Examples of the type of rich analysis that is possible when data on third-party industry certification is paired with education and workforce data were presented recently at the Data Quality Institute from the Office of Career, Technical and Adult Education.
The kind of data produced by the Certification Data Exchange Project, coordinated by ACTE, includes demographic characteristics of community college students who have gained industry certifications, whether certified students also earned educational credentials and—most interestingly for many—employment and earnings by industry for students who are certified compared to students who are not certified. Findings are preliminary and require additional analysis, but earnings generally appear to be higher for those who are certified.
This work is supported by technical assistance from the Office of Career, Technical and Adult Education and is part of a constellation of projects harnessing the connection between education and workforce credentials, third-party credentials and student outcomes. These projects include the Western Interstate Commission for Higher Education Multistate Longitudinal Data Exchange, which is experimenting with sharing data across state lines; the credential registry effort from George Washington University, Southern Illinois University and Workcred, a nonprofit affiliate of the American National Standards Institute; and the Workforce Credentials Coalition.
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