Workforce Training and Education Trends

Staying current in your field is the goal for most professionals, especially academics. I subscribe to a number of publications, many of which are newsletters. One of the newsletters that I receive is Workforce Monitor. Its most recent issue was notable for a number of reasons.

George Lorenzo reported about a recent webinar hosted by George Washington University’s Non-Degree Credentials Research Network. The title of the webinar was Innovations in Community Colleges and IPEDS Update.

The seminar featured complementary presentations by Tamar Jacoby, President and CEO of Opportunity America, and Tara Lawley, Post-secondary Branch Chief, Administrative Data Division at the National Center for Education Statistics. Ms. Jacoby presented information about a survey distributed to more than 1,200 community colleges asking about workforce education courses and programs offered by the colleges. Ms. Lawley presented information about the U.S. Department of Education’s attempt to collect more data about non-credit courses and programs from colleges through IPEDS.

Ms. Jacoby’s presentation included data inferring that there are approximately 3.7 million students enrolled in non-credit courses at community colleges. This number is lower than the 5.0 million students reported by the American Association of Community Colleges. She also noted that many of these programs are innovative partnerships with employers and student enrollment is “flying under the radar.” Two troubling findings from the survey are (1) many non-credit programs are not eligible for Pell Grant or other Title IV funding, and (2) many non-credit programs are not eligible for credit toward a degree even though stackable credentials are one of the latest trends in higher education.

Ms. Lawley reported about the initiatives from the Department of Education to collect more information about non-credit course and program enrollments at all colleges. Part of any initiative is to create reporting standards that enable comparison of data across institutions as well as creating aggregated reports.

As we continue to see increased demand for non-credit courses and programs as well as credential programs shorter than degrees, it will be important to be able to observe enrollment trends and employment outcomes for these programs.

A seemingly fit follow-up to the finding by the survey mentioned in the previous article was a reprint of the first chapter of a publication from Workcred titled Certification Degree Pathways: Aligning Undergraduate Curriculum to Industry Credentials and Professions. Workcred (an affiliate of the American National Standards Institute), the Association of Public and Land-Grant Universities (APLU), the Coalition of Urban Serving Universities (USU), and the University Professional Continuing Education Association (UPCEA) engaged in a Lumina—funded project to “discover the disconnect between higher education and industry.” The chapter is worth reading. I have not read the rest of the publication at this point.

The Workforce Monitor newsletter provided a list of workforce development organizations that I have not seen aggregated before. The list of 80 plus organizations varies widely from accreditation agencies that primarily accredit institutions offering workforce certificate programs, to foundations that fund workforce development research, to think tanks, to government agencies, etc.

I pride myself on being aware of many sources of information about workforce related education, but this list had several entities unknown to me. Anyone who wants to add an entity to the list can email the Monitor staff.

Editors’ picks include (in this issue) summaries and links to 10 recently published articles relevant to workforce development. Among these articles are: Ivy Tech designs 4 micro pathways leading to high paying jobs and an announcement by IBM that it will provide technical skills training to 30 million people globally by 2030.

Newsletters like Workforce Monitor are a great source for aggregated materials about a certain subject area. I consider myself a voracious reader, yet there is no way that I can keep up with the news on all the areas that are impacted by higher education. Finding outstanding sources like this that I can quickly read as well as click through to a link with more information is better than conducting Google searchers whose outcomes may not surface nearly as many relevant articles. If you have an interest in workforce development and education, I recommend a free subscription to Workforce Monitor.

Subjects of Interest

EdTech

Higher Education

Independent Schools

K-12

Student Persistence

Workforce