WIOA (Workforce Innovation & Opportunity Act)

The Office of International Affairs and University Outreach of Southern University has been looking and searching to help students who need extra income and with the Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act (WIOA) students can now join and apply whether they are students or non-students.
Southern Digest sits down with the Technical International Specialist in the Office of International Affairs and University Outreach, Mrs. Debra F. Tilson. She expresses her thoughts about how the Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act can help the student body and how she can offer her expertise on her knowledge about the Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act. Civil Engineering, Criminal Justice, Interdisciplinary Studies, and Psychology have been the only undergraduate academic programs that have been approved by WIOA. The Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act is a part of the Louisiana Combined State plan for the year 2023-2024. “Now, what WIOA does is it provides an opportunity for individuals, whether they are a student or a non-student. You know, this could be someone who has just lost their job, you know, or someone who has just become disabled.” This allows the state of Louisiana to assist the person or stakeholders with funds, with additional funds to go to any school in Louisiana. The person does have to have a Louisiana address.
Once that person has applied, they go through the website called ‘MyHire’ and then they proceed to go to the university. So that means that any entity that deals with academics, that is post-secondary, that they would pay for it. Mrs. Debra then breaks down the benefits of WIOA that students can look forward to. “There’s three major things that are beneficial; Enrollment is a perfect opportunity for students to go out there and recruit, you know, by going on and explaining and telling individuals that we are part of the Workforce Innovation Opportunity Act. Southern University tends to get the majority of our students program recipients.” Now they have a retention. It’s the next component of it because bio-financial is a financial entity.
The second part will be the retention. So you’ve got the student who is short on their funds or doesn’t have enough funding to stay in. Well, if they are approved, then that’s money that can help pay that balance off because once it pays the tuition fees, that’s it. The remaining balance goes to your pockets. The last one is graduation if you can get the students to come and stay in then it leads to graduation. You know because you’re looking at all these funds. She goes into detail explaining how students can be WIOA-approved. “We want the programs to be a 3 to 5-star program, an academic program, meaning that the probability of them getting hired is greater if they are a 3 to 5-star. In communicating and working with Eric Jordan, who’s the person who assists us with getting them approved. Therefore, these are the steps and information for getting approved by the Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act. Digest has had the pleasure of having a sit down with Mrs. Debra F. Tilson and suggests students become more informed about this opportunity to receive more financial assistance.