Congress Is Pushing A New Digital-Skills Grant Stream

Bipartisan partners are reintroducing the Digital Skills for Today’s Workforce Act, which would amend WIOA to create a “Digital Skills at Work” grant program. The aim is to fund digital literacy and upskilling through community colleges, adult education, and workforce providers, targeting learners who need baseline tech fluency for modern jobs. For colleges, it signals possible new federal dollars tied to short-cycle, employment-aligned digital training.

Key Takeaway: Institutions should watch for grant opportunities and be ready with industry-aligned digital training that can scale quickly.

Shorter Courses? Why These Ohio Community Colleges Want To Offer More

Five Ohio community colleges are joining a multi-year national initiative to expand eight-week, compressed courses. Leaders say shorter terms can help working students and parents by creating more entry points during the year and making schedules easier to manage. But the colleges stress that success requires redesigning courses intentionally rather than just squeezing 16 weeks of content into eight, including rethinking pacing, support services, and faculty workload. Over the next four years, the participating colleges will use coaching and shared learning to evaluate which subjects and student groups benefit most from accelerated formats.

Quick Insight: Shorter-term courses are a promising access and completion strategy, but only if colleges pair them with thoughtful instructional design and stronger student supports.

12 Strategies To Better Support Military Affiliated College Students

A new report lays out 12 practical ways colleges can improve outcomes, emphasizing flexible academic policies, clearer benefit and transfer advising, and stronger campus points of connection such as veteran or military learner centers. It also stresses recognizing the diversity of military connected students including active duty, veterans, reservists, spouses, and dependents and avoiding one size fits all services. Overall, the message is that better support is less about special treatment and more about designing campuses for mobility, prior learning, and complex adult lives.

Key Insight: Colleges can boost persistence for military learners by pairing flexible policies and credit for prior learning with proactive advising.

Strategies for Re-Enrolling Adult Learners

New America's report looks at how states and community colleges are trying to bring back adult “some college, no credential” stop outs after steep pandemic era enrollment declines. Drawing on work with six community colleges in multiple states, it highlights that adults often leave for financial strain, work and caregiving demands, or confusing return processes, not because they cannot do the coursework. Effective re enrollment efforts combine targeted outreach to former students, simplified re entry steps (like easy transcript reviews and fast registration), and proactive supports such as coaching, emergency aid, childcare or scheduling flexibility. The report also emphasizes building clear, stackable pathways so returning students can see a short route to a credential with labor market value.

Takeaway: Adult re-enrollment works best when colleges pair personalized outreach with frictionless re entry and visible, job relevant pathways that respect adult learners’ time and realities.

Published: December 4, 2025