Colorado needs more early childhood educators, nurses, firefighters, and other workers, so legislators are trying to fill critical workforce gaps with two bills that would provide free training to 20,000 students and give 15,000 graduating high school students $1,500 scholarships.
One measure would cover tuition, fees, books, and supplies for elementary school, preschool, infant, and toddler teachers, nursing, construction, firefighting, law enforcement, and forest management students.
A second bill would award scholarships to students attending community colleges, trade schools, or universities to study health care, manufacturing, construction, finance, engineering, IT, education, and behavioral and mental health.
Both bills, expected to be introduced later this week, aim to reduce student debt while teaching them job skills. Each bill received two years of state general fund funding.
McCluskie is a major sponsor of the student training bill.
That bill proposes spending $45 million from the state’s general fund on students’ education, including $38.6 million to support students earning a certificate or associate degree at a public community college, local district college, or area technical college.
Community college short-term nursing programs would receive $5 million to train more local hospital nurses. The Colorado Department of Labor and Employment would offer registered apprenticeship programs in building and construction trades $1.4 million in competitive grants.
The free education program builds on Gov. Jared Polis’ August Care Forward Colorado Program to address the state’s health care labor shortfall. Free schooling for certified nursing assistants, emergency medical technicians, pharmacy technicians, phlebotomy technicians, medical assistants, and dental assistants is provided by $26 million in federal COVID stimulus assistance over two years.
The Colorado Community College System, local district colleges, and regional technical institutions have graduated over 1,400 program students since last fall, according to Gov. Jared Polis’ news conference. He and lawmakers seek to emulate the program’s effectiveness in other pandemic-affected businesses.
By supporting college courses and training programs, lawmakers believe students may focus on their studies.
Lawmakers estimate that more than 25% of the 2024 graduating class would benefit from the other scholarship proposals.
