By RVA Rising | May 7, 2026
The Richmond region ranks 49th out of 50 major metropolitan areas for economic mobility. For many families here, working hard is often not enough. Real mobility depends on systems that work together – education aligned with workforce needs, designed for real lives, and accessible to people at every stage.
In our region, community colleges sit at the center of that work. Reynolds Community College, Brightpoint Community College, and their shared workforce division, Community College Workforce Alliance (CCWA), are building pathways that connect people to in-demand careers while removing barriers that too often keep opportunity out of reach.
Designed for Real Lives and Real Work
“Community colleges are the college of first choice, the college of renewed opportunity, and the college of reinvention,” says Dr. Paula Pando, President of Reynolds Community College. “We meet students where they are and help them move forward with purpose.”
Reynolds serves a diverse student body. Many are first-generation, working adults, or immigrants balancing jobs, family, and coursework. Programs are structured for people who cannot pause their lives to pursue education.
Brightpoint Community College serves an equally diverse population across one of the largest geographic footprints of any community college in Virginia. Nearly 80% of its students work while enrolled, and half of classes are online, with support provided remotely.
“We want a success story for every single student,” says Dr. Bill Fiege, President of Brightpoint. “But that starts with listening. When a student walks in who has tried and failed before, there’s almost always a reason. Our job is to figure out what it is and address it before they give up.”
Affordable Pathways to Careers Our Region Needs
Designing for real life also means ensuring education leads to real opportunity, with little to no debt.
At Reynolds, at least 90 percent of graduates leave with zero debt. Nearly $2 million in scholarships are awarded annually, and programs in high-need fields like nursing, welding, HVAC, and automotive technology connect students to stable careers with room for advancement.
Brightpoint follows the same principle: flexible, high-quality programs aligned with workforce demand and structured so students can earn credentials or degrees while continuing to work. Affordability is not the goal on its own. It is what allows more people to access careers the region needs and build financial stability sooner.
Turning Access into Mobility
Community College Workforce Alliance (CCWA), the shared workforce division of Reynolds and Brightpoint, serves nearly 6,000 students each year through short-term, targeted training.
Elizabeth Creamer, who leads CCWA brings both professional and personal insight to the work. “I was an adult student when it wasn’t common,” she says. “I got my bachelor’s degree close to 30 – already a mom of three – and unlike most of my fellow students, I didn’t have unlimited time to figure out what came next. I needed a job.”
That urgency shapes the model. Central is FastForward, a state-supported program providing tuition assistance for short-term credentialing in fields like CDL driving, plumbing, pharmacy technology, and medical assisting. For households at the poverty line, such training is entirely free.
But credentials alone do not create mobility. Wraparound supports do. Students can borrow laptops, access transportation and career coaching, improve English proficiency and connect with nonprofit partners for additional services – reducing the number of people who fall through the cracks.
Built with Employers, Centered on Students
Brightpoint, Reynolds and CCWA are intentional about building programs in collaboration with employers to ensure there is alignment with workforce needs. When new companies consider locating in the region, CCWA is often already at the table.
A partnership with VCU Health has resulted in 226 clinical and medical assistants hired directly from CCWA programs. At Brightpoint and Reynolds, every career and technical education program has an industry advisory board.
“The first question shouldn’t be how much does this cost,” Fiege says. “It should be ‘what is the need we’re trying to address?’ If the curriculum isn’t connected to what employers actually need, we’re not serving our students.”
Reynolds takes the same approach. When the automotive technology program faltered, Dr. Pando worked directly with employers to rebuild it. Today, Reynolds is one of fewer than 40 colleges nationwide recognized through Toyota’s T-TEN technician training program. As part of an Aspen Institute cohort, Reynolds also aspires to create more programs of study for which students can move into annual earnings of $45,000 or more.
What Access Makes Possible
One story captures what access can unlock. A student who came to Reynolds needing a math class while pursuing a cosmetology credential received encouragement from an instructor who saw something else – an engineer’s mind. The student went on to earn a degree in chemical engineering from UVA, and advanced degrees from VCU. Today, she is the Academic Dean of the School of Science, Technology, Engineering and Math at Reynolds.
What changed her trajectory was not just talent, but a system designed to notice and support it.
“In every community,” Pando says, “there is untapped brilliance – students with the potential to change the work, who are too often unseen. Many live in poverty or attend overcrowded, under-resourced schools, disconnected from opportunity. Researchers call them ‘Lost Einsteins.’ The question is not whether they exist, but who is looking for them? And are we intentional enough to find them and ensure they can find us?”
The Region We’re Building Together
Individual stories matter, but lasting change happens when the systems behind them hold.
Enrollment is rising, but scaling technical programs requires faculty, labs, and equipment, and funding has not kept pace. Virginia’s community colleges currently rank in the bottom quartile nationally for funding.“We’ll never reach the finish line,” Creamer says, “but we can get better each year.” That steady, determined progress depends on deeper, sustained investment and partners willing to build for the long term.
This is what economic mobility looks like in practice: not only credentials earned, but jobs secured and futures that can grow.