A student in Reynolds Community College’s surgical technology class (Photo courtesy Reynolds Community College)
While four-year colleges get most of the attention, Richmond’s two-year schools are quietly emerging as a force in regional workforce development efforts.
Both Reynolds and Brightpoint community colleges have seen enrollments climb steadily since the COVID-19 pandemic. More students are focusing on workforce-related degrees and targeted certification courses through the state’s G3 and FastForward initiatives, which offer free tuition for students pursuing high-demand jobs in fields like health care, advanced manufacturing, information technology and the construction trades.
“There’s been quite a bit of print about the fact that vocation education is back,” says Elizabeth Creamer, vice president of workforce development with the Community College Workforce Alliance, a partnership between Reynolds and Brightpoint. “You know, skilled trades, health care — there’s an understanding that there are immediate career benefits to career and technical education and workforce training, and students and their parents are increasingly looking for return on investment of their tuition dollars. … It’s all about good jobs right now.”
FastForward also includes unique pay-for-performance tuition grants. With rising costs pushing college out of reach for many, the state picks up two-thirds of the tuition for students who take and pass FastForward courses and become credentialed.
“Virginia has been very, very forward-thinking in terms of aligning student support initiatives like FastForward tuition support,” Creamer says. “Those are aligned to high-demand programs … sectors that are economic priorities for the state and for the region.”
“Increasingly, there’s also more alignment between two-year and four-year schools to produce graduates who are ready to work, with community colleges leading the way,” says Brian Anderson, president and chief executive of ChamberRVA.
“Compared to 2008, I never thought we would have more jobs than people looking,” Anderson adds, comparing the Great Recession of 2007-08 to the current job-openings rate in Virginia: 255,000 open jobs, roughly 1.6 jobs for every Virginian seeking work, according to Virginia Works data released in early January. “We are going to provide better outcomes because of the alignment of all the different institutions. … It’s how we get more people out of the system with the credentials, ready to work, than we are currently getting.”
Reynolds Community College
Reynolds, long known for its nursing program, has ramped up its medical career offerings after receiving $924,000 in federal funding in 2024 to improve laboratory spaces, purchase new equipment and encourage enrollment in courses that prepare students for high-demand health care jobs.
The college's aggressive foray into health care and pharmaceuticals is paying dividends. In December, Reynolds graduated its first cohort of surgical technology students and is bolstering partnerships with VCU Health, Creamer says.
“Reynolds Community College has a very strong partnership with VCU Health,” Creamer explains, pointing to the clinical medical assistant FastForward program offered through the alliance, which includes Brightpoint. “Two hundred of our FastForward students have taken full-time positions at VCU Health, and almost all of those students were low-income. You know, a lot of them were moms, single parents.”
Reynolds, which also recently went through a rebranding effort, has expanded several trade programs. These include a new welding lab and 12 new automotive bays at its Parham Road campus, part of the engineering technician program that partners with local auto dealers.
Brightpoint Community College’s pharmaceutical manufacturing program (Photo courtesy Brightpoint Community College)
Brightpoint Community College
In addition to offering trade-oriented training programs similar to Reynolds, Brightpoint is one of just three educational institutions in the state to be selected in the first cohort of the Google AI for Education Accelerator, which grants Brightpoint students, faculty and staff access to Google career certificates and AI training courses.
The two-year school also helped launch a new fiber optics program, along with Reynolds, to provide training to support the state’s growing fleet of data centers. Meanwhile, Brightpoint is making life a little easier for students who are also parents, providing financial help for 20 students each semester to offset child care costs.
Richard Bland College
No longer officially aligned with the College of William & Mary, Richard Bland College gained its independence with its own nine-member board of visitors in July of last year, giving the two-year school the flexibility to shape programs and curricula to respond to regional needs.
It’s already leading to innovative new programs, such as the RBC Dealer Institute, which the school is launching in Petersburg to train approximately 200 students to conduct table games such as blackjack for the new Live! Casino & Hotel Virginia by the Cordish Companies, expected to open in 2027.
Richard Bland is also on the leading edge of AI and esports. The college now has two Ameca humanoid robots, powered by AI, that are part of the recently built Academic Innovation Center connected to RBC’s library. The school now has its own esports team, which won a national championship during its inaugural season.
All the region’s higher education institutions play a role in growing the economy, Anderson says, but two-year schools are often the access point. And it’s not just about supplying workers to local businesses, but improving economic mobility.
“If you don’t have a degree and you go to work at Starbucks, unless you change something, your earning potential remains flat,” Anderson says. “As we talk about workforce development … it’s also about how to increase the economic mobility of this region.”
