Career and Technical Education (CTE)
Postsecondary career and technical education (CTE) programs provide students with the knowledge and skills to enter the workforce directly after college. How can states and colleges ensure that CTE programs lead to stable employment and a family-sustaining income, while also meeting the workforce needs of a thriving economy?
Economic Returns to Skills-Building: Can Short-Term Upskilling and Reskilling in Community Colleges Yield a Living Wage?
2024
Peter Riley Bahr, Yiran Chen, Ying Sun, Jennifer May-Trifiletti, and Kathy Booth
Ed Policy Research Working Paper 24-2
https://bit.ly/skillsbuilding_returns
We examine the labor market returns to upskilling/reskilling (skills-building) course combinations in community colleges, utilizing administrative data from the Colorado Community College System. Our findings affirm prior evidence of average increases in earnings following the completion of short up/reskilling sequences, and this holds true across a range of course sequences of differing lengths and in different fields of study. However, our findings also challenge notions that short-term up/reskilling can lift a large share of impoverished participants up to a self-sustaining income. Additionally, the study illuminates complexity in the factors that influence earnings gains from up/reskilling, including the participants’ prior educational attainment, participants’ demographic characteristics, and the field of study. Globally, the study underscores the need for nuanced policy approaches to short-term training in community colleges for low-income and economically displaced individuals.
Topics: Upskilling and Reskilling; Education, Employment, and Earnings; Career and Technical Education
Do Low-Income Students Stack High-Value Credentials?
2024
Jennifer May-Trifiletti, Peter Riley Bahr, Rooney Columbus, Chenjun Yu, and Lindsay Daugherty
Ed Policy Research Working Paper 24-1
Federal and state policymakers and community college administrators are increasingly designing and scaling stackable credentials programs. Advocates hope that stackable credentials programs will increase credential attainment and economic mobility, especially for students from historically underserved backgrounds. Yet, there are also concerns that these programs might divert students to lower-value credentials with limited economic prospects. Using administrative data from two states, we compared patterns of re-enrollment and credential-stacking for students from low- and high-income backgrounds. We found that certificate-earners from low-income backgrounds were more likely to re-enroll in college than their counterparts from higher-income backgrounds, but, after accounting for re-enrollment, were slightly less likely to stack credentials. Among certificate-earners who stacked, there were few differences in the likelihood of stacking higher-value credentials, defined as degrees (instead of certificates), stacked credentials in the same field of study as the first certificate, and credentials associated with higher returns in the local labor market. These findings suggest that, while certificate-earners from low-income backgrounds are likely to re-enroll in college, they are less likely to complete stackable credentials programs and to earn additional high-value credentials. Policymakers, college administrators, and faculty should consider these findings when developing stackable credentials programs.
Topics: Stackable Credentials Sequences, Education, Employment, and Earnings; Career and Technical Education
Labor Market Returns to Community College Noncredit Occupational Education
2023
Peter Riley Bahr and Rooney Columbus
Ed Policy Research Working Paper 23-1
https://bit.ly/noncredit_returns
Millions of students enroll in community colleges noncredit programs every year—most in occupational training—but there are few large-scale studies of their effectiveness in increasing students’ employment opportunities and earnings. In this study, we applied individual fixed effects models to state longitudinal administrative data from Texas to estimate the labor market returns to community college noncredit occupational education. We find a modest but statistically significant increase in average quarterly earnings exceeding $500 per quarter (2019 dollars). Returns vary by duration of training, field of study, and number of training spells. Our findings speak to ongoing national policy debates about the expansion of Pell Grant eligibility to include some community college noncredit programs, as well as numerous state efforts to increase workforce readiness.
Topics: Noncredit Education; Education, Employment, and Earnings; Career and Technical Education; Upskilling and Reskilling
Community College Skills Builders: Prevalence, Characteristics, Behavior, and Outcomes of Successful Non-Completing Students Across Four States
2023
Peter Riley Bahr, Yiran Chen, and Rooney Columbus
Journal of Higher Education
https://doi.org/10.1080/00221546.2022.2082782
This study investigates community college skills builders—students who enroll for a short time, take courses concentrated in career and technical education (CTE), are highly successful in their coursework, but typically leave college without a postsecondary credential. Drawing on administrative data from Colorado, Ohio, Michigan, and California, we use k-means cluster analysis to identify a distinct group of skills builders in each state. We analyze their prevalence, characteristics, course-taking, and educational and labor market outcomes. We then develop criteria that state systems or individual institutions can use to identify skills builders in their student populations. Skills builders comprised similar proportions of students in each state, between 11 and 14 percent, and were qualitatively similar across states. Their average earnings were flat or trending downward prior to college but reversed after college, rising at a statistically significant rate. Fields of study and certificate completion rates among skills builders varied across states. Identifying skills builders will strengthen state and institutional efforts to communicate student successes that cannot be measured with credential completions, while also equipping institutions with the information needed to better serve skills builders.
Topics: Upskilling and Reskilling; Career and Technical Education
Identifying Skills Builders and Estimating Economic Returns to Skills-Building Course Sequences: A Research Methodology Guide
2023
Peter Riley Bahr, Kathy Booth, and Yiran Chen
WestEd Center for Economic Mobility
Recent research on skills builders—students who typically enroll in colleges for a short period of time, take and successfully complete a handful of career-oriented classes, and frequently translate their coursework into earning gains—has generated significant interest from researchers, policymakers, and educators on ways to identify these students in their own institutions and states. This guide provides research methodologies for identifying skills builders and determining the economic returns to short-term course-taking. In addition to providing methodologies for analysis, the guide includes sample discussion questions that community college practitioners can use to build a deeper understanding of student course‐taking and its relationship to economic mobility based on the information produced by this analysis.
Topics: Upskilling and Reskilling; Education, Employment, and Earnings; Career and Technical Education
Economic Mobility for Adult Learners: Strengthening Short-Term Skills Builder Course Sequences
2023
Kathy Booth, Pamela Fong, Peter Riley Bahr, Jennifer May-Trifiletti, and Yiran Chen
Center for Economic Mobility, WestEd
Community colleges are facing significant shifts in population demographics and regional economies that are upending traditional approaches to recruiting and retaining students. The current enrollment crisis highlights a fundamental service delivery issue: college structures are largely designed for firsttime, full-time students. This approach often poses challenges for students balancing work and family responsibilities, particularly in the context of rising inflation, scarce affordable housing, and reduced state funding for education. For many current and potential students, it is not clear that attending college is worth the opportunity costs.
Given the declining number of new high school graduates, many colleges are exploring strategies for attracting more students, including more adult learners. As colleges seek to grow enrollment of adult learners, one segment of the student population on which community colleges should focus their attention is skills builders: students who typically enroll in colleges for a short period of time, take and successfully complete a handful of career-oriented classes, and frequently translate their coursework into earnings gains. This practice guide introduces community college leaders, practitioners, staff, and institutional researchers to skills builders. It is intended to build collective knowledge about skills builders and support college teams as they explore how strengthening skills builder course sequences can be an enrollment and equity strategy at their college.
Topics: Adult Students; Upskilling and Reskilling; Education, Employment, and Earnings; Career and Technical Education
Community College Noncredit Education in Texas
2023
Peter Riley Bahr, Rooney Columbus, Samuel Kaser, Jennifer May-Trifiletti, Cody Christensen, and Kennan Cepa
Center for the Study of Higher and Postsecondary Education, University of Michigan
We leverage administrative data on over 1.6 million students who initially enrolled in noncredit or for-credit programs at Texas community colleges between academic years 2013-14 and 2017-18. We address the following research questions: who enrolls in noncredit education in Texas? How are noncredit enrollees different from for-credit students? What types of courses do noncredit students take? What kinds of enrollment behaviors and academic outcomes do noncredit students experience? Do noncredit students later participate in for-credit programs of study?
Topics: Noncredit Education; Career and Technical Education
Stackable Credentials Pipelines and Equity for Low-Income Individuals: Evidence from Colorado and Ohio
2023
Lindsay Daugherty, Peter Riley Bahr, Peter Nguyen, Jennifer May-Trifiletti, Rooney Columbus, and Jonah Kushner
RAND Corporation
We take a mixed methods approach to examining stackable credential equity in Colorado and Ohio, two states pursuing stackable credential initiatives. We analyze administrative data to describe patterns in credential-stacking and in earnings for low-income individuals relative to middle- and high-income individuals. We identify four potential systemic barriers to equity within stackable credential pipelines and interview key stakeholders to learn more about factors contributing to these barriers and discuss options to ensure equitable opportunities to stack credentials across fields of study and institutions. Key findings include:
Low-income certificate-earners earned multiple credentials (i.e., stacked credentials) and went on to earn longer-term credentials (i.e., stacked vertically) at higher rates than middle- and high-income certificate-earners.
Low-income vertical stackers experienced positive economic returns from stacking and narrowed the earnings gap between low-income individuals and middle- and high-income individuals, suggesting that stackable credentials can potentially help to advance equity.
Low-income certificate-earners are overrepresented in some fields of study that offer limited stacking opportunities and low economic returns (e.g., culinary arts), and they are underrepresented in some fields where individuals frequently stack credentials and see high economic returns (e.g., information technology, manufacturing and engineering technology).
Stakeholders described many factors that might limit opportunities to stack credentials across institutions and fields, including limited workforce needs and industry engagement, substantial program startup costs, the administrative burden associated with designing new credential programs, challenges with faculty recruitment, insufficient access to equipment and instructional resources, and competition between institutions.
Individuals have limited information on stackable credential programs and credential value, and interviewees attributed this lack of information to common perceptions about the value of college and particular fields, constraints on faculty and advisors, and limited messaging from industry.
Low-income individuals account for a larger percentage of students who earn noncredit certificates, and students who earn noncredit certificates rarely go on to earn credit-bearing credentials. Alignment issues, perceptions of quality, limited awareness of noncredit-to-credit articulation agreements, and the administrative burden involved in articulating credit are all factors that limit noncredit-to-credit stacking.
Topics: Stackable Credentials Sequences; Career and Technical Education; Education, Employment, and Earnings
Do Low-Income Students Benefit From Stacking Credentials? Descriptive Evidence From Colorado and Ohio
2023
Lindsay Daugherty, Peter Riley Bahr, Peter Nguyen, Jennifer May-Trifiletti, Rooney Columbus, and Jonah Kushner
RAND Corporation
Using administrative data from Colorado and Ohio, this study examined differences in credential-stacking and labor market returns from stacking for low-income individuals versus middle- and high-income individuals (combined). The key findings were as follows:
Low-income certificate-earners were more likely to stack credentials than were middle- and high-income certificate-earners.
Low-income certificate-earners who stacked credentials were moderately more likely do so by stacking to a higher-level credential (i.e., stacking vertically) than were middle- and high-income certificate-earners.
Low-income certificate-earners who stacked vertically were more likely to advance to a middle-income wage than were low-income certificate-earners who stacked horizontally or who did not stack at all.
Stacking rates and labor market returns from stacking varied by field of study. Low-income certificate-earners were prevalent in some high-return fields but not in others.
Topics: Stackable Credentials Sequences; Career and Technical Education; Education, Employment, and Earnings
States Can Take Steps to Address Potential Barriers to Equity in Stackable Credential Pipelines
2023
Lindsay Daugherty, Peter Riley Bahr, Peter Nguyen, Jennifer May-Trifiletti, Rooney Columbus, and Jonah Kushner
RAND Corporation
States and institutions can take actions to scale programs in ways that ensure that low-income individuals and other historically underserved communities have access to and can succeed in stackable credentials programs. The study explores four potential barriers within stackable credential pipelines that might limit opportunities to stack credentials for low-income individuals. The study provides evidence on the factors limiting stackable credential opportunities and the actions states and institutions can take to address barriers to equity within stackable credential pipelines.
Topics: Stackable Credentials Sequences; Career and Technical Education
Do Stackable Credentials Pay Off For Students From Low-Income Backgrounds?
2023
Peter Riley Bahr, Jennifer May-Trifiletti, and Rooney Columbus
Inside Higher Ed
Stackable credential sequences nest short-term credentials, often certificates, in long-term programs, including associate and baccalaureate degree programs. Students can earn a certificate quickly, secure an entry-level job and then later re-enroll in college to acquire complementary skills through an additional certificate program, or advanced skills through a degree program in the field. Nesting short credentials within longer programs ensures that most or all credits are carried forward as the student progresses and completes more advanced credentials. When stackable credentials are closely linked to labor market opportunities, each credential in a sequence should open the door to additional career advancement opportunities.
Stackable credentials are promising options for increasing credential attainment, especially degree attainment. Students pursuing an associate degree who cannot complete the program due to family, financial or other reasons can exit with a certificate that offers meaningful labor market opportunities and later return to build on their earlier progress to complete a degree. Their flexibility may better serve students of color, adult students and students from low-income backgrounds, who are more likely to balance education with work, family and other responsibilities. Well-designed stackable credential sequences may strengthen connections between college and work, but whether stackable credential sequences actually benefit students from historically underserved backgrounds is not yet clear. Our study investigates the extent to which students from low-income backgrounds stack credentials and whether credential stacking yields labor market gains for these students.
Topics: Stackable Credentials Sequences; Career and Technical Education; Education, Employment, and Earnings
What Colleges, Systems, and States Can be Doing to Build Stackable Credentials
2023
Lindsay Daugherty, Peter Nguyen, Jonah Kushner, and Peter Riley Bahr
Inside Higher Ed
Stackable credentials are a top priority for many states and colleges these days. The term can be used to mean different things, from college efforts to embed short-term credentials into their degree programs to larger-scale efforts to rethink the way credentialing is done through alternative approaches, like skills badges. The goals of these initiatives are twofold: (1) to ensure individuals can get credit for a range of different learning experiences and better integrate these different types of learning, and (2) to better align our education and training systems with workforce needs, which often require reskilling through training and credentials below the bachelor’s degree level.
More than one million individuals earn college certificates in the U.S. each year (i.e., credentials that require less than two years of coursework). Many of the students who earn these certificates go on to stack credentials. When individuals stack college credentials, they see gains in earnings—this is especially the case when they move on to earn degrees.
To scale stackable credential pathways, states and colleges across the country are taking action. We highlight five actions that states and colleges are taking to scale stackable credentials.
Topics: Stackable Credentials Sequences; Career and Technical Education
The Labor Market Returns to a Community College Education for Non-Completing Students
2019
Peter Riley Bahr
Journal of Higher Education
https://doi.org/10.1080/00221546.2018.1486656
Data from California was used in this study to estimate the returns to a community college education that does not result in a postsecondary credential. The study found strong, positive returns to completed credits in career and technical education (CTE) fields that are closely linked to employment sectors that are not credential-intensive (sectors in which employment often does not require a college degree), such as public safety, skilled blue-collar trade and technical work, and accounting and bookkeeping, among others. In these sectors, students were able to convert the human capital acquired in their coursework into returns that far exceeded the cost of the coursework itself, making some noncompleting educational pathways a rational means of securing earnings gains. This finding is consistent with emerging research on skills-builder students and other segments of the community college student population who exhibit coherent patterns of course taking and enrollment that typically do not result in a postsecondary credential. Further investigations of high-return noncompleting pathways are warranted and could help colleges to target efforts to grow postsecondary completion opportunities for students through short-term certificates programs, while also aiding efforts to communicate to stakeholders the successes that cannot be measured by counting credentials or transfers.
An earlier version of this paper is available at http://capseecenter.org/the-labor-market-returns-to-a-community-college-education-for-non-completing-students
Topics: Education, Employment, and Earnings; Career and Technical Education; Upskilling and Reskilling
The Earnings of Community College Graduates in California
2016
Peter Riley Bahr
Center for the Analysis of Postsecondary Education and Employment, Teachers College, Columbia University
https://capseecenter.org/the-earnings-of-community-college-graduates-in-california/
In this study, the author draws on longitudinal data for 1.1 million students in California to estimate the effects of community college credentials on students’ earnings, as compared with students who are not awarded a credential. In contrast to much of the recent work on this subject, which assumed that the effects of credentials on students’ earnings are constant over time, the author estimates the effects of credentials on the rate of change in students’ earnings and allow these effects to vary over time. The author finds significant earnings gains for all levels of credentials, including low-credit awards requiring fewer than six credits. Returns to associate degrees are the most durable over time, while returns to short- and long-term certificates and low-credit awards are strong initially but begin to flatten or decline by seven years after the award. The author finds substantial variability in returns by students’ race/ethnicity and gender. Black men and Black women experience especially strong returns to associate degrees and long-term certificates, relative to other students of the same gender but different race/ethnicity, and men of all racial/ethnic groups experience much stronger returns to short-term certificates than do women. The author also notes wide variation by field of study in returns to credentials. The most consistent returns across levels of credentials are found in the biological sciences, engineering and industrial technologies, health, law, and public and protective services. Finally, the author finds compelling evidence of the need to distinguish returns after a credential is awarded from returns after a student has finished (or otherwise left) postsecondary education, as argued in recent work.
Topics: Education, Employment, and Earnings; Career and Technical Education
Labor Market Returns to Community College Awards: Evidence From Michigan
2015
Peter Riley Bahr, Susan Dynarski, Brian Jacob, Daniel Kreisman, Alfredo Sosa, and Mark Wiederspan
Center for the Analysis of Postsecondary Education and Employment, Teachers College, Columbia University
https://capseecenter.org/labor-market-returns-michigan/
This paper examines the relative labor market gains experienced by first-time college students who enrolled in five community colleges in Michigan in 2003 and 2004. It tracks credentials, credits, earnings, and employment for these students through 2011 and compares the labor market outcomes of those who earned a credential (associate degree or certificate) and those who enrolled but did not earn a credential. The data sources consist of administrative records data from the colleges, Unemployment Insurance earnings data from the State of Michigan, and enrollment and graduation data from the National Student Clearinghouse. The analytic sample consists of 20,581 students.
The authors find that students who were awarded a long-term certificate (referred to as a “diploma” in some states, including North Carolina) earned $2,500 to $3,600 more per year than did those without a credential, with the larger returns concentrated among men. For associate degrees, the estimated returns were $9,400 for women and $5,600 for men. Women saw little gain when awarded a short-term certificate, while men gained $5,200 per year. Estimated returns were highest in health-related and technical fields.
Topics: Education, Employment, and Earnings; Career and Technical Education
The Missing Piece: Quantifying Non-Completion Pathways to Success
2013
Kathy Booth and Peter Riley Bahr
WestEd and LearningWorks
Increasingly, community colleges are measuring success by the outcomes their students achieve, in addition to the number of students they serve. The national push for completion of degrees, certificates, and transfer to four-year institutions has helped to focus colleges on measurable goals. However, while completion outcomes are important metrics of success, they do not measure all of the goals of community colleges. There are also significant metrics of success related to workforce development—like gains in earning and job retention—which can occur outside of the completion framework. Examining non-completion pathways and better measuring employment outcomes can help colleges develop stronger programs that reflect the diverse goals of their students.
Community colleges support a variety of job training programs that provide significant benefits to students but do not result in college certificates or degrees, such as apprenticeship programs, courses that prepare students to earn an industry certification or professional license, and contract education programs that enable employees to upgrade their skills in fields such as technology or public safety. In addition, some community college students take only the few courses that they need to secure a new job or advance in an existing one, with no intention of completing a credential or transferring. As more states seek to link funding to student outcomes, colleges need ways to measure and evaluate non-completion successes, just as they have developed methods of measuring completion outcomes. By better understanding the diverse pathways that students are forging to reach their goals, community colleges can find new ways to measure and support students’ success in the workforce.
Topics: Upskilling and Reskilling; Education, Employment, and Earnings; Career and Technical Education
The Aftermath of Remedial Math: Investigating the Low Rate of Certificate Completion Among Remedial Math Students
2013
Peter Riley Bahr
Research in Higher Education
https://doi.org/10.1007/s11162-012-9281-4
Nationally, a majority of community college students require remedial assistance with mathematics, but comparatively few students who begin the remedial math sequence ultimately complete it and achieve college-level math competency. The academic outcomes of students who begin the sequence but do not complete it are disproportionately unfavorable: most students depart from the community college without a credential and without transferring to a four-year institution. Interestingly, however, many of these students continue to attend the community college after they exit the remedial math sequence, sometimes for an extended period. One is led to ask why students who do not complete the sequence generally are not finding their way to an alternative credential objective that does not require college-level math competency, such as a career and technical education certificate, sometimes referred to as a vocational certificate. In this study, the author explores three possible answers to this question, including difficulty navigating to the alternative credential, declining participation in the community college, and declining academic performance. The author found that all three of these explanations contribute (to varying degrees) to explaining the low rate of certificate completion among remedial math students who do not achieve college-level math competency.
Topics: Assessment, Placement, and Skill Development; Career and Technical Education