Published
October 29, 2024
Today's economy demands modern, innovative, and purposeful collaboration between employers, education providers, and the needs of communities. This crucial alignment for many is life changing, opening doors to opportunity and experience. Yet, we face a challenge: a misalignment of skills acquired with skills in demand, leaving millions of jobs unfilled and millions of people unable to find work.
How do we close this gap? What can we do to ensure no one gets left behind? Business-led efforts like our Talent Pipeline Management initiative start at the source, examining employer data to better determine demand and communicate skills more clearly. By bringing together education and business, alongside other critical community partners, we create a demand-driven approach to solving major talent challenges.
A stronger relationship between the needs of employers and education outcomes is not only the key to a stronger workforce and economy but empowered, more resilient communities.
Meet Dr. Aisha Francis, the first female president of Benjamin Franklin Cummings Institute of Technology. As an education advocate, she is dedicated to providing students with transformative education to create economic opportunities, particularly for underserved communities.
Benjamin Franklin Cummings Institute of Technology has a unique history, founded on principles established by Benjamin Franklin himself. How has this legacy shaped your approach to serving students and the workforce in today's rapidly changing economy?
Benjamin Franklin’s apprenticeship and early career in printing made clear to him the importance of learning a trade in building one’s personal and professional life. In a codicil to his 1790 will, he left 1,000 pounds to Boston and Philadelphia to establish institutions where people could learn a trade, earn a living, and become engaged citizens. Generations later, these values are very much alive today in the mission of Franklin Cummings Tech, which is to provide our students with transformative technical and trade education that leads to economic advancement. Today, as in Franklin’s day, an individual’s ability to prosper in the economy, and contribute back to their communities, is directly related to their relationship with the worlds of work and entrepreneurship.
How is your institution adapting its programs to meet the evolving needs of today's employers, particularly in light of ongoing technological advancements?
The mission of our college remains connecting more people to the workforce through work-based learning. When Franklin Cummings Tech started its automotive program in the early 1900’s when the Model T and other cars went into mass production, there was a line around the block of people eager to learn and make a living from this new technology. Today, we have waiting lists for students who are eager to enter our green tech programs—like HVAC and Practical Electricity. The future of energy is electrification. Our role is to advance the clean energy transition by supporting education that merges new clean technologies with long-established trades.
Through the decades, Franklin Cummings Tech has made sure that we are agile in adapting our curricula to reflect and anticipate changes in technology and workforce demand. In doing so, we’ve consistently created pathways to prosperity for our students and provided the highly-skilled people needed in the workforce.
Can you share some successful strategies for creating partnerships between educational institutions and businesses? How do these partnerships influence your curriculum and program offerings?
Franklin Cummings Tech is adaptive to new technology because of a combination of labor market research from the Commonwealth of Massachusetts Executive Office of Labor and Workforce Development, as well as national sources. In addition, we relish our close partnerships with industry players who hire our graduates. We work with companies in high-growth fields like clean energy, robotics, automation, construction management, biotech, and more to develop and maintain relevant curricula that meet the quality standards and complexity employers demand while ensuring that our students are job-ready when they graduate.
We are now implementing a co-op model, called Talent Solutions, that is specially adapted for Associate Degree students with partner companies. Through this model, our students work onsite with the employer while concurrently earning their degrees. As a college where the majority of students are first-generation to complete college, centering both work experience and degree completion is important. Through a curated relationship with employers, students experience hands-on learning, gain relevant career experience early on in their educational journey, and earn credits for both their classroom work and their performance on the job. This means that our students can earn their degree in two years, graduation with a year of relevant work experience, save money on their education, and be not only job-ready but job-experienced when they graduate.
What challenges do you see in aligning educational outcomes with the skills demanded by the current job market, and how does your institution address these challenges?
Through efforts like our co-op model, we can prepare students faster to enter the job market where they can satisfy the market demand while enjoying the benefits of a good-paying job and the beginnings of a fulfilling career. But for these educational models to work, more employers need to lower the boundaries to bring these co-ops on board, help facilitate these future employees’ educational experience when they are on the job, and understand the experience and value students from two-year colleges – rather than just from four-year colleges – can bring to their companies.
Our TPM initiative also supports the needs of opportunity populations in communities across the country, from returning citizens in the equine industry to connecting refugee populations to skills training. How do you ensure that your programs are creating greater economic opportunities, particularly for underserved communities?
Frankling Cummings Tech is proud to be one of about 12 federally designated minority-serving institutions in Massachusetts. With 73% of students of color, and 88% identifying as male, we enjoy the distinction of being the only college in the Commonwealth where the majority of students are Black and Latine men. Serving the entire state of Massachusetts, most students are clustered in Boston (57%) and areas we call “Gateway Cities” (Brockton, Lawrence, Revere) where there is a large population of immigrants and other traditionally underserved populations. In fact, 46% are first-generation to attend college, and 98% of our students receive financial assistance. Knowing that we are serving communities of learners that are already facing systemic challenges, we provide a range of support services that range from tutoring to English language learner programs to food security assurance. We also work closely with each of our students to prepare them for finding and entering a job.
The results of these support services are that more than 50% of our students graduate on time, which is far higher than the average for two-year college students both nationally and locally in Massachusetts, and our students earn about $55,000 a year after graduating. Given that the average household income of students upon enrollment is about $33,000, this means that our graduates are increasing their overall family income in a relatively short time space. Through education and work-based learning, they are on the pathway to building generational wealth, home ownership, and overall economic advancement.
Career Pathways for Today's Economy
Don't miss Jaimie Francis and Dr. Aisha Francis on the mainstage at the 2024 Business Solves Conference on October 29–30, 2024 in Washington, D.C.
