PALM DESERT— College of the Desert has been awarded $427,000 as part of the Improving Online CTE Pathways grant program the California Community Colleges’ Online Education Initiative developed.

As a result, Working adults and those looking to improve their skills online will have new options at College of the Desert in the coming years.

The College will use this money to develop new online CTE (Career & Technical Training Education) curriculum in the Administration of Justice, Building Inspection Technology and Business Information fields.

“We will be working with our local industry partners to develop curriculum that meets their needs while expanding course offerings to serve students that may not have access to traditional higher education,” said Dr. Annebelle Nery, Vice President, Instruction at College of the Desert.

All classes will be designed for inclusion in the California Online Education Initiative Exchange, which enables students to enroll in and complete courses at participating California community colleges and have their courses easily apply toward completion of a degree or certificate at their home college.

College of the Desert is one of 70 California community colleges to be awarded one-time funding under this grant.

Since July 2018, the College has submitted more than 30 competitive grant funding requests and has received more than $10 million from federal, state, and local grant programs. These funds support a variety of student initiatives that promote access and diversity; close equity gaps; create quality educational programs; improve achievement; and provide student support services.

According to Penn Foster, as technology and an increasingly global economy and workforce continue to disrupt traditional work and higher education models, career and technical education, whether in the classsroom or online CTE. can offer high school and college students a comprehensive set of skills and experiences designed to give them a leg up after graduation.

According to the U.S. Manufacturing Institute, the industry will need to fill more than three million open positions over the next decade, as many as two million of which will go unfilled due to a skills gap and shortage of technical education. Yet career and technical education offers benefits beyond just job training for high school and college students; it can offer enrichment for students interested in entering a broad range of fields.

About College of the Desert:

Established in 1958, College of the Desert, located in Palm Desert, is an accredited community college serving eastern Riverside County, California. The College leads the region in providing quality, higher education, technical training and lifelong learning opportunities, in response to the dynamic needs of our diverse community. The College serves more than 18,000 credit students and 1,000 non-credit students each year and is the number one source of transfer students to California State University, San Bernardino Palm Desert Campus. For more information, visit www.collegeofthedesert.edu.

Image Sources

  • Online College Courses: Image by mohamed Hassan from Pixabay