Biden Administration To Fund Training For Non-Degree Clean Energy Jobs

Today, the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) has announced a new $24 million funding opportunity to support workforce training programs with a focus on training for clean energy jobs that do not require a four-year degree.

Under the banner of the Biden Administration’s Investing in America agenda, community colleges, trade unions, and labor management partnerships can now apply for funding to establish Industrial Assessment Centers (IACs). IACs have dual missions:

1. The hosts of IACs provide free energy assessments to small and medium-sized manufacturers, those with fewer than 500 employees, to identify opportunities to save money, reduce energy waste, and improve productivity.
2. The assessments and subsequent implementation projects provide students, apprentices, and incumbent workers with hands-on experiential learning opportunities that increase skill attainment and broaden pathways to jobs in the energy sector that do not require a four-year degree.

Speaking to the IAC funding announcement, U.S. Secretary of Energy Jennifer Granholm shared in an email statement that, “More than half of the jobs created by President Biden’s Investing in America agenda won’t require college degrees.”

In November 2023, the U.S. Energy Department (DOE) selected the first community colleges and trade unions to receive funding to establish IACs for the first time since the program was established in 1976. The expansion was made possible due to the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law builds on prior efforts by the DOE to help students and educational institutions understand career preparation pathways to clean energy jobs that do not require bachelor’s degrees.

Small and medium-sized manufacturers, which make up more than 90 percent of the nation’s manufacturing companies and are often partners with 2-year colleges for job training. However, most community colleges and trade unions are new to applying, winning, and effectively managing DOE grants.

In response, as part of the 2024 IAC solicitation, applicants will be eligible to apply to the IAC program within one of three tracks depending on the readiness of the applicant:

1. Track 1: One-year initial planning and capacity building awards of up to $200,000 each for institutions to plan how they will establish a future IAC, with the intent to apply for a Track 2 award in 2025
2. Track 2: Three-year execution and scale awards of $500,000-$2,000,000 for existing career training programs to become an IAC.
3. Track 3: Three-year consortia and cohort awards of $4,000,000-$7,000,000 for facilitated groups of colleges, state systems, multi-local union projects, apprenticeship intermediaries, and their IAC-eligible partners to establish several IACs at once.

The DOE expects to re-run the IAC solicitation in the future so that recipients of Track 1 can apply for Track 2 or 3 funding in a subsequent cycle. This creates the runway for community colleges and trade unions to gradually learn how to fulfill the role of an IAC host and expand relevant work-based learning opportunities for students and employer partners.

Additionally, the IAC solicitation will be managed by ENERGYWERX, an intermediary organization contracted by the DOE. ENERGYWERX will help support applicants who have limited experience with DOE funding opportunities across a variety of agency programs.

New America’s Initiative on the Future of Work and the Innovation Economy, which monitors federal opportunities for community college and labor union capacity-building to train for emerging industries, previously released a primer to aid 2-year colleges seeking IAC funding. The primer outlines ways IAC applicants can find and partner with existing IACs, leveraging IAC Centers of Excellence and strengthening employer relationships prior to applying.

On March 5, ENERGYWERX will be host an informational webinar for prospective IAC applicants. Applicants can learn more about applying for IAC through a dedicated portal or contact info@energywerx.org.

Biden Administration Puts Community College and Unions in Limelight

The IAC funding announcement is the latest way the Biden Administration has been prioritizing support for community colleges and trade unions as part of its Investing in America implementation plan.

Investing in America refers to the funding programs and associated outreach activities relating to four major recent infrastructure bills–the CHIPS and Science Act of 2022, the American Rescue Plan, the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, and the Inflation Reduction Act.

Last month, the White House organized a briefing for community colleges in partnership the U.S. Department of Commerce, Education, Labor and the National Science Foundation (NSF) that highlighted funding and guidance relating to the administration’s Advanced Manufacturing Workforce Sprint.

Meanwhile, First Lady Jill Biden, a community college instructor, joined NSF Director Sethuraman Panchanathan to announce the agency’s ten CHIPS Act-funded Regional Innovation Engine award recipients at Forsyth Technical Community College. The NSF Engines program represents the agency’s most extensive grant program and the federal government’s broadest investment of its kind.

Leading up to the Engines announcement, the NSF used CHIPS Act funding to create its first new division in over thirty years—the Technology, Innovation, and Partnerships Directorate. Since conception, the directorate has emphasized a need to support community colleges more than the agency has done in the past. Since that time the agency has followed through on its promise by creating new grant funding programs for 2-year colleges active in regional innovation ecosystems and emerging technology job training. These programs include a focus on capacity building grants and direct program funding.

Joe Biden, who has claimed to be the “most pro-union president in history,” has been prioritizing labor unions, too, as a benefactor of the administration’s Investing in America agenda.

The Department of Energy’s $7 billion Regional Clean Hydrogen Hubs program funded by the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law strongly emphasized labor engagement. Last fall, the National Economic Council organized a series of meetings focused on strengthening the connection between labor unions and community colleges. Those meetings led to an AFL-CIO brief calling for more union-community college workforce partnerships.

Will Non-Degree Job Pathways Pan out?

There is a lot of excitement for job creation and training pathways that do not require a four-year degree, particularly for opportunities resulting from the Biden administration’s Investing in America activities.

A study led by economist Robert Pollin estimates that 61 percent of the jobs created by the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law won’t require a college degree. The same applies for 58 percent of the jobs created by the Inflation Reduction Act and 44 percent of those created by the CHIPS and Science Act.

Unfortunately, despite announcements from companies and governors dropping bachelor’s degree requirements for jobs, hiring of non-degreed workers is stagnant. Short-term training leading to meaningful pay increases fell according to a 2024 study from the Lumina Foundation.

Anthony Carnevale of Georgetown University’s Center on Education and the Workforce has cautioned Americans to be wary of the advice to skip earning a college degree, especially in light of the political moment. Apprenticeship training for high schoolers and adults hold a great deal of promise, but its expansion is often bottlenecked due to a lack of funding, awareness, and availability.

As an election year looms over long-term implementation hopes, most experts feel that the jury is still out as to what extent the Biden Administration’s Investing in America agenda will materialize into access to job opportunities and educational pathways for people without bachelor’s degrees.

Still, today community colleges and labor unions are benefitting from new opportunities, funding programs, and partnership resources to play a larger role in both degree-based and non-degree workforce training across a variety of infrastructure-related industries. Those opportunities include new funding to meet the labor market needs of the clean energy economy.