Another piece, this time in the New York Times, on the centrality of community colleges to our nation’s economic recovery.

When Todd Sollar was laid off after 11 years at General Motors, he enrolled at Sinclair Community College in downtown Dayton to study robotics.

After working for eight years at a now-closed Delphi auto parts plant, Kelli Martin enrolled at Sinclair Community College, hoping to become a nurse in pediatric oncology.

Steven Johnson, the president of Sinclair Community College in Dayton, Ohio, with Alan Edwards, a student, in the library.

“Hopefully, with a degree I’ll be marketable for a job,” said Mr. Sollar, 32, who has overcome his nervousness about not fitting in because of his age. In fact, he is thriving, getting A’s and B’s, far better than in high school where he said officials had wrongly pegged him as having a learning disability.

As legions of displaced autoworkers and others face the prospect that their onetime jobs may be gone forever, many like Mr. Sollar will need training for a fresh start.

And perhaps the best place for them will be community colleges, long the workhorses of American higher education, workhorses that get little respect. In an unforgiving economy, these colleges provide lifelines not only for laid-off workers in need of a new career, but for recent high school graduates who find that many types of entry-level jobs now require additional skills.

President Obama has embraced the nation’s community colleges, arguing that they are vital bulwarks against the decline of the middle class — and of America’s competitiveness.

Speaking last month in Michigan, Mr. Obama placed the nation’s 1,200 community colleges at the center of his ambitious plan to increase the number of college graduates by five million over the next decade. The goal is to create a higher skilled, more prosperous work force.

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Photo Credit: NYT