Career and Technical Education CoLab

February 24, 2021

person writing in a notebook next to an open laptop

The CTE CoLab aims to reduce equity gaps for students of color—especially students who are Black, Latinx, or Indigenous—enrolled in credit-bearing online postsecondary CTE programs. Funded by ECMC Foundation, the CTE CoLab is a collaboration led by the Urban Institute in partnership with five national organizations: World Education, Inc., the National Council for Workforce Education, the Office of Community College Research and Leadership at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, the Instructional Technology Council, and the National Coalition of Advanced Technology Centers. This coalition supports the College Community of Practice—a group of community and technical colleges—to build knowledge, center equity in program goals and delivery, and develop and share resources to improve education and career outcomes in online CTE programming.

College Community of Practice

The CTE CoLab coalition will select up to 15 community and technical colleges to join the College Community of Practice (CCP). This solicitation invites full proposals from public community college and technical colleges interested in joining the CCP to advance their work scaling or enhancing equity-centered approaches to online teaching and learning through a focus on a selected credit-bearing CTE program. Each CCP college team will be awarded a $30,000 grant to support participation in this two-year engagement.

Request for Proposals, CCP application link, and FAQs

Related Research

Online Career and Technical Education Programs during the Pandemic and After – This brief describes results from a rapid-response survey of community and technical colleges to understand how the pandemic has accelerated the transition of CTE programs online, fielded in partnership with the CTE CoLab coalition in December 2020. It describes anticipated changes to the delivery of colleges’ for-credit CTE programs and provides considerations for institutions transitioning programs online.

Racial and Ethnic Equity Gaps in Postsecondary Career and Technical Education: Considerations for Online Learning – This report describes racial and ethnic disparities in student outcomes in online credit-bearing postsecondary CTE programs, and features findings from a variety of sources to inform a preliminary framework of strategies for advancing equity. It is a framing document for the work of the CTE CoLab and a resource for others working in the field.