<p>Paul Fain previews the podcast series. JFF’s Lexi Barrett explains why policymakers should turn to practitioners to inform policy approaches.&nbsp;</p>

The Future of Community College: Key Policy Lessons from the Pandemic

The nation is facing unprecedented challenges in helping millions of learners and workers get their lives back-on-track. Impacts of the COVID-19 crisis have been particularly severe for the lower-income people who community colleges specialize in serving, and particularly for Black, Latinx, and Indigenous populations.  

 For this podcast series, When Policy Meets Practice, Jobs For The Future (JFF) teams up with long-time higher education journalist Paul Fain to explore the critical role of education and workforce development policy in shaping the nation's economic recovery and renewal.   

In each episode, Paul speaks with community college leaders who serve on Jobs For The Future’s Policy Leadership Trust to lift up lessons about which policy approaches are producing results for workers, learners, and employers, and which policy approaches are falling short. The podcast highlights the most promising work in the field, with blunt takes on fast-moving policy questions, ranging from free community college to short-term Pell. Paul concludes each episode with a sense-making conversation with Jobs For The Jobs policy experts.  

The Podcast kicks off on June 21, 2021, with new 30-minute episodes every other Monday. Be sure to subscribe to the podcast and connect with us on Twitter at @jfftweets. Tell us what we should cover by contacting the executive producer of the When Policy Meets Practice podcast, David Altstadt, via Twitter and LinkedIn.