Nine Colleges From Louisiana and Mississippi Form Consortium

Baton Rouge, LA - A consortium of Louisiana and Mississippi Community and Technical Colleges and Nunez Community College has been awarded a combined $17.4 million grant as part of the U.S. Department of Labor's Trade Adjustment Assistance Community College and Career Training (TAACCCT) initiative.

Nunez Community College which applied for its grant separately was awarded $2,760,356.  The consortium, made up of Bossier Parish Community College, Delgado Community College, Louisiana Delta Community College, South Louisiana Community College, Copiah-Lincoln Community College, Meridian Community College, Mississippi Delta Community College, Northeast Mississippi Community College, and Pearl River Community College was awarded $14,710,837 in community college grants.

The TAACCCT initiative promotes skills development and employment opportunities in fields such as advanced manufacturing, transportation and health care, as well as science, technology, engineering and math careers through partnerships between training providers and local employers. The U.S. Department of Labor is implementing and administering the program in coordination with the U.S. Department of Education.

Using the evidence-based IBEST model and with the Accelerating Opportunity initiative's technical support, each college in the consortium will develop and implement pathways that feature a new, core foundational information technology curriculum that integrates basic skills instruction with technical training to accelerate academic achievement and credential attainment. The common IT foundational curriculum leads to a marketable entry-level certification and lattices into multiple in-demand IT specialty pathways and certifications in health informatics, cyber security and industrial IT.

The goal of the Nunez project is to implement a redesigned associate of applied science for business administration and two new associate of applied sciences under business administration, one emphasis being entrepreneurship/ small business management and the other being hotel, restaurant and tourism administration.

U.S. Secretary of Labor Hilda L. Solis announced the $500 million in community college grants in Florida Wednesday at St. Petersburg College, which also received $15 million in funds to lead a consortium of community colleges across the state. 

The grants emphasize evidence-based program design. Each grantee is required to collect rigorous student outcome data annually and conduct final evaluations at the end of the grant period to build knowledge about which strategies are most effective in placing graduates in jobs.

For more information regarding the grant program and a list of grantees by state, including project descriptions, visit http://www.doleta.gov/taaccct.