Category: Completion

Testimony: Career Education Is Key to Meeting California’s Workforce Needs

Sarah Bohn, research director and senior fellow at PPIC, testified today, November 27, 2018, before the Assembly Select Committee on Career Technical Education and Building a 21st Century Workforce. Here are her prepared remarks.

Thank you for convening this informational hearing on higher education and the workforce. PPIC recently surveyed Californians on these topics and a large majority (75%) view the state’s higher education system as very important to the quality of life and economic vitality of California. Not surprisingly, the same share say that the higher education system should be a high or very high priority for the new governor. So this hearing is extremely timely and I’m so pleased to share PPIC research on education and workforce needs.

Most jobs require some college training

The majority of jobs today and in the future will require education beyond high school—split about equally between jobs that require a four-year college degree and those that require education or credentials provided at community colleges. Only about one-third of new jobs created in California over the next decade or so will be available to workers with no more than a high school diploma. These workforce needs are the result of long-term shifts toward a knowledge-based economy. It’s not just that there are new jobs that require more postsecondary education, but the need for credentials within professions has grown as well. For example, more office administrators now have a college education than in the past.

Better-paying jobs are more likely to need college training

College credentials are also the route to accessing better-paying jobs. With the trend toward a knowledge-based economy comes an increasingly wide gap in terms of earnings between jobs that require a college education and those that don’t. Among the top ten occupations in terms of job growth you find many service sector jobs that pay less than $35,000 in annual earnings (personal care aides, food preparation, freight/stock movers, medical assistants) and do not require a college education. And you find a handful of jobs at the opposite extreme—which pay three to four times as much and require a college education (registered nursing, software developers, managers). This trend is likely to continue and might become more extreme with additional pressures like AI (artificial intelligence) and further automation.

California’s community college system is key to meeting state workforce needs

Ensuring we have the workforce to meet these demands—and ensuring future workers can access higher-paying jobs—requires a higher education system that is responsive to student and economic needs. The young workers of today and tomorrow are much more diverse than the current workforce, comprised of demographic groups with historically lower levels of college attainment (including racial/ethnic minorities and first-generation college students). And though we’ve made progress, there’s still room to broaden access to college—and narrow achievement gaps.

For that reason, community colleges—and career education programs in particular—are critical to educating our future workforce. The community colleges are the most common entry point to higher education for Californians, serving almost three times as many students as CSU and UC combined. They also serve a more diverse mix of students. In career education (or CTE) programs, the majority of students are nonwhite and low income. Students range from recent high school graduates to stranded workers (who lack the skills needed to succeed in the job market) to older workers in need of retraining. And these programs provide opportunities in a wide spectrum of careers. As just one mission of the community colleges, CTE is so consequential for meeting workforce needs and improving economic outcomes because it is often the fastest route to new and better careers.

Career education programs can pay off for students

Earning credentials in CTE pays off for students. Those who earn an associate degree see a 20–35% increase in their wages. The payoff wanes for shorter credentials but remains positive even for certificates that can be earned in less than a year (certificates of 6–18 units). But the choice of program or career matters a lot. If health programs are excluded from these calculations, the payoff is much lower on average (4–7% for an associate degree). The health field offers the highest returns across all broad program types. But there’s even variation in which health programs pay off (e.g., registered nursing is more remunerative than medical assisting).

Because CTE credentials vary so much in terms of what they offer in the labor market, the choice of what to study can be as important as the choice to go to college. That information is critical for policymakers evaluating effectiveness and especially for students choosing programs. I commend the community colleges in sharing earnings potential data on their website through tools like Salary Surfer.

Some students may need new job skills to move along a career pathway to higher-paying jobs

Instead of pitting one type of credential or program against another, what we should be thinking about is improving long-term economic mobility for students. A lot of CTE students start by earning a short-term credential, which offers the lowest earnings bump, on average. But those credentials might help an individual switch to an industry with more opportunity in the long run or to start an educational career pathway toward higher-level achievement (i.e., earning “stackable” credentials). Unfortunately our research shows that only a small share of CTE programs (at most 18%) have well-defined career pathways and less than one-quarter of students who start with short-term certificates take additional steps toward broader career options.

But there’s great promise in improving those career pathways. We found that students who “stack” credentials—in this example, in a health field—eventually catch up in earnings to those who started on a high-return pathway like registered nursing. Students who earn a single health credential (mostly high-return associate degrees) see a marked improvement in their earning trajectory. Those who complete a lower-value credential but then return and complete a second one later do nearly as well. Of course this takes time (which is not free), but it’s a reminder that a single credential is not the end of the road. Effective CTE programs can connect students to in-demand and high-return careers in many ways.

In closing, this research suggests state investments in CTE are worthwhile, both for improving student career outcomes and meeting workforce needs. But the state and colleges can’t operate alone; partnership with businesses will be key to making sure that programs address workforce needs and adjust as those needs change. Only then can the state be deliberate in its investments to make sure that CTE programs improve long-term outcomes for students and the state’s economy.

New Reforms at California Community Colleges

California community colleges are reforming to the way they assess their students’ college readiness and place them in remedial courses. A recently passed measure—Assembly Bill (AB) 1805—may increase both the uniformity and transparency of placement policies. PPIC research indicates that AB 1805 has the potential to improve student outcomes and narrow achievement gaps.

Our research finds that clearer and more uniform policies can make assessment results more portable for students. A previous measure, AB 705, established a set of measures a college must use to determine college readiness (e.g., coursework, grades, and/or grade point average). However, colleges continue to have autonomy to set their own rules, as opposed to using the Chancellor’s Office default placement rules. Our latest study finds that varying policies across colleges is a cause for concern. For example, two colleges within the same district might both use high school GPA to place students, but their GPA cutoffs might differ; this could pose problems for students who are assessed at one institution but want to take a transfer-level course at the other college.

AB 1805—which will be implemented systemwide in fall 2019—may help address this concern by mandating that colleges publicize their placement policies. As a result, students will be better informed and may also be more motivated to challenge placement decisions or enroll at colleges with broader access to transfer-level courses.

Variation in placement policies may also contribute to inequitable access to transfer-level courses. Our research indicates that underrepresented students may have more difficulty gaining access to transfer-level courses if they attend colleges with stricter placement rules. AB 1805 requires colleges to report the number of students placed into transfer-level coursework (with or without concurrent support) to the Chancellor’s Office and the public each year, providing racial/ethnic breakdowns. This should make it easier to see whether colleges are implementing placement policies that are fostering inequitable student outcomes.

Over the summer, PPIC engaged in an exhaustive scan of college websites and catalogs to get a sense of how placement policies are being communicated to students. We found that most community colleges do not provide clear and complete information—in fact, only 19 colleges provide placement details (e.g., GPA cutoffs). As we move forward, it will be critical to monitor the implementation of AB 705 and AB 1805 at the college level—including the placement measures being used and levels of access to transfer-level courses. By examining the policies and practices at colleges where underrepresented students experience uneven access to transfer-level courses, progress can be made toward improving outcomes and narrowing achievement gaps.

Video: Stackable Credentials at California Community Colleges

California’s community college system is the state’s primary provider of postsecondary career education and plays a critical role in meeting workforce needs. Stackable credentials are a key component of career education programs—students who “stack” multiple, related awards can build skills and increase their potential to advance in a career over time. As the state continues to invest in career education, it is important to understand how these programs can expand employment opportunities, particularly for students who do not get four-year degrees.

In Sacramento this past Tuesday, PPIC researcher Shannon McConville outlined findings from a new report that identifies stackable credential pathways in several disciplines and looks at whether programs with well-defined pathways facilitate stacking. Building on previous PPIC work on stackable credentials in health care, this new report focuses on several other fields—including business, information technology, and engineering.

Nearly 40% of community college students in career education programs start with short-term certificates, which can be earned relatively quickly. Most return to college after earning a short-term award, but fewer than one in four obtain an additional credential. Making it easier for these students to move along a stackable credential pathway could help them get better jobs and earn higher wages.

PPIC’s analysis of existing programs across the community college system suggests that well-defined pathways with clearly mapped course sequences and multiple exit and reentry points do increase the odds of students stacking credentials. It also indicates that few programs have course and credential sequences that are designed to be stackable. Expanding the number of programs with clearly designated stackable features could go a long way toward strengthening the links between career education and long-term employment opportunities.

College Rankings and Social Mobility

As high school seniors decide where to apply, numerous websites, magazines, and organizations are releasing lists of the “best colleges.” These rankings try to evaluate a college’s quality or highlight a particular factor, such as best value. Most rankings use similar data sources and variables, but each weighs factors differently in order to define and evaluate quality. Popular categories include student outcomes (graduation rate, earnings after college), measures of institutional quality (faculty quality, monetary value of resources for students), and affordability (net cost, institutional aid). Improving a college’s rank generally involves doing better in one or more of those areas relative to other institutions.

Recently, many rankings have started to consider social mobility—a school’s ability to move students up the ladder of economic opportunity. But the importance of social mobility in overall rankings varies widely. Just this year, US News World Report—a longtime leader in college rankings—removed acceptance rates from its methodology and instead factored in graduation rates for students who receive Pell Grants (these students are from the lowest-income families in the nation). Even so, the US News and World Report rankings do not give much weight to that measure. In contrast, Washington Monthly, another well publicized ranking, bases one third of its ranking scores on social mobility, including new data on graduation rate gaps between students who receive Pell Grants and those who do not. At the other end of the spectrum, the relatively new CollegeNet Social Mobility Index (established in 2014) focuses exclusively on elements of social mobility.

Research by the Equality of Opportunity Project shows that California’s public colleges do relatively well in promoting social mobility, particularly in moving students from the lowest to the highest quartile of income. The figure below shows the number of California’s public universities the top 50 according to each of three rankings; the greater the importance of social mobility, the higher California public universities rank relative to both private and public schools in other states.

Colleges pay attention to rankings, and highly rated schools publicize their ranks and use them in recruitment literature. A closer link between higher rankings and improved social mobility can be a win for California, its colleges, and its students.

California Community Colleges Are Transforming Developmental Education

With the passage of AB 705 in October 2017, California community colleges are in the midst of a major transformation of developmental education. The new law requires that community colleges restructure developmental education to maximize the likelihood that students will enter and complete transfer-level coursework in English and mathematics/quantitative reasoning in a one-year time frame.

Full implementation of AB 705 is expected no later than fall 2019. As colleges replace standardized test scores with high school records as their primary placement criteria, it is likely that the majority of entering students will enroll in transfer-level courses. To improve the likelihood of success, especially among students with the lowest high school performance levels, colleges are being encouraged to implement curricular reforms as well. Co-requisite remediation is an essential component of these reforms: it allows students who would otherwise be deemed underprepared to enroll directly in transfer-level math or English courses with concurrent remedial support.

While the vast majority of the state’s 114 community colleges have not yet implemented co-requisite models, a few colleges began experimenting with co-requisites and other reforms before the passage of AB 705. According to a recent PPIC report that looks at the efforts of these “early implementers,” co-requisites in English are more common than those in math. Nine California community colleges provided co-requisite courses in English to about 3,000 students in 2016–17 (the latest year of available data), and at least seven additional colleges began offering English co-requisite models in 2017–18.

Early implementer colleges have seen dramatic gains in the completion of transfer-level English courses. Results for the fall 2016 cohort show that 78% of all co-requisite students completed a college composition course within a year; this metric, known as throughput rate, will be used to measure success under AB 705. The throughput rate of co-requisite students is 50 percentage points higher than the throughput rate of students who started in traditional remedial courses (27%); it is 36 percentage points higher than the throughput rate of students who took one-term accelerated developmental English courses (42%), and similar to the throughput rate of students who enrolled in transfer-level English without co-requisite support.

Throughput rates ranged from 67% to 96% across this group of colleges; rigorous research is needed to understand which factors are driving this variation. However, this early evidence—while not causal—does shed light on what we can expect to see in terms of student outcomes as more colleges move toward compliance with AB 705 requirements.

Video: Remedial Education Reform in Community College

Since the passage of Assembly Bill (AB) 705, California community colleges have been transforming their approach to remedial—or developmental—education. AB 705 requires community colleges to maximize the probability of their students completing transfer-level courses in the one-year time frame. To comply with AB 705, colleges are revising the way they assess student readiness for college-level courses—giving priority to high school GPA rather than tests. They are also changing course offerings and classroom approaches. How will the reforms affect student outcomes, and how are colleges dealing with the challenges of implementation?

At an event in Sacramento last week, PPIC researcher Marisol Cuellar Mejia outlined the findings of a new report that sheds light on AB 705’s potential impact by looking at the efforts of “early implementers”—colleges that began experimenting with reforms before AB 705 was signed into law. A panel of experts then offered a range of perspectives on AB 705 implementation.

Roanna Bennie, interim president of Las Positas College—an early implementer—noted that only a small fraction of students who start at the beginning of a traditional, multi-course math remediation pathway end up taking transfer-level courses. “It’s the data that’s been really influencing our campus to take measures,” she added. But she also said that her college is wrestling with full-scale implementation. The challenges include covering the cost of additional courses, getting input from faculty and other staff across campus, and helping students adjust to the changes.

Laura Metune, vice chancellor for external relations in the California Community Colleges Chancellor’s Office, emphasized the importance of professional development for both faculty and staff: “Everybody needs to understand what these changes are that we’re asking for, the research behind them, and what their individual roles are in helping them be successful.”

What comes next? As Katie Hern, an English instructor at Chabot College who co-founded the California Acceleration Project, put it: “The debate up until now has been whether to make these changes. That debate is over—the legislature settled that one. Now we have to make these changes and now we get to really study how to do it as effectively as possible.”

Year-Round Support for Low-Income Students

This summer marked the first time in eight years that summer Pell Grants were available. A need-based award to low-income, first-time undergraduates, the federal Pell Grant promotes access to postsecondary education. A summer component means that eligible students can use their Pell Grants year-round and receive up to one and a half awards in one academic year. For example, a student with the maximum school-year award of $6,095 can now receive a summertime award of $3,047—the total Pell Grant for the year would be $9,412. Unlike a student loan, Pell Grants do not need to be repaid. Previous PPIC work suggests that the availability of summer Pell Grants not only expands summer course enrollment but may also increase retention rates and accelerate time to degree.

Who is likely to benefit from summer Pell Grants? Of all California students who received Pell Grants in 2016–17, more than 80% attended a public institution. Further, the California Community Colleges (CCC) enrolled the most Pell recipients of all California’s public institutions: about 60%. The California State University (CSU) and University of California (UC) systems enrolled 29% and 11% of recipients, respectively.

Many students at CCC who receive a Pell Grant also receive state aid, most commonly in the form of a California College Promise Grant tuition waiver. This year, the CCC tuition waiver covers summer enrollment fees as well. Applying the summer Pell Grant on top of the tuition waiver at CCC may enable students to cover significant non-tuition costs like housing, which is often a larger expense than tuition itself. The return of the summer Pell Grant makes year-round college attendance more affordable and enables students to make timely progress to their education goals.

Good Budget News for Higher Education

The California State Legislature and Governor Brown recently reached a $200 billion budget deal that includes just over a billion dollars in new funding for the state’s public higher education systems. This funding forestalls proposed tuition increases at UC and CSU and allows each system to support increasing student access and success. Moreover, the governor and legislature’s work to maximize the state’s rainy day fund should help to reduce the likelihood of drastic tuition increases in the future, should an economic downturn threaten higher education funding.

The new funding will allow UC and CSU to enroll an additional 1,500 and 3,641 undergraduates, respectively, next fall.  These enrollment increases—coupled with more dollars allocated to improve time-to-degree, boost graduation rates, and close achievement gaps—will help each system to do their part to provide much-needed growth in the number of college graduates in the state.

The budget deal also includes the governor’s top two higher education priorities: the creation of an online-only community college and the introduction of a new community college funding formula. This year, community college funding per full-time student will exceed $8,000—the highest level in the systems’ hundred-year history. (Mainly this is because community college funding falls under Proposition 98, the K–12 funding guarantee passed by voters in 1988.)

The online community college will be launched with $100 million and receive $20 million per year going forward. The goal? To provide opportunities to earn short-term credentials to California’s “stranded workforce” (workers stuck in low paying jobs or jobs that are likely to be automated soon), to help such workers to better compete in today’s labor market. The online college will offer credential programs that have demonstrated labor market value and are not already offered at brick-and-mortar community colleges.

The establishment of a community college funding formula will be phased in over three years. It will provide funding for low-income and underrepresented minority students, reward colleges for improved student outcomes, and reduce reliance on increased enrollment to secure state funding. This approach represents the ongoing emphasis on improving student outcomes at the community colleges.

This is Jerry Brown’s final budget deal—it will be up to the next governor to work with the legislature to ensure the ongoing health of the public higher education system. California’s future economy depends on it.

Trends in Math Reforms at Community Colleges

The landscape of developmental (also known as remedial) math at California’s community colleges has changed dramatically in recent years. With the passage of Assembly Bill 705, community colleges will be required to maximize entering students’ likelihood of completing college-level math and English within a year. This is a critical goal. Our research has shown that developmental course sequences are lengthy, delaying students’ academic careers and sometimes affecting their ability to advance to college-level coursework.

The new law goes into effect in fall 2019, but many colleges have already started implementing reforms to improve the accuracy of placement into developmental education and to shorten developmental sequences while making them more relevant to students. In the 2017–18 school year, 83% of community colleges offered new developmental math courses in addition to or in place of traditional courses. Example course reforms include:

  • Offering statistics pathways for students in majors that only require statistics (e.g., liberal arts and humanities fields)
  • Compressing the traditional multi-course developmental sequence into a single course
  • Providing lab time or supplemental instruction in a co-requisite course while allowing students to enroll directly into college-level math
  • Designing curricula aligned with students’ programs of study
  • Dividing courses into modules that represent discrete math competencies

However, the availability of these new courses varies greatly within colleges and across the state. As illustrated in the map below, for every 100 traditional math courses offered in each region of California, less than 50 reform courses are offered, indicating that on the whole reform courses are still not as available as traditional courses. Moreover, reform courses tend to have fewer sections, which further limits enrollment.

Colleges that are adopting course reforms are mostly concentrated in highly populated regions such as the Bay Area and South Coast, which collectively serve about 56% of full-time community college students in the state. In contrast, the San Joaquin Valley stands out as having the smallest ratio of reform to traditional developmental math courses, while serving roughly 10% of full-time community college students in the state. Only six out of the thirteen colleges located in the San Joaquin Valley offer at least one course-level reform.

Although some California community colleges have already implemented developmental math reforms, overall, these efforts have reached only a small fraction of the students that could potentially benefit. Math guidelines for AB 705 are still pending, but the legislation may offer the leverage needed to implement effective reforms at scale and dramatically improve student completion of college-level math courses.

Encouraging Full-Time Enrollment to Boost College Graduation Rates

As colleges seek to improve graduation rates, many have focused on increasing the number of students enrolled full time. New data from the US Department of Education show that students at California’s public colleges and universities who first enroll on a full-time basis are much more likely to graduate within six years than students who first enroll part time. These higher graduation rates are observed both for first-time freshmen and for transfer students.

Full-time enrollment varies widely across California’s public systems of higher education. Students at California State University (CSU) and the University of California (UC) are overwhelmingly full time, whereas most students at the community colleges enroll part time. UC requires students to enroll full time (at least 12 units per semester) unless they receive approval for part-time status. Some CSU campuses recently started encouraging students to agree to take 15 units per semester (a full-time course load), as have some community colleges.

Full-time enrollment campaigns (frequently known as “15 to finish”) have been gaining traction across the country. In some states, such as Hawaii and Indiana, more students are completing 15 credits per semester and four-year graduation rates are rising. But messaging and financial incentives aren’t enough to help all part-time students make the transition to full-time enrollment. Community colleges enroll large numbers of nontraditional students who have significant work, family, and other outside obligations. Some of these students may not be able to enroll full time and/or may need holistic supports such as child care services and transportation subsidies in order to succeed. To the extent possible, the state and its higher education institutions should look for ways to help more students enroll full time so that they can progress toward graduation.