Sauk Valley Community College pursues $7 million grant to boost technical training

DIXON – Sauk Valley Community College is looking to land a $7 million federal economic development grant that would pay for students’ education and training in career technical fields.

The Good Jobs Challenge grant is an initiative from the U.S. Economic Development Administration totaling $500 million to get Americans back to work by building and strengthening training systems and partnerships that bring together employers who have hiring needs with other key entities to train workers with in-demand skills that lead to good-paying jobs.

According to the Illinois Community College Board, Sauk is one of the biggest training programs in the state and the largest in the region, making it a critical economic driver in the community, said Lori Cortez, Sauk’s dean of institutional advancement.

The area has faced a worker skills gap - where jobs go unfilled because of lack of qualified applicants - long before the 2021 worker shortage, and the college has developed several programs and partnerships over the years aimed at addressing the gap.

Grant funds would pay for students’ tuition, fees and other costs to advance their training and education so they could apply those skills at area businesses.

Career fields include agriculture, business, computer sciences, truck driving, criminal justice, education, health professions and manufacturing.

It would be a way to grow a trained, qualified workforce as well as retain and expand businesses in the area.

More than 50 employers have written letters of support for the grant, Cortez said.

“This would be changing our landscape for the better,” she said.

Many degree and certificate programs can be completed within a year, so it wouldn’t take long to see the impact with providing a pipeline to the workforce.

“It’s something that we think we can see the effects of very early on,” she said.

The college has a graduation rate double the norm, and the grant would amplify that success and further opportunities, Cortez said.

The grant deadline is Feb. 10, and the college will likely hear back about it in the next 2 to 3 months.

“This would be a game-changer for us during the next few years for career technical education,” Sauk President Dave Hellmich said.