Assemblymember Jasmeet Bains brings $1 million in state funding to establish the Kern CCD Economic Mobility Lab

On behalf of the California state legislature, Assemblymember Jasmeet Bains presented the Kern Community College District with $1 million in funding to create a new laboratory focused on career and technical education for the underemployed. Kern CCD’s announcement of the new Economic Mobility Lab coincided with a check presentation event featuring Assemblymember Bains on Monday, July 8 at the Weill Institute in downtown Bakersfield.

The Economic Mobility Lab is focused on providing apprenticeships and other work-based learning opportunities for students engaged in three high-wage, high-demand industry sectors, which are business services, IT/cybersecurity, and advanced manufacturing. The program will also streamline the college’s existing curriculum in those areas using nationally recognized industry credentialing standards and give students access to industry exams like the Comp TIA at campuses across the district and its three colleges. This program will also leverage the district’s existing slate of non-credit certificate programs for pre-apprenticeship opportunities and expand our partnerships with the Kern Adult Education Consortium and the Kern-Inyo-Mono Workforce Development Board to increase recruitment, apprenticeship opportunities, and job placement.

At the event, Kern CCD Trustee Romeo Agbalog thanked Dr. Bains for working with the legislature to secure the funding, noting that it demonstrates the Assembly’s commitment to workforce development and reducing unemployment in Kern County.

“Workforce development is codified in the mission of the California Community Colleges,” Romeo Agbalog said. “At Kern CCD, we not only help students in their academic goals, but we also help them climb the economic ladder toward prosperity.”

Dr. Steven Bloomberg, Kern CCD’s Chancellor, provided additional details about the Economic Development Laboratory, emphasizing that the program builds upon districtwide initiatives that have already proven to be successful in making high-wage, high-demand careers accessible to socioeconomically-disadvantaged populations.

“This is the very beginning of bringing services to students that need them the most,” Bloomberg said. “Without Dr. Bains’ support, we wouldn’t be able to do it at this scale.

In her concluding remarks, Assemblymember Bains spoke about her struggles as a first-generation student in medicine and how programs like the Economic Mobility Lab will empower students like her to achieve her dreams.

“Growing up in Delano, I never thought I would become a doctor. If you can’t see it, you can’t believe it,” Bains said. “It is my honor today to provide this and much more in the future to continue bringing higher education to all.”