{"id":440156,"date":"2026-09-18T16:56:08","date_gmt":"2026-09-18T16:56:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/440156\/"},"modified":"2026-09-18T16:56:08","modified_gmt":"2026-09-18T16:56:08","slug":"houston-city-college-selected-for-national-workforce-accelerator-sugar-land-missouri-city","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/440156\/","title":{"rendered":"Houston City College selected for national workforce accelerator | Sugar Land &#8211; Missouri City"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Houston City College students can soon participate in virtual, employer-sponsored programs to advance their career goals, officials announced in a Sept. 1 news release. <\/p>\n<p>In a nutshell<\/p>\n<p>HCC was one of 15 community colleges selected to participate in the Workforce Futures Accelerator Project, a three-year initiative led by the Association of Community College Trustees with support from Google, per the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.hccs.edu\/news\/2026\/september\/houston-city-college-selected-for-national-workforce-futures-accelerator\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer nofollow\">news release<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>There is a demand for faster, more workforce-aligned degree programs, but with that acceleration, students can miss out on valuable experience or connections to potential employers, according to the news release. This program aims to solve that issue.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u201cParticipation by HCC will strengthen how we provide students with career-connected learning experiences that complement their classroom education and align with the needs of employers,\u201d Chancellor Margaret Ford Fisher said in the news release.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>The initiative will focus on high-demand workforce fields such as technology, healthcare, advanced manufacturing and business operations, per the association\u2019s news release.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>The framework<\/p>\n<p>The initiative will train faculty to incorporate the program into their classrooms, according to the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.acct.org\/center-for-policy-practice\/WFA\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer nofollow\">association\u2019s website<\/a>. Riipen, an online work-based learning platform, will provide its services and employer support, and HCC will integrate them into two workforce programs, according to the news release.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>The association will also help colleges ensure these practices stick and share strategies for creating similar programs. It will also guide colleges in seeking other forms of funding, like Workforce Pell and Perkins grants, per the association\u2019s news release.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThis is about ensuring students graduate with hands-on and real-world work experience that matters in an AI-driven economy,\u201d said Mara Woody, director of strategic partnerships at Riipen.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Houston City College students can soon participate in virtual, employer-sponsored programs to advance their career goals, officials announced&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":440157,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[152354,7389,127440,56,43249,58,57,152356,152355,152353],"class_list":["post-440156","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-houston","tag-association-of-community-college-trustees","tag-google","tag-hcc","tag-houston","tag-houston-city-college","tag-houston-headlines","tag-houston-news","tag-margaret-ford-fisher","tag-riipen","tag-workforce-futures-accelerator-project"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/440156","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=440156"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/440156\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/440157"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=440156"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=440156"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=440156"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}