Why do jobs have to be green jobs? How about just jobs? Now that we live in a world where 12.7 percent unemployment is the new normal for college grads, is it really so important for new jobs to be green?

Paul Fain of Inside Higher Ed reports.

North Carolina’s community colleges are putting the finishing touches on a sweeping curriculum review, the sort that perhaps only a strong, centralized system could pull off.

The project is an attempt to update course offerings and program tracks to better tie them to the state’s energy economy, particularly green jobs. It will result in a wave of program consolidation across the 58-college system, as well as the elimination of almost 100 systemwide courses. The new curriculums will also feature a new “stackable” system of credentials, which are designed to be more seamless as workers go back and forth between jobs and community college.

The overarching goal is to make degree and certificate holders “more employable,” said Randy Durren, a curriculum coordinator and biotechnology instructor at Piedmont Community College.

Meanwhile at the Washington Examiner, Diana Furchtgott-Roth focuses on reality.

Take your pick: Trendy green jobs, or real jobs?

“Green jobs” are all the rage among Democrats these days. Their party platform declares: “[W]e will continue to champion sustainable growth that includes the clean energy that creates green jobs and combats climate change.”

But what are green jobs? The various definitions are confusing and contradictory. Just as “green” has become a vogue label, meant to signify a commitment to the environment (or to combating global warming), so the Labor Department sometimes slaps a “green” label on regular old jobs. Moreover, with disappointing August jobs figures — 96,000 jobs created and an unemployment rate that declined to 8.1 percent only because 368,000 people left the labor force — this trendy focus on costly green jobs is misplaced.