CTE Policy Watch: A blog for CTE advocates

Research Roundup: All About Credentials

Some College, No Credential: This month, the National Student Clearinghouse Research Center released their annual progress report that examines adults who have some postsecondary experience but did not earn a credential, identified as some college, no credential (SCNC) students. When looking at student enrollment records from 3,600 postsecondary institutions, researchers revealed the following key findings:

• Since 2019, the number of SCNC students increased by 8.3% to total 39 million for the 2020-21 academic year. Forty-eight states and D.C. experienced an increase in SCNC students with Alaska, Oregon and Washington representing the largest SCNC populations per 1,000 undergraduates.
• Re-enrolling in a community college was the most common pathway for SCNC re-enrollees.
• Women SCNC students outnumbered men in re-enrollment, persistence and credential attainment, especially younger women and racial/ethnic minority women.
• Certificates and associate degrees were the most likely credentials earned by SCNC re-enrollees, especially among Latinx and Black SCNC re-enrollees.

Returns to Credentials: In a recent report by the National Bureau of Economic Researchers, researchers examined the returns on investment from different institutions, academic programs and credentials, including two-year postsecondary institutions and postsecondary CTE programs, certificates and degrees. The following summarize a few findings on these topics:

• The report concluded that students receive a positive return on investment for partially completing a two-year postsecondary program, even those who completed only one semester.
• However, completing an associate degree consistently produces substantially higher earnings compared to those who did not obtain a degree.
• Sub-baccalaureate CTE degrees, diplomas and certificates generated positive returns on investments. However, there was some variability by program of study.

On a related note, Georgetown University released a tracker this winter that ranks 4,500 postsecondary institutions by their return on investment using new data from the College Scorecard. Users can filter by institution level and type, degree and state to explore measures such as graduation rates, earnings-to-price return and much more. This tracker is meant to accompany Georgetown’s 2019 report A first try at ROI: Ranking 4,500 colleges.

Alternative Credentials & Hiring: A recent report by the Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM) outlines employers’ views of alternative credentials during the hiring process. In 2021, SHRM surveyed executives, supervisors and human resource professionals as well as workers. The following detail the report’s key findings:

• Almost half of U.S. workers hold an alternative credential with the most common being training certificates, course completion certificates and industry or professional certifications.
• While all three employer groups indicated alternative credentials as valuable to the workplace, each consistently valued work experience and traditional degrees more.
• Most often, executives and supervisors said variability in quality among credentials prevents their wider acceptance in the hiring process while HR professionals reported that skills earned by credentials are not always clear.
• Of 45% of HR professionals who say that their organization uses an automated prescreening system to review job applications, only 32% say their system recognizes alternative credentials.
• Most executives and supervisors and over half of HR professionals agree that recognizing alternative credentials would increase their ability to hire more diverse candidates.

The Landscape of Career Readiness in the United States: A State-level Analysis

The Coalition for Career Development Center (CCD Center) recently released their inaugural Condition of Career Readiness in the United States report, which
summarizes state-level progress toward a nation in which young adults are both college and career ready. This blog post will outline the report’s key findings related to career readiness policies, investments and outcomes.

Career Readiness Policies: To measure the quality of states’ career readiness policies, the CCD Center performed a policy analysis focused primarily on states’ personalized and academic plans (PCAP). The report found that 30 states have high-quality PCAP policy language and guidance. Additionally, 36 states identify PCAP standards or curriculum for districts and schools, and 32 offer PCAP-related professional development opportunities. However, only 20 states have identified funding to support PCAP implementation and even fewer states provide students with free access to a PCAP technology platform.

Career Readiness Investments: Complementing prior research with their own, the CCD Center examined states’ career advising, postsecondary readiness and work-based learning policies to measure career readiness investments. In addition to other indicators, researchers examined Perkins V state plans and CTE concentrator rates as part of their analysis. They concluded that 24 states identified career advisement strategies in their Perkins V state plans, primarily on the secondary level, while more than half of states are using Perkins funds to support work-based learning opportunities. Their analysis also found that, across the nation, 42% of CTE participants on average were gaining the required credits to be considered a CTE concentrator in 2020, with a very wide range in variation across states: from 5% to 83%.

Career Readiness Outcomes: Lastly, the report analyzed high school completion, postsecondary engagement, wages and youth not involved in education or the workforce to assess state-level career readiness outcomes. Researchers found that, in nearly every state, 90% or more of CTE concentrators graduated high school in 2018. In the same year, on average, 84% of CTE concentrators immediately entered postsecondary education, the military or the workforce after graduation, with state-level variations between 45% and 100%.

The report includes an abundance of state and local examples of career readiness policies and programs and details five steps that states can take to improve career readiness: prioritizing career planning, expanding access to career advising, increasing work-based learning opportunities, providing access to career development technology and ensuring accountability when measuring career readiness.

ACTE Senior Director of Public Policy Alisha Hyslop contributed to the development of this report.

Research Roundup: COVID-19 Pandemic Recovery Through CTE

Equitable Recovery through Career Pathways: National Skills Coalition released a toolkit to help policymakers, human service agency leaders and community colleges develop career pathways systems that emphasize an equitable recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic. The toolkit promotes building partnerships between human service agencies and postsecondary systems to address learners’ basic needs as they prepare for a high-quality career, with examples from Arkansas and Oregon.

Relatedly, America Achieves published a playbook that provides states and communities with an evidence-based approach to building a workforce system that matches individuals to high-paying and high-demand jobs. The playbook guides readers through steps to creating an employer demand-driven workforce scholarship program with an accompanying evaluation system to assess job attainment, wage gains and program quality. Additionally, the playbook features policy examples from Rhode Island’s Back to Work program and West Virginia’s Learn and Earn program.

Governors’ Education Priorities: A publication from Education Commission of the States outlines governors’ top priorities in education for 2022 by analyzing 44 State of the State addresses from this year. Among the following top six education priorities identified by the report, recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic served as a backdrop for most, and workforce development and CTE ranked as governors’ second highest priority:

• The majority of governors addressed K-12 funding, with some who suggested cuts due to the COVID-19 pandemic while others, such as governors from Illinois and Georgia, proposed increases.
• About 34 governors highlighted workforce development and CTE by proposing investments in job training programs using federal stimulus funds, such as Nebraska, and by calling for increased grant funding to expand CTE programs, like Missouri.
• Half of governors noted teacher staffing as an issue. As a solution, governors from states like New York proposed strengthening career pathways and creating faster routes to certification.
• Roughly 19 governors mentioned physical and mental health of student and staff as a priority. Additionally, the same number of governors focused on the issue of postsecondary affordability.
• Learning recovery and academic success was addressed by 17 governors as an issue due to the pandemic, and some governors noted investments and out-of-school opportunities as solutions.

Using Data to Improve Education-to-Workforce Pipelines: A recent brief from Education Strategy Group discusses how bringing together early childhood, K-12, higher education and workforce data can be an effective mechanism to improve the education-to-workforce pipeline. Researchers interviewed leaders from Arizona, Georgia, Kentucky, North Carolina, Texas and Washington to study how these states developed cross-sector data dashboards. The brief outlines lessons learned, questions for policymakers to consider and recommendations for building a cross-sector data dashboard.

Research Roundup: Work-Based Learning Statistics and Toolkits

Registered Apprenticeships in 2020: In February, the U.S. Department of Labor released new statistics on Registered Apprenticeship programs during Fiscal Year (FY) 2020. The following highlight key points from the data:

• In FY 2020, there were over 630,000 apprentices, 26,000 Registered Apprenticeship programs and 82,000 graduates of the Registered Apprenticeship system.
• Since 2011, the number of new apprentices grew by 70%, and new apprenticeship programs grew by 73% since 2009.
• Virginia had the most Registered Apprenticeship programs overall while New Hampshire had the most newly registered programs in FY 2020. Additionally, California had the largest number of overall apprentices, new apprentices and graduates.
• Electrician, carpenter and construction craft laborers were among the occupations with the highest number of apprentices.

Measuring Youth Apprenticeship Quality: The Partnership to Advance Youth Apprenticeship (PAYA), an initiative of New America, released a youth apprenticeship assessment tool to assist youth apprenticeship stakeholders in determining their programs’ quality and areas of improvement. Guided by each of PAYA’s five principles of quality youth apprenticeships, users reflect on program data to assess strengths and program improvement opportunities related to partnerships, program design and pathway components.

Work-Based Learning Participant Outcomes: A recent study conducted by Strada Education Network reports the benefits of work-based learning on income and post-graduation success. Using nationally representative surveys from 2016 and 2021, researchers studied bachelor’s degree recipients ages 21 to 65 who participated in work-based learning and those who did not. The following summarizes the study’s key findings:

• Participating in any type of work-based learning during one’s undergraduate education predicted a significant increase in annual personal income and a higher satisfaction with the career and education experience.
• Completing a paid internship was associated with an increase of $3,096 in annual wages one year after graduation, while other work-based learning experiences such as unpaid internships, practicums and cooperative learning were not associated with immediate increases in post-graduation earnings.
• Students of color, first-generation students and federal Pell Grant recipients were least likely to have held a paid internship. When looking at field of study, engineering, computer and information sciences, and business students were most likely to have held a paid internship.

Collecting Work-Based Learning Data: This February, the Education Development Center (EDC) released a toolkit to assist district and school leaders in collecting data on student participation in work-based learning. Informed by lessons learned from a multi-year EDC study and using a work-based learning continuum developed by the Linked Learning initiative, this toolkit walks leaders through the process of identifying work-based learning data collection goals, implementing collection processes and using data to improve work-based learning programs. Additionally, the toolkit features guidance for researchers who plan to collect or analyze work-based learning data.

Research Roundup: Today’s Non-degree Workforce Education Programs and Their Potential

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.

Spanish Translation: “CTE Works!” Fact Sheet

Today, ACTE released a Spanish-translated version of our “CTE Works!” fact sheet to help CTE supporters inform learners and families in the Spanish-speaking community about recent research on CTE’s benefits.

This resource provides an evidence-based overview of CTE’s impact on student achievement, education and employment outcomes, and the skills gap and economy in the Spanish language.

We encourage you to share this fact sheet with Spanish speakers currently involved or new to CTE as well as those who interact with the Spanish-speaking community, including students and families; educators, counselors and administrators; and federal, state and local education and workforce leaders.

Click here to access the English version of this resource.

GAO Report on CTE Challenges and Strategies

The U.S. Government and Accountability Office (GAO) recently released a study on how CTE programs are supporting learners. Researchers interviewed state education officials in Delaware, Georgia, Ohio and Washington; representatives from eight CTE program providers; 14 stakeholders such as employer partners; and individuals from six national CTE organizations. This blog post summarizes the report’s key findings on funding sources and strategies that states and programs use to assist CTE learners and challenges faced in supporting CTE learners.

Funding Sources and General Support Strategies: In addition to Perkins V grants, the majority of CTE providers interviewed reported using other federal education grants, such as Student Support and Academic Enrichment Grants, Supporting Effective Instruction State Grants and Adult Education State Grants, to fund programs. Half of providers stated they primarily use state and local education funds to service CTE classrooms and labs. Additionally, a few providers reported utilizing philanthropic donations and other federal grant funding, such as Department of Labor grants, the National Science Foundation's Advanced Technical Education Program and the Department of Defense’s Manufacturing and Engineering Education Program.

CTE providers also employed non-funding strategies to assist CTE learners through the comprehensive local needs assessment and business and industry partnerships, among other methods.

Programmatic Challenges: The report also outlined programmatic challenges to supporting CTE learners. The following are three key areas respondents identified as challenges:

Delivery: Respondents cited major delivery challenges related to limited funding; limited staff capacity, including a lack of racially and ethnically diverse educators; and negative perceptions of CTE. To address these challenges, providers and officials described braiding different sources of funding; recruiting CTE graduates of Tribal schools to return as teachers; and conducting outreach activities to inform parents about the benefits of CTE.

Access: Interviewees also identified access challenges in CTE for work-based learning, mostly due to lack of transportation options; limited social supports, including language barriers; inflexible scheduling; a lack of childcare services; and difficulties accessing aid for postsecondary nondegree programs. Respondents cited efforts to increase student access including hiring a work-based learning coordinator to identify opportunities and transportation options; translating CTE materials into multiple languages; and offering online instruction.

Replication: State officials and CTE providers reported difficulties in identifying and replicating effective CTE program strategies due to a lack of data, particularly longitudinal data that crosses systems, and evidence-based strategies. Some ways interviewees addressed replication challenges include developing a data-sharing partnership with federal and state agencies; creating a postsecondary data system; and researching existing evidence-based strategies that demonstrate positive outcomes for special populations.

The GAO report also outlines ways in which the U.S. Department of Education supports CTE programs. These strategies include administering grants, providing technical assistance, partnering with other federal agencies and expanding research.

Fiscal Year 2022 CTE Earmark Analysis

The recently signed fiscal year (FY) 2022 omnibus appropriations bill marked the first spending bill in a decade to include earmarks. Earmarks, also known has “community project funding” or “congressionally directed spending,” are used by Members of Congress to guarantee funding for specific projects or grantees that would benefit their state or district.

Each Member office submits project funding requests from constituents, which must then be reviewed by the appropriations subcommittees. For FY 2022, members of the House could submit a maximum of 10 earmark requests to be reviewed while members of the Senate had no request limit, and the total funding for earmarks could not exceed 1% of overall discretionary funding. In the coming days, ACTE will publish a blog post on steps our members can take during the earmarking process for FY 2023.

The FY 2022 omnibus appropriations bill earmarks a total of $2.3 million for vocational rehabilitation projects, $140 million for K-12 projects, $249 million for higher education projects and $137 million for employment and training projects. ACTE analyzed this funding and found that 119 earmarks provided over $107 million for CTE-related projects in FY 2022:

• Elementary and secondary CTE-related projects received $16.2 million through 22 earmarks
• Postsecondary CTE-related projects received $49.8 million through 49 earmarks
• Employment and training CTE-related projects received $41.4 million through 48 earmarks

Of the 39 states that received earmarked funding for CTE-related projects in FY 2022, Virginia was allocated the most funding, totaling $8.97 million, and California had the most earmarks with 11 different projects funded. Specific CTE-related projects that received the most funding include:

• $5.1 million for Northern Virginia Community College’s Data Center Operations degree and certificate program.
• $4.5 million for an apprenticeship initiative at Marshall University in West Virginia.
• $3.7 million for Skills for Rhode Island’s Future, a work-based learning program.

Readers can use this spreadsheet created by ACTE to learn more about which CTE-related projects in their state received FY 2022 earmarked funding.

Research Roundup: Readiness, Performance and Outcomes Data

CTE in the High School Transcript Study: Recently, the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) released results from the 2019 High School Transcript Study. Researchers examined a nationally representative sample of 2019 high school graduates and the courses they took, how many credits they earned, their GPAs and their performance on NAEP Grade 12 assessments. The following are key findings relevant to CTE:

• In 2019, graduates earned 3.3 CTE credits compared to 3.8 credits in 1990. The biggest declines in CTE credits earned were among Black and female graduates.
• Graduates had higher average GPAs in CTE courses (3.33) than in 1990 (2.87). Female and Asian/Pacific Islander students had the highest CTE GPAs, and Black students had the lowest.
• Of the 28% of graduates who took a dual enrollment course, about 13% were enrolled in CTE dual enrollment courses, the highest percentage among all types of dual enrollment courses.
• Since 1990, the percentage of graduates earning at least one CTE credit increased the most in fields such as health science, IT, and hospitality and tourism. In contrast, fields like business and marketing, architecture and construction, and manufacturing faced the largest declines.

Career Readiness Benchmarks: In 2021, MajorClarity released a career & college readiness (CCR) benchmark self-assessment tool for K-12 leaders to score their districts on five key areas of CCR: postsecondary options, data, supports, stakeholder engagement and resources. MajorClarity analyzed responses from over 140 self-assessments in a recent report. Overall, the median score on the benchmark was 68.5%, with the highest average score in postsecondary options and the lowest in stakeholder engagement.

Postsecondary Completion Rates: This winter, the National Student Clearinghouse Research Center released its tenth report in the Completing College Series, tracking postsecondary enrollment and six-year completion outcomes. The following are key findings from the cohort that began postsecondary education in fall 2015:

• The completion rate reached 62.2%, an increase of over one percentage point compared to the fall 2014 cohort, with the largest increases (+1.5 percentage points) among public community colleges.
• Completion rates increased for two-thirds of states (32 out of 46) examined, and in 26 states, completion rates grew by at least one percentage point for students who started at community colleges.
• Among all racial/ethnic groups, Black students experienced the largest increases in completion rates (+1.9 percentage points) and had the greatest growth in students enrolling in community college (+1.6 percentage points).
• Completion rates for adult learners increased by 2.5 percentage points compared to traditional college-age students, whose completion rates declined. For adult learners who started at community colleges, their completion rate increased by 2.3 percentage points for a total rate of 37.9%.

Employment and Earnings Outcomes: Recently, the American Enterprise Institute compiled a collection of 9 reports that address the history, arguments and data resources regarding postsecondary outcomes and earnings. The featured reports include those of New America, the Higher Education Advisory Group and the Urban Institute and discuss the effect that accountability policies, college advising programs, intermediaries and student demographics have on earnings and employment outcomes. Read the full collection here.

New Resource: “CTE Works!” Fact Sheet

Today, ACTE published a new “CTE Works!” fact sheet that provides an evidence-based overview of CTE’s impact on student achievement; education and employment outcomes; and the skills gap and economy.

Research shows that CTE students excel in high school and postsecondary education. The average high school graduation rate of CTE concentrators is 94% – 9 percentage points higher than the overall U.S. graduation rate – and CTE concentrators are just as likely as non-concentrators to earn a postsecondary degree or certificate.

The benefits of CTE extend into employment. For instance, associate degree holders in CTE fields like engineering, IT, health care and skilled trade occupations can earn up to $2.8 million over their lifetimes – the same as the median lifetime earnings for workers with bachelor’s degrees.

Additionally, filling roles in CTE fields is critical to supporting the economy. Over the next decade, the United States faces a projected shortage of 6.5 million skilled workers.

We encourage CTE supporters to share this fact sheet with students and families; federal, state and local education and workforce leaders; policymakers; and the media to convey the value of CTE along with our “What is CTE?” infographic that introduces people new to CTE to its scope and benefits.