Career-centered, high-tech program the focus of Lorain County Community College tour
LCCC officials told Cleveland Fed president and chief executive officer Beth M. Hammack that all microelectronic manufacturing students have jobs waiting for them upon graduation.
The unique, career-centered microelectronic manufacturing (MEMS) program at Lorain County Community College (LCCC) was a major focus of a recent campus tour with Cleveland Fed president and chief executive officer Beth Hammack.
Hammack stands outside the state-of-the-art MEMS clean room at LCCC (March 28, 2025)
About 75 students enroll in the MEMS program each year, and LCCC officials say that students gain an understanding of how printed circuit boards, semiconductors, sensors, and other electronic hardware are designed, prototyped, manufactured, and reworked. The school also offers additional employer-sponsored short-term MEMS training.
According to LCCC, the school partners with more than 90 microelectronics companies for the MEMS program, about 80 percent of which are in Northeast Ohio. Officials said that the school works with those employers to craft an evolving curriculum and that all MEMS program students have jobs waiting for them upon graduation.
Community colleges play an important role in postsecondary education in the United States. Nearly 30 percent of the nation’s 15.4 million undergraduate students who were enrolled in 2021 attended a community college.1
In addition to serving students who are pursuing associate or bachelor’s degrees, many community colleges offer students the opportunity to pursue short-duration certificate programs in a variety of fields. The short-term MEMS certificate program at LCCC is one example. LCCC MEMS students can also earn an associate or bachelor of applied science degree in the subject.
LCCC president Marcia Ballinger showed Hammack the school’s hands-on MEMS program facilities, which include a state-of-the-art clean room for semiconductor manufacturing and computer labs for design and drafting.
More than 4,300 students enrolled in their first LCCC class last year, according to the school, and more than 3,300 of these students were dual-enrolled in high school or enrolled within three years of graduating from high school. LCCC’s research also shows that nearly half of all high school students in Lorain County graduate with an average of 22 LCCC credits. The school estimates that these credits have saved Lorain County residents more than $49 million in tuition costs over the last 10 years.
Hammack talks with MEMS instructor Manaf Alhusayni at LCCC (March 28, 2025)
Hammack talks with Kelly Zelesnik, dean of engineering business and information technology at LCCC (March 28, 2025)
About President Beth M. Hammack’s Around the District tour
President Hammack is visiting communities across the Fourth District as part of her Around the District tour to meet and connect with the people who live and work in all corners of the region and to gain a better understanding of how the economy is working in different communities. The Cleveland Fed, with branches in Cincinnati and Pittsburgh, serves an area that comprises Ohio, western Pennsylvania, eastern Kentucky, and the northern panhandle of West Virginia. Hammack will use this information to inform her policy views and better represent the Fourth District around the Federal Open Market Committee table.
Footnotes
- Calculations are based on Table 303.50 from the Digest of Education Statistics. Return to 1
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Beth M. Hammack
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