Expanding Internships: Harnessing Employer Insights to Boost Opportunity and Enhance Learning: A recent report released by the Business-Higher Education Forum (BHEF) outlines the landscape of undergraduate internship offerings. BHEF found that while internships have proven to be extremely important for students in securing jobs after college, access remains limited, particularly for first-generation students, individuals of color and community college students. Furthermore, the total number of students who sought an internship in 2023 – 8.2 million – was much larger than the 3.6 million who had an internship and the only 2.5 million who experienced a high-quality internship. Black students from two-year institutions and Hispanic students from two-year and four-year colleges were less likely to participate in an internship.
As for employers, those who were most interested in recruiting young talent had some of the highest internship rates and were more likely to provide a quality experience. In contrast, most learners see the primary purpose of an internship as skill development. Employers also faced issues when offering internships, such as recruitment (a third of employers indicated that they had an internship opening that was never filled) and cost.
The report concludes with strategies that can potentially expand internship offerings, such as creating different models of internships to align with the needs of students and utilizing an external entity to assist with finding candidates.
Workforce Strategies for New Industrial Policies: Governors’ Emerging Solutions: The National Governors Association (NGA) released a report regarding new state industrial policies and what they mean for the future workforce. Governors in many states have allocated a significant amount of money to infrastructure, clean energy and manufacturing efforts, but more needs to be done for the workforce that will handle the projected millions of new jobs that will become available in those sectors. Some governors have taken initial steps toward increasing the workforce: Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer has invested in workforce community outreach efforts while Washington state provides workforce resources to grant applicants. Similar CTE and workforce development policies can be found in ACTE’s and Advance CTE’s annual state policy reviews and state policy tracker.
NGA identified seven strategies that governors are utilizing as these new industrial policies are taking hold: hosting regular convenings with stakeholders, investing in workforce system infrastructure, and providing guidance to grant applicants and administrators, to name a few.
The Postsecondary Outcomes of High School Dual Enrollment Students: A National and State-by-State Analysis: The Community College Research Center (CCRC) at Columbia University released a report detailing outcomes of high school dual enrollment students. The researchers tracked high schoolers that began taking dual enrollment courses in fall 2015, following them for four years after high school and examining various outcome indicators. They made some critical findings:
- Dual enrollment across the nation is growing.
- Overall, dual enrollment students have strong postsecondary completion outcomes.
- Certain student groups are underrepresented in dual enrollment, with lower than average completion rates: low-income, Black and Hispanic students. However, these same groups, when enrolled in dual credit courses, have stronger award completion rates than non-dual enrollees.
- Former dual enrollment students are an important source of community college enrollments.
CCRC also developed a data tool alongside the report for those interested in examining outcomes in a particular state. Overall, the findings suggest that states must continue working on ensuring that all students have equitable access to participate in and supports to complete a dual credit course.
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