Degrees of speed: millions of unemployed Americans need to upgrade their skills, fast. Community colleges aren't up to the task, but with help from Washington, they could be.

• Author: Merisotis, Jamie P.

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Last year, at the height of the recession, America's unemployment rate hit 10.2 percent, slightly lower than the 10.8 percent peak of the previous major recession in the early 1980s. But the recent crisis is likely to prove far more unforgiving for the nearly 15 million Americans who are still out of work. After the economy began to turn around in late 1982, a substantial portion of the unemployed returned to their old jobs, or at least to jobs in their previous occupations. That's less likely to happen this time around. The reason is that in recent years companies have learned to use economic slumps as opportunities to restructure--to close less-efficient facilities, drop less-profitable product lines, or extract themselves altogether from businesses that aren't making money. What that means is that those who have become unemployed in this recession haven't just lost their jobs; they've likely lost their careers. The skills that once earned them a living--assembling automobiles, processing mortgages, writing newspaper stories--are no longer much in demand in the marketplace. If these Americans hope to work again at anything approaching a middle-class wage, they'll need to acquire new skills.

A lot of them are trying. We've seen a surge in enrollment at community colleges and for-profit colleges and trade schools since 2008, as unemployed adults and recent high school graduates unable to find work go back to school. In general, this is a good thing. As the current recovery picks up steam, new jobs will be created--slowly, perhaps, but surely--and economists already have a reasonably good fix on what those jobs will be and the skill levels they'll require. Looking at federal government and other data, Anthony Carnevale and Jeff Strohl of the Georgetown University Center on Education and the Workforce forecast that about 47 million jobs will become available over the next decade, as workers in existing jobs retire and as newly created jobs come on line. About 30 million of these new positions will require a postsecondary education. Of those, 14 million will demand only a two-year associate's degree, a one-year certificate, or some college training short of a bachelor's degree. These "middle skill" occupations include jobs in information technology (network managers), business services (managing temp workers, running institutional food operations), and especially health care (nurses, nurse assistants, medical technicians). Starting salaries range from about $25,000 to more than $40,000 and can grow substantially from there. In fact, about 30 percent of people with one- and two-year college credentials earn more than people with bachelor's degrees.

For a substantial portion of today's unemployed, then, one- and two-year college credentials offer a viable route back to the American dream. There are a lot of obstacles, however, standing between a jobless adult and a college degree. Even the cheapest college education costs money, something most unemployed people--living on savings or credit cards--don't have a lot of. And the existing institutions that offer one- and two-year diplomas, primarily community colleges and...