The National Labor College was created to increase educational opportunities for union members, and its bachelor's-degree programs, like labor studies and the political economy of labor, focus on material that is immediately applicable to workers' day-to-day union roles. The idea is to make those blue-collar workers more effective at negotiating, and to give them valuable credentials if their jobs on the production line or at the construction site disappear. The college's mission has become increasingly urgent as employers like General Motors and Ford, which long provided an entryway to the middle class, shed union jobs. At the same time, manufacturers that are hiring are often looking for highly skilled workers. Though the National Labor College is a niche institution, graduating about 100 to 120 students a year, it grapples with many of the same work-force training issues facing mainstream institutions: helping blue-collar workers compete in a global economy, providing companies with the right type of workers for their needs, and moving adult students through in a timely fashion. Most students enter the institution with credit for about two years of college-level work, in part because the institution grants credit for many trade-apprenticeship programs and for certain types of life experience. To get credit for life experience, students must take a three-credit "educational planning" course in which they create a detailed portfolio documenting competence in certain areas, such as contract negotiation and mediation, in which the college offers courses. It is a process that has been approved by the State of Maryland and the Middle States Commission on Higher Education, which accredited the college in 2004.