Bridging the Middle-skills Gap: A report from the Georgetown University Center on Education and the Workforce (CEW) examines the gaps between high-paying jobs that require postsecondary credentials such as certificates and associate degrees, categorized in the literature as high-paying middle-skills jobs, and the projected size of the middle-skills workforce. CEW further defines high-paying middle-skills jobs as ones where early-career workers have annual earnings above $55,000 and mid-career workers have median annual earnings of $83,300.
The researchers analyzed national education and workforce data and made several findings:
- Annually, the nation faces a shortage of nearly 712,000 certificates and associate degrees aligned with high-paying middle-skills jobs in four occupational groups: skilled trades, management, STEM and protective services. These shortages are expected to persist until at least 2032.
- Health care is the only occupational group not projected to face shortages of certificates and associate degrees aligned with high-paying middle-skills jobs.
- Men, Asian and white individuals are more likely to earn high-paying middle-skills credentials compared to women, Black and Hispanic individuals. In addition, white men hold more high-paying middle-skills jobs in the skilled trades, management, STEM and protective services occupational groups, while white women hold more of these jobs in the health care group.
Examining the NAF Academy: An article by Edward C. Fletcher Jr., In Heok Lee, Tong Xing Tan and Gen Li in Innovative Higher Education studied the college matriculation rates of students who attended a National Academy Foundation (NAF) career academy.
The researchers analyzed data from the 2019 graduates of over 400 NAF academies nationwide and found that NAF academy students who engaged in some combination of NAF course completion, internships and/or dual enrollment were significantly more likely to matriculate into college compared to NAF academy students who did not participate in those activities. Male, white and Asian NAF students were more likely to matriculate into college than other racial/ethnic groups, and students enrolled in engineering or finance-focused academies were more likely to matriculate into college than students in hospitality-focused academies.
The researchers also examined the levels of stress in communities surrounding the academies (stress related to economic, education, health, housing and crime-related issues) and found that students who matriculated into college attended academies in communities with lower stress levels than students who did not matriculate into college.
Making Career Readiness Count: A report from Advance CTE and the College in High School Alliance examines how states have developed and implemented career-focused indicators in their state and federal accountability systems.
The analysis found that, as of 2024, 43 states include at least one career-focused indicator in their state or federal accountability system. This represents a slight increase from 2019 and a substantial increase from 2014. Indicators that states utilize the most are dual enrollment success (32), industry-recognized credential attainment (26), achievement on an academic career readiness assessment (21), CTE completion (21) and experiential/work-based learning (16). Of the 43 states that use a career-focused indicator, 35 publicly report college and career readiness data but only 13 disaggregate that data for each indicator in their accountability systems.
Postsecondary Persistence and Retention: The National Student Clearinghouse Research Center released new data on the rates of persistence (i.e., remaining enrolled at any institution) and retention (i.e., remaining enrolled at their starting institution) for beginning postsecondary students, tracking persistence and retention in the students’ first spring and second fall in college. Major takeaways from the data include:
- Among students who entered postsecondary education in fall 2023, the national persistence rate for fall 2024 was 77.6% and the national retention rate was 69.5%. These represent slight increases compared to the fall 2022 cohort.
- While public and private four-year institutions saw increased persistence and retention rates for both first spring and second fall, community colleges held steady for first spring but saw small declines in second fall.
- Trades-related certificate programs, such as precision production and construction, made up four of the top five certificate programs with the highest second fall persistence rates.
- Part-time students fell far behind full-time students for both persistence and retention.
- Younger students (aged 20 or below) were more likely to persist and be retained than older students.
- Hispanic, Black and Native American students have retention rates lower than the national average and have mixed persistence rates.