Kathy Booth, WestEd RP Conference | April 11, 2014

Low completion rates Negligible wage gains Declining enrollments High cost program The tale of two auto tech programs

Conventional certificate program: strong completion, positive wage gain, steady enrollments Apprenticeship program: low enrollments, anecdotal evidence of job attainment and wage gain Skills update program: no completion, no wage gain, declining enrollments due to repeatability—but job retention Community education program: no completions or wage gain

Session Outcomes Build awareness of factors shaping our current conversation on CTE success Understand research on outcomes for CTE students Develop engagement strategies for raising these issues on your campus

What constitutes success? What comes to your mind? Which variables are your colleges looking at? What other variables is your campus discussing?

Why doesn’t CTE fit standard success frameworks? Basic skills: prepares student in three subjects for one outcome (success in college-level course) Transfer/Associate’s degree: teaches competencies that can be accomplished within a fixed number of units for two outcomes (secure community college credential and acceptance at a four-year institution)

Why doesn’t CTE fit standard success frameworks? Variable credits: 6 units (early childhood education) or 110 units (aviation) Variable skills: advanced math (radiology tech) or basic quantitative reasoning (cosmetology) Variable credentials: short-term certificate (petroleum tech), long-term certificate (sign language), degree (accounting), or external credential (real estate) Variable employment outcomes: new job (computer science) or keeping a job (public & protective services)

The way we think about college drives what counts as success Many courses Several years Credential Good for life Opens door to employment

The evolving world of work Most jobs require mastery of quickly- evolving technology, requiring retraining Workers are moving from jobs that no longer exist to jobs that may not have existed when they started their studies Employers expect workers to come to the job fully trained Sectors have bypassed academic credentials and are establishing their own

The new reality for workforce education is short-term certificates Georgetown University’s Center on Education and the Workforce: Certificates accounted for 22 percent of postsecondary awards in 2010, up from 8% in 1980 Certificates are now the second most common postsecondary award, ahead of associate’s degrees and master’s degrees 54% of these certificates are short-term (1 year or less)

The new reality for workforce education is short-term certificates Institute for Higher Education Policy (iHELP): 2/3 of California community college CTE certificate programs lead to short-term certificates Official 40% completion rate for short- term certificates likely understated, because many colleges don’t report non-approved credentials

The crux of the problem While individual college programs are being developed that address the new world of work, our conversations about success are still assuming a conventional definition of the college experience … so we need a new way to talk about alternative college pathways.

First-Time Student Types, Based on Head Count Bahr’s Analysis of California Community College Course- taking (2010)

How many skills-builders are there (and what are they anyway)? Bahr (2010): 30% of first-time students (average one course a year for two years) Bahr (2012): 14% of first-time students (no more than 4 semesters, 6 or fewer credits, no completion)—of which 58% were in CTE Greaney (2013): 36% of CTE Outcomes Survey respondents (non-completers, average 32 units, included returning students) Van Ommeren & Fuller (2013): 4% of 2010 enrollments (college goal of “advance in current job/career”)

Short-term skills-builders get significant earnings gains Bahr (2013) documented wage gains in 16 of 24 CTE fields after taking only a couple of courses, for first-time students

Leavers have a smaller percentage increase, but overall higher wages KC Greaney, CTE Outcomes Survey, 2013 No Transfer: Skills Builder No Transfer: Completer Transfer: Skill Builder Transfer: Completer Hourly Wage PRE$21.19$19.03$14.45$15.53 Hourly Wage POST$25.87$24.78$19.01$20.81 Increase in Wage$4.68$5.75$4.56$5.28 Percent Change22.1%30.2%31.5%34.0%

Most short-term skills-builders make more than completers Ryan Fuller & Alice van Ommeren, Chancellor’s Office, 2014

Older leavers make more than completers Ryan Fuller & Alice van Ommeren, Chancellor’s Office, 2014

The value of completion varies by discipline Ryan Fuller & Alice van Ommeren, Chancellor’s Office, 2014 Completers vs Leavers Median Wages in Administration of Justice

The value of completion varies by discipline Ryan Fuller & Alice van Ommeren, Chancellor’s Office, 2014 Completers vs Leavers Median Wages in Nursing

The value of completion varies within a discipline Ryan Fuller & Alice van Ommeren, Chancellor’s Office, 2013 Even though completers make more in health, some health-related fields showed significant—and significantly different—wage gains for low-unit skills- builders with a college goal of “advance in current job/career”: Respiratory Care/Therapy - $27,462 increase Dental Laboratory Technician - $44,887 increase

CTE credentials are valuable at both low and high credit thresholds The earnings gains associated with CTE credentials are overwhelmingly positive and oftentimes strong. In contrast to claims that short-term certificates have no labor market value… …earnings gains hold nearly as well for short-term awards as they do for long- term awards. Even some of the low-credit awards (< 6 units) show positive earnings gains. Peter Bahr, University of Michigan, 2014

CTE credentials are valuable at both low and high credit thresholds Peter Bahr, University of Michigan, 2014 Field of Study Low-Credit Award < 6 units Short-Term Certificate 6-29 units Long-Term Certificate 30+ units Assoc Degree 60+ units Health+8%+11%+39%+106% Business & Management+12%+9%N/S+6% Public & Protective Services+13%+32%+27%+11% Engineering & Industrial TechN/S+11% +12% Family & Consumer SciencesN/S+9%+6%+3% Commercial Services %-16%-14% Information Technology %N/S+12%

But in many fields, the value comes from content rather than the credential The earnings gains associated with CTE credentials that are independent of course-taking pathways generally are much smaller or, more often, zero. Does this mean that CTE credentials have little or no value? No, it means that the value of the credentials is driven by the human capital (the skills and knowledge) that students acquire. Peter Bahr, University of Michigan, 2014

But in many fields, the value comes from content rather than the credential Peter Bahr, University of Michigan, 2014 Field of Study Low-Credit Award < 6 units Short Certificate 6-29 units Long Certificate 30+ units Assoc Degree 60+ units Health+6%+10%+26%+99% Business & Management+10%+5%N/S Public & Protective ServicesN/S+13%+10%N/S Engineering & Industrial TechN/S +7% Family & Consumer SciencesN/S+5%N/S Commercial Services %N/S Information Technology N/S

What we don’t know: the value of third-party certification CTE Outcomes Survey: 41% of leavers reported earning a third-party credential Census Bureau Survey of Income and Program Participation: third-party credentials boost the income of those with “some college” by 13% and those with an associate’s degree by 18%

Key questions raised by the research What successes should we measure? Should external certifications and wage gains get counted in places like the accreditation reporting or the Scorecard? What gets to count? Should it count even if attaining that credential or salary bump meant that students combined work experience with short-term academic training? Should we be the sole providers of the skills in which students demonstrate mastery? What should we prioritize? Is it appropriate for community colleges to provide short-term skills-gap training? What will happen if we don’t provide it?

From concept to reality: mapping various pathways content/themes/biotech/CBC_Table.pdf

Ideas for engaging your colleagues Understand and document the diversity of pathways within your CTE programs Help your colleagues understand the changing workplace, what it means for education, and how we are responding Quantify the success of various educational routes o Community college credentials o External credentials o Wage gain and job retention

Find out more Read more about Bahr’s research and download inquiry guides: non-completion-pathways-to-successwww.wested.org/project/quantifying- non-completion-pathways-to-success Contact Kathy Booth to discuss your thoughts about how this research can be shared and how we can gather better information on skills-builder students Watch for a brief in the summer that describes skills- builder research and examines skills-builder pathways in ten California community colleges