College Isn’t The Only Option: The Benefits of Alternative Educational Pathways
Alternative educational pathways such as high school career and technical education, apprenticeships and certifications, and non-degree credentials are showing increasing promise for students and adult learners, though some programs present potential risks for participants and offer diminished access for marginalized groups.
Those were some of the top lines from a webinar last week hosted by the Institute for Research on Poverty at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, Current Research on Alternative Educational and Training Pathways.
“Four-year degrees are not the only path to rewarding careers and economic mobility, as various models of post-secondary education provide different pathways for success,” said Judith Siers-Poisson, communications director at IRP.
Shaun Dougherty, a professor of education and policy in the Lynch School of Education and Human Development at Boston College, outlined mounting evidence that high school CTE (career and technical education) “can smooth youth transition to adulthood, including post-secondary education and workforce participation.”
Dougherty said that high school CTE has shown to be successful in helping students achieve better high school completion outcomes, improved attendance, better performance on standardized tests, and workforce participation and earnings. A study of the Connecticut technical high school system found that students participating in CTE saw about 40% higher earnings by age 23.
Maura Kelly, a professor of sociology at Portland State University, shared findings from her evaluation research on the recruitment and retention of a diverse construction workforce.
Kelly said that an estimated 21% of U.S. adults have non-degree licenses or certifications, which have resulted in 6.5% higher wages and provide skills that are very specific to particular jobs, leading to higher employability.
“Generally, the consensus is that there is a benefit to those that complete non-degree credentials compared to those that don’t,” Kelly said.
But she said research also has begun to highlight limitations in opportunities for apprenticeships. One concern is that by creating a single pathway into an occupation, “you close off opportunities for those that are not able to follow that pathway,” Kelly said. “So, to some degree, non-degree credentials limit access to those kinds of jobs.”
“The other challenge here is that we think that workers from marginalized groups may not have the same level of access because of historical patterns. For example, the construction industry has long excluded workers of color and women,” she said.
Kelly said her research has found that some participants leave construction apprenticeships early because of job-site culture, harassment and discrimination.
Di Xu, a professor in the School of Education at the University of California, Irvine. outlined her findings from studies on short-term, non-credit workforce training programs offered through the Virginia Community College System.
She said non-credit programs are growing in popularity—seven states enacted legislation in 2020—and have “a very strong appeal to adult learners who might not otherwise engage with the traditional college system.”
In 2016, Virginia launched a new program offering a New Economy Workforce Grant in which institutions work with employers to create 6- to 12-week training programs that address local labor market needs and lead to industry-recognized credentials in high-demand fields. These “Faster Forward” programs are funded through a cost-sharing model among the state, the students, and the training institution.
Xu s aid that her research found that in the 2023 fiscal year, more than 13,000 students enrolled in the Faster Forward program, including a substantially higher share of male students, Black students, and older students.
She also found that program completion and industry credential attainment rates are high, “likely driven by the financial incentives embedded in the pay-for-performance funding model.”
She said, however, that the goal of policymakers to use non-credit programs to steer students into traditional for-credit programs is not yet being realized in Virginia. She found that more than 60% of Fast Forward students “have no prior or subsequent enrollment in the credit-bearing sector and only about a 13% of enrollees pursue subsequent training in a credit-bearing program.”