Easy Come, EZ-GO: A Federal Role in Removing Jurisdictional Impediments to College Education

Outlines the need to raise college degree attainment by creating Educational Zone Governance Organizations in multistate metropolitan regions to coordinate and incentivize policies that expand access. Offers data by metro area, age, and race/ethnicity

Who Benefits from Postsecondary Occupational Education? Findings from the1980s and 1990s

Technological changes in the workplace have placed considerable pressure on the U.S. educational system to prepare students for increasingly skillbased occupations. Employers reward new hires for having the skills or credentials needed for their job, underscoring the importance of having either the requisite “tools in your toolbox,” or some basic academic preparation to continue on into postsecondary education. This stress on knowledge acquisition has contributed to a growing wage gap between high school and college graduates. Whether occupational education at the high school level, with its focus on immediate workforce entry after high school, adequately prepares students for college is a public concern. Since students who enroll in these programs are less likely to transfer to a four-year college to obtain a bachelor’s degree, occupational education is criticized for hampering their future earnings. Some of the criticisms of postsecondary occupational education could be allayed if the economic benefits were equal to (or greater than) those of other types of education. This brief investigates the economic benefits of a community college education by analyzing the effects on post-college earnings of a student’s program of study (occupational or academic), the amount of schooling accumulated with and without attaining a degree, and the type of credential earned

What Can We Learn About Postsecondary Vocational Education From Existing Data?

This paper outlines an agenda for research on postsecondary vocational education that can be carried out with existing data. We are particularly interested in encouraging research that can provide insight into the effects of the Carl D.Perkins Vocational and Technical Education Act of 1998. This act prescribes a set of performance indicators designed to promote continuous program improvement, yet some performance measures may not fully measure the educational and skills training missions of community colleges. This issue becomes especially important in light of the emerging trend of nontraditional pathways taken by students through higher education. Although fewer and fewer students proceed through higher education uninterrupted at a single institution, this ideal continues to dominate postsecondary education assessment. Helping to resolve the problems of assessment and institutional accountability within the rapidly changing landscape of postsecondary vocational education is one of the most important roles that projects using existing data could play for the National Assessment of Vocational Education. We propose a set of six projects that can help define "success" in postsecondary vocational education. We also suggest some analyses to evaluate the performance of individuals, groups of institutions, and community colleges against those standards

The Return to a Sub-Baccalaureate Education: The Effects of Schooling, Credentials and Program of Study on Economic Outcomes

Over the last 20 years, technological changes in the workplace have placed considerable pressure on the U.S. educational system to adequately prepare students for occupations that increasingly require specific skills. However, certain educators and policy-makers have raised the question of whether vocational education at the high school level, with its focus on immediately entering the workforce after high school, adequately prepares students for college. At the postsecondary level, the debate has centered on whether vocational education restricts access to a four-year college, which may hamper future earnings. This report estimates the returns to a sub-baccalaureate education. The analyses emphasize the effect of a student's program of study, the amount of schooling accumulated with and without attaining a degree, and the type of credential earned. We test whether the earnings of degree attainers are significantly larger than those of similar students with the same amount of postsecondary education but no credential. We also examine whether economic gains from occupational education are realized not only for students who concentrated on vocational education in high school but also for special subpopulations such as older students, racial-ethnic minorities, and academically or economically disadvantaged students

Beyond Student Right-to-Know Data: Factors That Can Explain Community College Graduation Rates

Policymakers, educators, and researchers recognize the importance of community colleges as open door institutions that provide a wide range of students with access to college. At the same time, competing demands for the state funds that would support community colleges have resulted in reduced public allocations and higher student tuition fees. Understandably, therefore, both state policymakers and parents are increasingly focused on the returns to their public or private investments in education, and the outcomes of community college attendance are now under greater scrutiny. To facilitate the evaluation of the colleges, there are now available data, through the Student Right-to-Know and Campus Security Act (1990), which amended the Higher Education Act, on every college’s graduation rate for fall semester cohorts of first-time, fulltime (FTFT) students in degree programs. This information is known as the Student Right-to-Know (SRK) data. A related public concern is how the outcomes of community college students can be improved. Therefore, attempts are now being made to clarify the way that specific students define success and to identify the college policies and practices that can promote success for all students. For some community college students, college completion, defined as earning a degree or certificate, is the appropriate measure of success. For other students, success is demonstrated by transferring to a baccalaureate institution. Still others are satisfied with completing courses that increase their knowledge or skill level in a particular area even though their educational experience is not considered successful as defined by traditional educational outcomes

Building Bridges to Postsecondary Training for Low-Skill Adults: Outcomes of Washington State's I-BEST Program

Each year, community colleges, schools, and community organizations offer basic skills instruction to more than 2.5 million adults with limited skills and education. Such programs include Adult Basic Education (ABE) and GED preparation programs for individuals who do not have a high school credential and English-as-a-Second-Language (ESL) programs for persons with limited proficiency in English. Yet few of these students advance successfully to college-level education and training, even when they attend a basic skills program offered by a community college. Not doing so limits the potential of these individuals to secure jobs that pay family-supporting wages and that offer opportunities for career advancement. Integrated Basic Education and Skills Training, or I-BEST, is an innovative program created to address this problem. First piloted in 2004-05, I-BEST was developed by the community and technical colleges in Washington State to increase the rate at which adult basic skills students enter and succeed in postsecondary occupational education and training. Under the I-BEST model, basic skills instructors and career-technical faculty jointly design and teach college-level occupational, or what in Washington State are called "workforce," courses for adult basic skills students. Instruction in basic skills is thereby integrated with instruction in college-level career-technical skills. This model challenges the conventional notion that basic skills instruction should be completed by students prior to starting college-level courses. The approach thus offers the potential to accelerate the transition of adult basic skills students into college programs. This Brief, which summarizes a longer paper, presents findings from a CCRC study that investigated the outcomes of students who participated in the program. The study compared, over a two-year tracking period, the educational outcomes of I-BEST students with those of other basic skills students, including students who comprised a particularly apt comparison group — those non-I-BEST basic skills students who nonetheless enrolled in at least one workforce course in academic year 2006-07, the period of enrollment examined in the study. The analyses controlled for observed differences in background characteristics and enrollment patterns of students in the sample. We examined data on more than 31,000 basic skills students in Washington State, including nearly 900 I-BEST participants

Educational Outcomes of I-BEST, Washington State Community and Technical College System's Integrated Basic Education and Skills Training Program: Findings from a Multivariate Analysis

Nationally, relatively few of the more than 2.5 million adults who enroll annually in basic skills programs advance successfully to college-level coursework. This limits the ability of such individuals to secure jobs that pay family-supporting wages and that offer opportunities for career advancement. This paper presents findings from a study conducted by the Community College Research Center (CCRC) at Teachers College, Columbia University, on the outcomes of the Integrated Basic Education and Skills Training program, or I-BEST, an innovative program developed by the community and technical colleges in Washington State to increase the rate at which adult basic skills students enter and succeed in postsecondary occupational education and training. Under the I-BEST model, basic skills instructors and college-level career-technical faculty jointly design and teach college-level occupational courses for adult basic skills students. Instruction in basic skills is thereby integrated with instruction in college-level career-technical skills. The I-BEST model challenges the conventional notion that basic skills instruction ought to be completed by students prior to starting college-level courses. The approach thus offers the potential to accelerate the transition of adult basic skills students to college programs. The CCRC study reported on here used multivariate analysis to compare the educational outcomes over a two-year tracking period of I-BEST students with those of other basic skills students, including students who comprise a particularly apt comparison group—those non-I-BEST basic skills students who nonetheless enrolled in at least one workforce course in academic year 2006““07, the period of enrollment in the study. The researchers examined data on more than 31,000 basic skills students in Washington State, including nearly 900 I-BEST participants. The analyses controlled for observed differences in background characteristics of students in the sample. The study found that students participating in I-BEST achieved better educational outcomes than did other basic skills students, including those who enrolled in at least one non-I-BEST workforce course. I-BEST students were more likely than others to: Continue into credit-bearing coursework; Earn credits that count toward a college credential; Earn occupational certificates; and Make point gains on basic skills tests. On all the outcomes examined, I-BEST students did moderately or substantially better than non-I-BEST basic skills students in general. The I-BEST group's comparative advantage relative to non-I-BEST basic skills students who enrolled in at least one workforce course was not as large, but it was still significant. The study also compared I-BEST students to a group of non-participants with similar characteristics who were matched with the I-BEST students using a statistical technique called propensity score matching (PSM). Using the PSM analysis, the study estimated that over the two-year tracking period, the probability that I-BEST students would earn at least one college credit was 90 percent, while the probability for the matched students was 67 percent, a 23 percentage point difference. I-BEST students earned, on average, an estimated 52 quarter-term college credits, compared to an average of 34 quarter-term credits for the matched comparison group. I-BEST students had a higher probability of persisting into the second year: 78 percent, compared to 61 percent for the matched group. The chances of earning an occupational certificate was 55 percent for I-BEST students, compared with only 15 percent for the matched group. I-BEST students also had a higher likelihood of making point gains on the CASAS basic skills test: 62 percent compared with 45 percent for the matched group. While the results of this analysis show that participation in I-BEST is correlated with better educational outcomes over the two-year tracking period, it is important to note that they do not provide definitive evidence that the I-BEST program caused the superior outcomes. It could be that because of the way students are selected into the program, those who participate have higher motivation or other characteristics not measured in this study that make them more likely to succeed. Selection bias could also operate in the other direction if I-BEST students are more disadvantaged in ways we do not measure. In the future, CCRC researchers plan to conduct fieldwork to better understand the process by which students are selected into the program. CCRC will also extend this study by examining degree attainment and labor force outcomes of I-BEST students over a longer timeframe, by collecting financial data to estimate program cost-effectiveness, and by examining the practices of I-BEST programs that produce superior outcomes

The Characteristics of Occupational Students in Postsecondary Education

This Brief presents a profile of the enrollment, demographic, and educational characteristics, and the educational goals, of community college students in occupational programs. It compares their features with those of community college students in academic programs and with baccalaureate students. This analysis further considers the distinct features of occupational students enrolled in certificate degree programs. The Brief stands alone as a comparative description of these students, but also provides important background material for CCRC’s companion Briefs on postsecondary occupational students, Educational Outcomes of Postsecondary Occupational Students and Who Benefits from Postsecondary Occupational Education? Findings from the 1980s and 1990s

The Effects of Institutional Factors on the Success of Community College Students

Community colleges are the gateway to higher education for many students who would otherwise have limited access to college, particularly those who are from low-income households or are ethnic minorities, first generation college students, or immigrants. Yet only about one-third of all community college students receives any degree or certificate even eight years after initial college enrollment. And credit accumulation and completion rates are even lower for minority and low-income students. Meanwhile, community college student outcomes, as measures of college effectiveness, are of increasing concern for institutional accountability. The Bush administration and many legislators in Congress would like to hold postsecondary institutions to higher standards of accountability, just as they have done with elementary and secondary schools. Institutional reporting requirements to the Department of Education now include data for graduation rates overall and broken out by gender and race/ethnicity. More than half of all states take into account the performance of public colleges when determining higher education appropriations

The Characteristics of Occupational Sub-Baccalaureate Students Entering the New Millennium

This report is a quantitative analysis of postsecondary occupational education students using national data sets. It provides a detailed description of the demographic characteristics, enrollment patterns, and goals of sub-baccalaureate occupational students in comparison to both academic sub-baccalaureate students and baccalaureate students. It is the first of three reports submitted as part of the National Assessment of Vocational Education (NAVE), called for by the Carl D. Perkins Vocational and Applied Technology Act of 1998. These reports contribute to the purpose of NAVE to help Congress improve occupational and technical education in the United States by providing a descriptive and analytic understanding of occupational students within the broader context of all postsecondary education