MetLife Foundation Community College Excellence Award

Jobs for the Future is pleased to solicit applicants for the 2008 MetLife Foundation Community College Excellence Award. The award recognizes community colleges that demonstrate significant success in student outcomes, particularly for students from groups that are traditionally underrepresented in higher education. Two community colleges will be honored for their institution-wide commitment to and achievement in helping high-need students enter and succeed in postsecondary education. Each winning college will receive $30,000 and significant national publicity.

Completed applications must be submitted online by August 31, 2007 to Jobs for the Future, which administers the award.

Winners and finalists will be announced in April 2008 at the annual convention of the American Association of Community Colleges.

Why this Award?

Postsecondary credentials and education are the gateway to good jobs and careers. Community colleges expand opportunity for many of their students, bringing them closer to achieving their dreams. For other students, though, success in community college is elusive, as academic, economic, and family pressures derail high hopes. The ability of our nation’s 1,200 community colleges to organize their programs and supports to promote student success—across the diversity of students they serve—is a key to the expansion of individual opportunity and economic vitality.

MetLife Foundation created the Community College Excellence Award to celebrate institutions that are helping low-skill youth and adults to enter college—and achieve their economic goals. The MetLife Foundation award recognizes community colleges whose policies and practices provide pathways to opportunity for large numbers of individuals from the following populations: first-generation college-goers, at-risk and out-of-school youth, unemployed and underemployed adults, adults with limited English language proficiency, and others who lack the skills necessary for college success.