The sweeping economic changes of recent decades have left many working families wondering how they will survive. The American industrial economy of the early twentieth century, which relied on unskilled labor, has given way to a knowledge economy that demands higher levels of education and skills. For workers seeking to gain the further education now required, the venue of choice increasingly is the community college, with its capacity to provide both postsecondary credentials and advanced skills training. In most cases, these students are older than traditional college students, they have families, and they must continue to work while they study. Frequently, they arrive on campus unprepared to succeed in an academic setting.

This is the backdrop for Breaking Through, a multiyear initiative of Jobs for the Future and the National Council for Workforce Education, funded by the Charles Stewart Mott Foundation, the North Carolina GlaxoSmithKline Foundation, and the Ford Foundation. Breaking Through is helping community colleges identify and develop institutional strategies that can enable low-skilled adult students to enter into and succeed in occupational and technical degree programs at community colleges. Breaking Through currently has projects at 26 community colleges in 18 states.

As a major strand in the initiative, the Ford Foundation has funded research and analysis on state policies that can support these institutional strategies. Several reports will provide insight into key state policies that can be most influential in helping low-skilled adults enter and succeed in college and careers:

Overview: The challenges brought by a rapidly changing economy for the average worker—and the role of state policy and community colleges in addressing this challenge. This overview was prepared by the Center for Law and Social Policy.

Student Financial Aid Policy: Innovative state policies that finance education for “workers who study”—that is, those who work full time (or close to it) and study part time.

Academic Remediation Policy: State policies that help or hinder community colleges in aligning adult education and academic remediation programs to better serve working adults with basic skills deficiencies.

State Institutional Funding Policies: How state-level community college funding policies might impede or facilitate the development of programs designed for the adult learner.