Colleges should resist viewing Workforce Pell—which launches on Wednesday—as a policy designed exclusively for vocational schools and short-term training, says Aaron Thompson, president of the Kentucky Council on Postsecondary Education.

"I see all of our institutions as workforce institutions, whether you're a research institution or a community college," he says on The University Business Podcast. "It's just for a different segment of the workforce."

Rather than treating workforce readiness as a separate function, Kentucky encourages colleges to make employment and economic advancement the cornerstones of students success. Dr. Thompson credits this approach with boosting the state's enrollment and college completion rates.