For more than a decade, Corporate Voices for Working Families (Corporate Voices) has cultivated
public and private policies that promote the wellbeing of working families while strengthening
our nation’s economy and enhancing the vitality of our communities. Our partner companies lead
their industries in developing best practices that both help working families and meet bottom-line
business goals. Nowhere is this more evident than in Corporate Voices’ work on jobs, skills, education
and training.

Substantial numbers of students who earn an associate degree from a community college accumulate more college credits than are required. This is an important phenomenon for at least two related reasons. First, it raises the issue of efficiency: Are students getting their degrees in the most expeditious manner, both in terms of time out of the labor market and in terms of the monetary cost of attaining the degree?

As communities across the country pursue plans to spend $500 million in new federal grants to build a world-class 21^st-century workforce, Corporate Voices for Working Families is being tapped for its expertise and thought leadership in the area of business-education partnerships.

Research on education and skills levels of employees and jobs available in the future is clear. Recent pro-
jections by The Georgetown Center on Education and the Workforce indicate, by 2018, the economy will
experience 47 million job openings, two-thirds of which will require some postsecondary education or train-
ing. Predictions indicate that there will not be enough people qualified to fill three million of these jobs, jobs
which require at least a two-year associate’s degree. Without strategic change this gap will only continue to