Through the Talent Strong Texas Pathways strategy, Texas community colleges are redesigning the student experience to support the post-completion success of all students by preparing each student for an in-demand career with family-sustaining wages.
To achieve this goal, the Texas Success Center strategically partners with business and industry leaders to advance solutions that position colleges to equip students for success with credentials valued by employers.
Business Advisory Council
The Texas Association of Community Colleges (TACC) established the Business Advisory Council (BAC) in 2020 to advise college leaders, TACC, and the Texas Success Center on the current and future workforce needs facing Texas employers. The Council is comprised of distinguished business and industry leaders serving along college CEOs to strengthen the Texas workforce.
The BAC advises Texas community colleges on economic and workforce trends impacting current demand and those shaping the future of work. It also informs actions necessary to build effective employer aligned, demand-driven, education & training opportunities so Texans can obtain skills and valued credentials for success in the workplace.
Texas Workforce Partnership Initiative
The Texas Association of Community Colleges in partnership with the Business Roundtable, the Texas Business Leadership Council, and the Business-Higher Education Forum, created the Texas Workforce Partnership Initiative to build and scale model workforce development strategies throughout the state. The Business Roundtable launched WPI in 2018 to tackle skills development challenges and drive economic growth in regions around the U.S. with a focus on increasing workforce diversity.
The Texas Workforce Partnership Initiative (Texas WPI) included an initial focus in the Dallas, San Antonio, and El Paso regions with expectation to scale to additional regions as the work progresses. Texas WPI objectives include advancing efforts to:
Since its launch in 2022, the partnership members have collaborated with leaders in regions across the state to address workforce challenges and advance solutions that align with the new community college funding model instituted through HB 8. The results of these efforts are encouraging as business-driven credential programs have been developed by partner community colleges.
See examples of the initial limited (but far from exhaustive) list of credentials of value identified through the partnership!
Regional Workforce Partnership Roundtables
The Texas economy is diverse and dynamic, and the regional economies served by our colleges share that dynamism. In addition to using robust labor market data to identify occupational labor market demand and to assess valued skills and credentials, the Texas Success Center places a premium on engaging with the employers and related groups to validate the local reality in the labor market across industries while working to strengthen partnerships.
TACC and the Texas Success Center launched their Regional Workforce and Education Partnership agenda in the Spring of 2022, initiated through six regional partnership meetings in each TACC region to address the following primary objectives:
Texas Reskilling and Upskilling through Education (TRUE) Pathways
Texas community colleges are building skills-based TRUE pathways with embedded short-term credentials to support student success efforts aligned with state and regional workforce needs. To prepare the workforce ecosystem to understand and support TRUE pathways, the Texas Success Center partnered with Lightcast (formerly EMSI-Burning Glass) on an applied labor-market insight research project.
Phase 1: State Pathways
The Texas Success Center team developed a key occupation methodology to identify 15 key occupations in the state. The research team then built skills-based career maps to highlight opportunities for training and career progression.
See the complete set of state pathways!
Phase 2: Regional Pathways
Building on the framework from the statewide key occupation applied research project, the Texas Success Center continued its partnership with Lightcast to identify key occupations by region. The research team then developed skills-based career maps to highlight regional opportunities for training and career progression.