping Virginia 
moving forward. 
 
There were more than 
175,000 job vacancies last 
year in Virginia that required 
postsecondary certifications, 
according to research 
conducted by the company 
Burning Glass. The unfilled 
jobs paid more than $28 an 
hour, or more than $58,000 
dollars a year – a figure that is 
just shy of Virginia’s median 
household income of 
$63,000. Those jobs each sat vacant for nearly a month, longer than the national average. We all paid 
a price for that. Virginia businesses lost more than 36 million hours of productivity. Individual 
Virginians lost more than $1 billion in wages. And our state government, which depends on income 
tax withholdings more than any other state save one, lost more than $54 million in tax revenue. 
 
That’s not a one-time occurrence. Over the next decade as many as two-thirds of the 1.5 million 
jobs that Virginia must fill will require more than a high school diploma but less than a bachelor’s 
degree, according to leading economic analysis. Those jobs will demand an associate degree and 
industry-recognized certifications that Virginia’s Community Colleges help people obtain. 
V 
1
DuBois: More Credentials in Virginia
Published by Digital Commons @ VCCS, 2022
 
Virginia’s Community Colleges spent the spring and summer studying this issue, at the direction of 
the General Assembly and the McAuliffe Administration. More than 1,500 business leaders weighed 
in at 22 town hall meetings held across Virginia. While those sessions confirmed the nuances and 
distinctions that make our regions unique and fascinating, they all confirmed the urgent need for 
more credentialed talent. That feedback echoed the message from the 7,000 business and 
community leaders who engaged in the process of putting together the Virginia Chamber’s Blueprint 
Virginia business plan for the Commonwealth in 2013, with workforce development cited as the top 
priority for our long-term prosperity.  
 
We’re not alone in identifying this need. Across the nation, 19 states are already funding the training 
programs that lead to these credentials. That includes many of Virginia’s neighbors, like Maryland, 
Kentucky and both Carolinas. North Carolina, alone, is investing more than $92 million a year on its 
non-credit training programs. For the sake of comparison, Virginia spent $5 million on comparable 
programs last year. Virginia can do better and we must. 
 
The training programs that lead to these credentials are short-term, lasting weeks or months, 
compared to the semesters and years it takes to earn a traditional college degree. The programs cost, 
on average, $3,100, though there is little to no financial aid available for people pursuing them. It’s 
not hard to see what a deterrent that can be given that 75-percent of Americans live paycheck-to-
paycheck, lacking even a spare $500 to cover a medical emergency. These training programs offer 
people a second chance to pursue their American Dream. The average age of Virginians pursuing 
these credentials today at our community colleges is 37, more than a decade older than the average 
age of those pursuing our traditional academic programs. 
 
We can’t say enough about how important those second chances are. More than 1.1 million 
Virginians have some college experience but no college credential. When you consider how many of 
them could be facing college debt, it’s easy to see how important these credential opportunities can 
be. Given the pressures facing the Virginia economy, we have no talent to waste. Interestingly, one 
out of three people who earn these industry-recognized certifications go on to earn a college degree. 
That means these credentials truly are stackable, supporting individuals on the way up a career 
ladder. 
 
Virginia’s Community Colleges were created nearly 50 years ago to address the commonwealth’s 
unmet needs in higher education and workforce training. Today, those needs are taking the form of 
more credentialed talent. We are honored to work with Gov. McAuliffe and General Assembly 
leaders to connect more individuals with vital career opportunities and the businesses who are eager 
to hire talented, trained people who will bolster their competitiveness. 
2
Inquiry: The Journal of the Virginia Community Colleges, Vol. 25, No. 1 [2022], Art. 14
https://commons.vccs.edu/inquiry/vol25/iss1/14


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