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Staff writers at OnlineUniversities.com have compiled a list that is very useful as a somewhat focused environmental scan. One of the fifteen suggestions is to essentially create nutrition label equivalents for majors: Nutrition facts for majors (This link goes to a fascinating blog post about college costs and what a set of nutritional facts might look like for an unnamed private university in California, using information scrabbled together from various websites.)

Restaurants often show calorie counts on their menus, and some experts recommend that programs of study do the same. With a transparent explanation of tuition, fees, salary, student loan payments, and job market prospects, students can have a better idea of what they’re getting into if they choose to pursue a degree that does not fill the need for a high-demand industry.

To access this full article, you may need a subscription or a day pass to The Chronicle of Higher Education.

Saudi Arabia intends to go from 860,000 college students right now, to 1,700,000 ... in four years! We forecast the need for some darned experienced planners, and a need for that planning to be done in an integrated way.

[It's] a gargantuan task. Creating better-skilled, employable Saudi university graduates, says Mr. Partrick, involves reforming the entire educational system, restructuring the country's labor market, and encouraging a "cultural shift in terms of attitudes toward work—what Saudis will do—and education—what it's appropriate to teach to Saudi children."

All that will have to take place at the same time that increasing numbers of young Saudis pursue higher education. "As we are expanding access," says Mr. Al-Ohali, "there is a lot of emphasis not to lose quality."

No single program or policy will solve America's current job crisis. But if implemented, these ideas could begin to pay for themselves very quickly. As postsecondary graduates enter or re-enter the job market, they'll do so at a higher income level—roughly 25 percent higher, according to 2007 Census figures. And each year, those increased earnings—earnings directly attributable to the investment in high-quality, workplace-relevant education—will add up. They will improve the quality of life for hundreds of thousands of Americans and their families. And that will benefit all of us.

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Regional SCUP Events! Enjoy the F2F company of your colleagues and peers at one of three SCUP regional conferences this spring:

• March 14–16: Baltimore, MD
• March 24–26: Cambridge, MA
• April 5–7, San Diego, CA

"There are some training opportunities that, because of labor markets, should be less emphasized," Oates said. "Still, it would be wrong not to look at other areas where training may have gone by the wayside. We always need to be diligent to 'green' up traditional trades . . . We have to be mindful that while funding streams dictate, 'let’s go after high growth, high wage jobs,' people want to get any job, even if it doesn't give them a terrific wage right now. They want a job that'll help lead to something."

While the intention of the provision is primarily to bolster training, it will undoubtedly strengthen the hand of community colleges in the workforce system; the No. 1 recommendation of the aforementioned Lumina study was, "relax constraints on contract training."

"We're very excited about the opportunity," says Michael Bankey, vice president of workforce and community services at Owens. Because of its close relationship, physically and otherwise, with the Toledo one-stop center, the community college is already the center's biggest provider of training. But right now, Bankey notes, the center refers students one by one to its various programs -- between 10 and 20 a month in truck driving, for instance. But the ability to enter into group contracts with the one-stop center, in the way that Owens now does to create specialized programs for local businesses or other organizations, opens up lots of possibilities for customized setups that directly respond to local, regional or state needs, Bankey says.

David S. Baime, vice president for government relations at the American Association of Community Colleges, said on Monday that the change would help community colleges cover the full cost of the education they are providing, which is much higher than the average tuition that the colleges charge, $2,400 per year. With the extra cash, the colleges could pay for equipment, curriculum packages, additional faculty members, and other needs. The change would be especially helpful for programs in some technical fields that are in growing demand but are much more expensive to operate than are general-education programs.

"At a time when the colleges are getting budget cuts … getting those expenditures covered by the federal government is really helpful," Mr. Baime said.

He added that the shift in how Workforce Investment Act money gets doled out would allow more money to be spent faster than with the voucher system. That factor is consistent with the goals of the economic-stimulus bill, which seeks to pull the economy out of recession by quickly pumping federal money into circulation. The exact amount of money that would go to community colleges, and how it would be spent, would depend on what institutions the local boards awarded grants to and what spending the they deemed eligible.