Landscape of Non-degree Workforce Programs: Recently, the Education & Employment Research Center at Rutgers University published an issue brief that provides an overview of non-credit workforce education programs at community and technical colleges. Using interviews with administrators of non-credit divisions from 29 colleges in 28 states, the brief examines the following components of non-credit workforce programs:
- Focus: Most colleges focus on adult learners and have a comprehensive model for noncredit education, combining workforce training alongside adult basic education. Some colleges report recently shifting away from the comprehensive model to focus solely on workforce education.
- Organization: Typically, noncredit workforce education fell under a college’s Continuing Education division. However, some offered it alongside credit-bearing workforce and CTE offerings, or in partnership with other colleges and vendors.
- Structure: Colleges cited speed and flexibility as the most common reason for offering noncredit workforce education programs. In addition, nearly all colleges reported that pathways exist between some noncredit and credit programs, or that they’re currently developing linkages.
- Quality: To ensure noncredit programs are high quality, most colleges used labor market analysis to align programs with employer needs. Despite the importance of labor market data, only two of the 29 colleges studied reported tracking graduates’ labor market outcomes.
Relatedly, New America published a paper that outlines funding models commonly used by community colleges to support non-degree workforce programs. In partnership with the Nonprofit Finance Fund, researchers interviewed leaders in postsecondary education, workforce development and community college administration between 2020 and 2021. This paper analyzes their findings to summarize current funding practices, innovative approaches and how funding policies can support a college’s mission.
All About Certifications: Corporation for a Skilled Workforce, Workcred and the George Washington Institute of Public Policy recently produced a series of five reports aimed at helping policymakers, employers and funders better understand the characteristics and labor market value of certifications. Using 2019-2021 research on 16 certifications in cybersecurity, healthcare, IT and manufacturing, the reports cover the current landscape of certifications, certifications as economic mobility tools, accreditation standards, recertification and the future of certifications. Read the full collection here.
The Degree Reset: A report by EMSI and Burning Glass examines how bachelor’s degrees are increasingly no longer requisites for many middle-skill and some higher-skill roles. Researchers analyzed over 51 million job postings in 2017, and again from 2019 to March 2021, to determine whether this trend is temporary due to pandemic-related labor shortages, or a permanent shift toward skills-based hiring that began before the pandemic. The following outlines key findings from the report:
- From 2017 to 2019, 46% of middle-skill and 31% of high-skill occupations experienced declines in degree requirements, representing a shift that began before the pandemic.
- About 63% of occupations that removed degree requirements were shifts that occurred before the pandemic and have been maintained, while 27% were short-term responses to the pandemic.
- Based on trends found in the report, an additional 1.4 million jobs could become open to workers without degrees over the next five years.
- When employers removed degree requirements, job postings became more closely tied to specific skills, notably employability skills such as communication, writing and being detail oriented.
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