Research Round-up: Aligned Advising, Community College Enrollment, Postsecondary CTE Investment Priorities

Supporting Transition Through Aligned Advising: Education Strategy Group recently released a new microsite – Making the Connection: Aligning Advising to Improve Postsecondary Access and Success – that makes the case for prioritizing alignment of advising across K-12 and postsecondary education. It shares action steps and resources for different stakeholders, including secondary education, postsecondary education, state government, federal government, nonprofits and college access organizations, and philanthropies.   

Interventions Encourage Summer Enrollment: The What Works Clearinghouse has announced a new batch of research studies that meet its standards for showing a causal link between education programs and outcomes. One recent study from MDRC found positive impacts from two interventions designed to increase community college enrollment in summer courses. The research included three groups:

• Students in the control group received messages the college was already sending to promote summer enrollment and its standard financial aid.
• Students in the informational campaign group received personalized funding information about how the student could pay for the courses; testimonials from other students about summer courses; plan-making prompts about how to register and choose courses; and reminders about deadlines.
• Students in the “last dollar” group were offered a similar informational campaign plus tuition that covered the difference between their summer tuition and fees and their financial aid.

Both interventions effectively increased summer enrollment; however, adding the last-dollar grant doubled the magnitude of the impact.

Investing to Support Postsecondary CTE: The Community College Research Center has developed several briefs and fact sheets on topics including guided pathways, Federal Work-Study, transfer between community colleges and four-year colleges, and advising and student supports. The brief on community college CTE summarizes the existing data on the benefits of postsecondary CTE programs and credentials and recommends that the federal government invest in the following:

• Competitive grants to community colleges to help institutions conduct outreach and better serve unemployed, underemployed, and low-income adults most affected by the pandemic.
• Grants to state agencies or intermediaries such as Student Success Centers to help community colleges, employers, public workforce training systems, nonprofit groups, and other entities collaborate in the design and delivery of workforce education.
• Improved data systems to collect data on CTE and workforce training participants as they advance through college and into the labor market.

Key Strategies from Generation Work: A new report from the Aspen Institute Economic Opportunities Program describes workforce development practices used by partner sites in the Annie E. Casey Foundation’s Generation Work^TM program. Generation Work sites are striving to align education, employment and support services to help young people develop the skills required to succeed in the working world; link them with employers; and increase advancement and earning opportunities. Key strategies include hosting opportunities for employers to engage with young adults; helping employers to promote race, equity and inclusion in their workforce; and walking away from an employer partner who doesn’t demonstrate commitment to its workforce.