The report "State Approaches to Short-Term Postsecondary Credentials: Challenges, Opportunities, and Policy Gaps" explores how state policymakers engage with short-term postsecondary credentials, highlighting key policy levers such as state authorization, consumer protections, financial aid, and quality standards. It examines the…

A growing number of doctoral students work during their Ph.D., which is commonly associated with higher risks of dropout. This paper investigates whether the sector of employment (public or private) is also a predictor of student outcomes in Ph.D. programs. Using a dataset on doctorate students in Brazil, the association of employment with the…

One of the keys to understanding the process of industrialisation and modernisation in Spain is to know the relationship between vocational education and training (VET) and the curricular changes. Since the mid-nineteenth century, the Basque Country has undergone a singular process in the development of VET such that it has become a model of…

Few issues have attracted as much policy interest in the tertiary sector as graduate employability. Graduate employability positions universities and their students as key players in the national economy. At the same time, the standard conception of graduate employability, as it has evolved from human capital theory and modified by neoliberal…

Working while attending college has become a reality of the student experience, especially for low-income, adult, and BIPOC students. Particularly, off-campus employment is commonplace but may not be fully understood by higher education professionals as an educationally effective activity. This paper is grounded in current literature on the…

The notion of "Bildung" has been booming in several European countries for almost twenty years now, but it has attracted little attention in vocational education. One reason for this is that "Bildung," the process of becoming human as a goal in itself, is understood in opposition to vocational education, which task would be to…

Transcripts and testamurs serve to confirm the award of a degree but offer limited information on what a student can actually do. This conceptual paper considers the problem of how graduate achievements are represented by universities in typically reductive and limited ways that do not enable student achievements and distinctiveness to be…

Using a sample of college-educated Hispanics from the 2016-2017 American Community Survey we examine the role of potential social networks on the education-occupation mismatch for Hispanics in the U.S. To do this, we use a novel data-driven index to measure the degree of education-occupation mismatch, while potential networks are measured using…

Despite extensive transition provisions in the U.S. Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA), the post-school outcomes for students with disabilities continue to be disappointing. The IDEA designated those transition provisions as priority targets for federal and state compliance monitoring to assure that schools are attaining the goal…

The undergraduate psychology major is often one of the most popular choices for bachelor's degree-seeking students. Although national and international organizations are devoted to broad interests, there does not seem to be much coordinated effort - on any level - to comprehend and advocate on behalf of psychology baccalaureates. In this review…

Higher education that intentionally fosters genuinely meaningful work remains on the periphery of mainstream educational systems. Despite the abundant evidence of the life-giving impacts of educational practices that support these aspirations, there are few indications that conventional higher education systems offer much attention to this…

Purpose: Alternative credentials are rapidly evolving. The purpose of this paper is to explore the challenges and opportunities arising from this evolution with particular reference to their role in education and employment. Design/methodology/approach: The paper explores the credential initiatives with a unique perspective from introducing…

This report provides a summary of the outcomes of international students who completed their vocational education and training (VET) qualification in Australia in 2022. These students were surveyed as an additional component to the 2023 National Student Outcomes Survey. Information is presented on international onshore VET qualification…

As college degrees become more common and the cost of these degrees increases, so does the debate about the worthwhileness and value of a college education generally and of specific degrees in particular. Degrees in the humanities and liberal arts are particularly questioned, as data on starting salaries and unemployment rates are sometimes used…

This essay analyses the implementation of a work-based learning policy in upper secondary schools in Italy. The policy aims to improve student orientation and enhance their soft skills. Based on two ethnographic research studies in Italy, this essay utilises Pierre Bourdieu's theoretical framework, particularly the 'field' concept, to examine how…