Today, nearly 43.1 million people are stopped out of college without a credential. Of these, 37.6 million are working age adults under age 65. As states look to increase the skills of their labor forces and institutions confront changing demographic realities, re-engaging with these "Some College, No Credential" (SCNC) individuals has…

Early colleges are high schools that blend the high school and college experiences. They have been shown to increase college enrollment and completion; however less is known about the costs of the early college model relative to traditional high schools. We leverage randomized assignment of North Carolina students to early colleges to estimate the…

Competency-based testing and credentialing (CBTC) initiatives aim to address inequity in adult education by fundamentally changing how states use GED®, HiSET®, and TASC™ test scores to award and withhold high school equivalency credentials. However, CBTC is inconsistent with how developers intend states to use those scores. Accordingly, it falls…

Earning industry certifications helps people prepare for jobs in a range of careers. Doing so in high school may help students prepare for college as well. Using administrative data on two cohorts of first-time 9th graders in Florida, we examined whether earning a certification was associated with postsecondary enrollment and degree attainment and…

Earning industry certifications helps people prepare for jobs in a range of careers. Doing so in high school may help students prepare for college as well. Using administrative data on two cohorts of first-time 9th graders in Florida, we examined whether earning a certification was associated with postsecondary enrollment and degree attainment and…

Alaska's statewide postsecondary attainment goal is for 65% of working-age Alaskans to have a postsecondary credential by the year 2025. The Alaska Postsecondary Access and Completion Network (the Network), a non-profit group of educators, industry, and other higher education stakeholders, adopted the attainment goal in 2014 to increase Alaska…

This project creates the first educational pipeline for the state of Texas. It incorporates middle school as a key transition point, differentiates between advanced degree achievement among Latinas/os and Chicanas/os, and fashions a secondary pipeline with a narrower age range. Findings indicate that the move from eighth grade to ninth is a…

More than 100,000 adults with some college but no degree (SCND) have reconnected with higher education at Tennessee community colleges over the past decade. However, only 21% graduated within three years of reconnecting. In Pathways to Success for Students with Some College, No Degree, the Tennessee Board of Regents (TBR) seeks to build a body of…

Research suggests that high-quality work-based learning (WBL) can be a promising approach to solving the leaky pipeline for undertapped demographic groups such as women and students of color, including for STEM fields Community colleges are especially important vehicles for WBL due to their diverse student populations and their partnerships with…

In this qualitative case study, using Freire's theory of critical consciousness development, we examined the influence of a 1-credit immigration policy service-learning course on college students' motivations to act against immigration injustices. We found that after witnessing immigration issues at the Lower Rio Grande Valley area in Texas,…

Nationally, more than 75% of individuals who are credentialed to teach are prepared in traditional college- or university-based teacher education programs (TEPs). But the college and employment pathways that prospective teachers take to TEP enrollment and completion have not been comprehensively examined. A better understanding of how credentialed…

This study sought to fill a gap in the literature by considering the role of motivation in post-secondary aspirations of adult learners, specifically full versus part-time status, previous level of educational attainment, years of work experience, and the selection of an academic program. The data from this study came from adult students ages 25…

Leadership training and administrative experience are key components of sponsored mobility as the candidate's participation in district- or school-sponsored training for aspiring school principals combined with the opportunity to avail of administrative experiences effectively constitute a pipeline to the principalship. The literature reveals that…

Thriving communities depend on a strong early childhood education (ECE) system--one where both young children and members of the workforce are served and supported. In recent years, state government leaders have increasingly focused on changing qualifications for specific ECE roles, as increasing credential requirements has sometimes been…

Abt Associates evaluated the Bridges to Career Opportunities (BCO) program, developed by the Local Initiatives Support Corporation (LISC), to determine whether adults with low incomes and low skills who participate in BCO services are more likely to increase their employment and financial stability than do adults who participate in LISC's…