Getting a job today requires more than credentials — it requires experience. Work-based learning (WBL) bridges that gap, connecting classroom instruction to the workplace through internships, apprenticeships, job shadowing, and hands-on projects. These experiences give students the chance to apply their skills in real-world settings before they enter the workforce.
Momentum behind WBL has grown in recent years, driven by a tight labor market, a shift toward skills-based hiring, and renewed public and private investment in workforce development. But access remains deeply unequal. Internships and job shadowing have historically favored students with flexible schedules, social capital, and financial cushion. For community college students — many of whom are working adults balancing jobs and family responsibilities — these opportunities are often simply out of reach.
The Workforce Futures Accelerator Project— a partnership between the Association of Community College Trustees (ACCT), Riipen, and Worcester Polytechnic Institute(WPI) — is working to change that. Through a three-year initiative, the project will embed project-based, virtual work-based learning within short-term workforce programs at community colleges, expanding access to meaningful career experience for the students who need it most.
The growing need for work-based learning
The U.S. labor market is being reshaped by demand for middle-skill workers — those who need more than a high school diploma but not necessarily a four-year degree. According to the National Skills Coalition, a majority of jobs (52%) require skills training beyond high school, but not a four-year degree. Jobs like medical billing specialists, HVAC technicians, IT support specialists, warehouse operators, and logistics coordinators represent a rising segment of the labor market.
Short-term credential programs have expanded rapidly to meet that demand. But a persistent gap remains: as employers increasingly adopt skills-based hiring strategies, the ability to demonstrate competency matters more than ever — and too many students complete workforce programs without ever applying their skills in a real-world context. Closing that gap requires embedding experiential learning into programs themselves, not treating it as an add-on.
Making experiential learning opportunities more accessible
Traditional WBL models — internships, apprenticeships, clinical placements — come with structural barriers that make them a poor fit for short-term workforce programs. Internships assume students have months of availability and the flexibility to take on roles outside of class. For community college students, who disproportionately represent first-generation students, adult learners, and people balancing jobs and caregiving, these demands are often prohibitive.
Project-based learning (PBL) offers a different model. Rather than requiring students to find external placements on their own time, PBL embeds real employer challenges directly into the curriculum. Students work to solve actual business problems submitted by participating companies — analyzing data, developing strategies, building plans — and deliver real work product, all within the structure of a course.
Because projects are virtual and structured in digestible phases, they don't require students to rearrange their schedules or take on unpaid work outside class. The result is a more diverse pool of participants, more connections between community colleges and employers, and genuine career pathways without added barriers.
Creating lasting impact
Community colleges are uniquely positioned to provide equitable access to high-quality work-based learning. They sit at the intersection of student need and employer demand, they serve the populations most underrepresented in traditional WBL pipelines, and they have the institutional flexibility to integrate new approaches into existing programming.
The Workforce Futures Accelerator Project will equip instructors and institutions with the tools and support they need to build effective experiential learning programs directly into their courses to meet the demands of a rapidly changing workforce. The initiative promises greater access to high-demand job markets, stronger student career readiness, and best practices that can spread across the broader community college network.
By expanding the reach of work-integrated learning, we move closer to a future in which a student's schedule, zip code, or family situation doesn't determine whether they get real-world experience before entering the workforce.
Learn more about our inaugural cohort of community colleges.
