Tech Giants Partner with U.S. Community Colleges to Cultivate Talent in High-Demand Skills

Five years ago, Howard Starr, a computer science professor at Santa Monica College, was inspired after attending a cloud computing summit hosted by Amazon Web Services (AWS). He recalled, "I called the department chair and said, 'No one is doing this,' 'This could be pretty good.'" As it turned out, "pretty good" was an understatement. Starr then worked with AWS to create a cloud computing certificate program that has proven extremely popular. When Santa Monica College began offering the course in 2017, seats filled up on the first day of registration, 110 days before the fall semester began.

Two years later, more than 2,000 students have enrolled in the program at Santa Monica College and five other colleges in the Los Angeles area that have launched it. The curriculum has been shared free of charge with hundreds of educational institutions across the United States and globally.

Amazon is not the only tech giant actively shaping training programs for future employees and customers. As more companies face shortages of skilled workers to navigate the evolving technology landscape, Google, Facebook, and Apple are also partnering with colleges. In some cases, these companies cover the cost of programs for students; in most cases, they do not profit from them.

College officials say these partnerships help ensure students graduate with the skills and knowledge employers need and gain priority for internships and job opportunities. Tech leaders say colleges—especially two-year institutions—provide access to a diverse talent pool for jobs that do not require a bachelor's degree. They also have important connections with K-12 schools and four-year universities.

"We rely on builders and innovators to survive and thrive, and if we can't find them, it will slow down the pace of innovation for us and our customers and partners globally," said Ken Eisner, Director of Global Education Programs at AWS. He said there is currently "a gap of workers who can fill these opportunities."

Following the tech giants' lead

The success of Santa Monica College's certificate program led to a cloud computing concentration at Northern Virginia Community College (NOVA) and a bachelor's degree in cloud computing at George Mason University, both developed in partnership with AWS. LinkedIn lists cloud computing as the most in-demand hard skill for companies today. This demand is largely driven by AWS, whose sales grew 37% between June 2018 and June 2019.

However, even when a technology is widely used, working so closely with a single vendor carries risks and limitations. Market share can shift, and courses tailored to a specific vendor cannot teach students how to work on other platforms.

Colleges partnering with Amazon acknowledge this risk but say the concepts they teach—such as computational thinking, information management, and data security—are essential for careers in cloud computing and many other fields. They are also open to working with other vendors. "No matter where they end up, there will be some on-the-job training. I don't see this as a disadvantage," said Chad Knights, Provost of Information and Engineering Technology at NOVA, "but anyone is welcome to partner with us."

College leaders say the bigger challenge is simply keeping up. In 2018 alone, AWS released nearly 2,000 significant new services and features. Starr of Santa Monica College says staying current requires a significant amount of professional development time. The cost of this training may limit how many colleges seek partnerships with tech companies.

In California, professional development is funded by the state, which plans to invest about $3 million in a consortium of colleges and schools called "California Cloud Workforce." Colleges in less generous states need to find alternative funding.

It is too early to tell whether students completing Amazon's certificate and degree programs are finding jobs at the company or elsewhere in cloud computing. The oldest program at Santa Monica currently has only 55 graduates. But Michael Brown, 24, one of the first Santa Monica students to earn the certificate, believes his investment will pay off. He has completed two internships at Mission, a cloud services company, and was recently hired full-time. After working at Starbucks and his parents' vitamin store for three years after high school, Brown sees cloud computing as a reliable path to a well-paying career without a bachelor's degree. When he learned about the certificate two years ago, he said, "I knew I had to seize the opportunity."

A deeper partnership model

Partnerships between community colleges and large employers are not new. For years, colleges and businesses have collaborated to design programs that meet local workforce needs. Historically, however, companies typically left curriculum design to colleges, specifying the skills needed and then stepping back.

AWS, which has its East Coast hub in Northern Virginia, is more involved, holding meetings with colleges and building courses around a cloud competency framework the company created. As its program expanded, Amazon acted as a convener, bringing together colleges nationwide to create cloud computing degrees. By helping develop resources that support teaching, "they have taken (employer) partnerships to a new level," Knights said.

Other tech companies go even further, designing curricula that colleges can customize. For example, Google designed its own IT support certificate, while Facebook hired Pathstream—a company that works with software firms to build skills training programs—to support its digital marketing certificate.

The idea of colleges allowing companies to create or co-create courses does not bother many community colleges focused on workforce development. At four-year universities, it is more controversial, as some faculty see such partnerships as a threat to academic freedom. However, as four-year institutions seek to better prepare graduates for a rapidly changing job market, this skepticism appears to be softening.

Michelle Marks, Vice President for Academic Innovation and New Ventures at George Mason University, which partners with AWS, said her institution "recognizes we need insights from industry." "We have a responsibility to identify the skills our students need and think about creative ways to embed those skills into our curriculum," she said.

Meanwhile, the companies say they are not imposing their ideas on colleges. Facebook has asked Pathstream to help colleges tailor its curriculum to their needs, a company spokeswoman said. Google has made its program modular and hired the workforce development organization "Jobs for the Future" to help colleges adapt it. "We respect the decisions of faculty on how to implement the curriculum," said Natalie Van Cleave Conley, senior program manager at Google's training unit "Grow with Google." Unlike the programs offered by Facebook and Amazon, Google's IT support certificate program does not specifically train students to use the company's technology.

Eisner said AWS aims to combine the benefits of college teaching and industry standards. "This is not industry imposing a curriculum on schools," he said, "but rather a curriculum that aligns with industry standards."

Potential threats

In July, Amazon announced it would spend $700 million to retrain its employees, raising questions about colleges' ability to keep up with tech companies' workforce needs. Amazon's decision to expand its post-secondary training and certificate programs has not yet affected its arrangements with colleges. But some analysts see the move as the latest sign that colleges are losing control in the continuing education market. They warn that companies may decide to offer their products directly to the public, choosing to compete with colleges rather than continue partnering.

"It's not hard to imagine this service posing a serious threat to colleges," said Michael Horn, strategy director at Entangled Group, an education venture capital firm. When asked whether Amazon's announcement signaled to schools that its needs were not being met externally, Eisner urged colleges to "move quickly and collaborate at scale to do this work." "This is something we need to pay attention to," Eisner said, "but when we look at the work we're doing with educators, we see an exciting potential to turn things around."