Lehigh Carbon Community College is helping students get real-world experience while still in college.

Last month, Vice President Joe Biden, U.S. Secretary of Labor Thomas E. Perez and U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan announced that Lehigh Carbon Community College, as well as Luzerne County Community College and Northampton Community College will share a four-year $10 million Trade Adjustment Assistance Community College and Career Training Initiative grant to develop new programs in high-priority career fields. LCCC serves students in Lehigh, Schuylkill and Carbon counties.Of that $10 million, LCCC will receive $1,809,350 to use toward working with employers to develop affordable degree, certificate and diploma programs in three industry sectors: advanced manufacturing, health care and logistics/transportation.Terri Keefe, executive director of workforce and community education for LCCC, said that the college was happy the consortium received the money for this project."We're honored and thrilled," she said. "It's a tremendous opportunity for us and we're excited about the partnership and collaboration on the regional level."She emphasized that in addition to the three colleges teaming up to bring new opportunities to students and employees looking to find jobs in a number of high-priority occupations, they will also be partnering with a number of businesses throughout the area, such as health care providers Blue Mountain Health System in Lehighton and Palmerton and St. Luke's Hospital-Miner's Campus in Coaldale, to streamline the courses to meet the needs of employers."It's extremely exciting to all of us," Keefe said. "We will be working side-by-side with industry partners in developing these programs to make them marketable to students."She added that the college has been working with local economic development groups and workforce investment boards to try to see what will work best for the area."It's allowing us to enhance programs we already have and expand them to include more skills related to the employers' needs," Keefe said. "It's also enabling us to add some new programs that will give students experience and will make them more marketable to the workforce."For example, Keefe said in the advanced manufacturing arena, the college will be enhancing the courses it already offers. In the health care field, they will offer an advanced nurse's aide program on its base certification program.The benefits for students is that "they can start with a basic job training program and build on it," Keefe said, adding that these programs will work toward a degree program. "This allows us to open many doors for students."The new programs will take approximately one year to 18 months to complete, but Keefe said students in existing programs that are going to be enhanced will see changes as soon as six to nine months.