Barriers to education and training can have a generational impact on socioeconomic status and economic development. Post-traditional students have been shown to experience a variety of barriers to education and family-sustaining employment. Social capital has been shown to help alleviate some of the barriers for students, resulting in stronger…

An underdeveloped talent supply pipeline has resulted in a skills gap and a skilled labor shortage in the manufacturing sector across the United States. This is potentially the result of a lack of diversity in educational opportunity offered to students, an emphasis on college enrollment rates as a high school performance metric, and the…

Purpose: The study aims to investigate whether participation to massive open online courses (MOOCs) may lead to labor market returns and through which mechanisms such relative advantage may take place. Indeed, despite high figures of registered users, empirical studies on occupational returns are limited and MOOCs may represent a viable,…

Based on comprehensive data from the Washington Workforce Training and Education Coordinating Board, this analysis explores short-term training programs, including which providers offer them and in which occupation-specific programs of study; the demographics of those who enroll in programs; and outcomes for program completers or graduates. Given…

Since their inception in the 1960s, federally funded workforce development programs have promised a solution to unemployment, labor market skills gaps, and income inequality. However, until recently, lack of data and methodological challenges have made evaluation of these programs difficult. Funded by the U.S. Department of Labor in response to…

The Trade Adjustment Assistance Community College and Career Training (TAACCCT) grant represented an unprecedented investment by the federal government in integrated postsecondary education and workforce training offered primarily by community and technical colleges. Between 2011 and 2018, 256 grants totaling nearly $2 billion were awarded through…

The value proposition for learning and talent development (LTD) is often challenged due to human resources' inability to demonstrate meaningful outcomes in relation to organizational needs and return-on-investment. The primary role of human resources (HR) and the learning and talent development (LTD) function is to produce meaningful outcomes to…

The Office of Workforce Development (OWD) in New Orleans, Louisiana, with a grant from the U.S. Department of Labor, implemented Career Pathways, an innovative program designed to increase the local talent pool and help lower-skilled, unemployed, and underemployed individuals train for work in growing fields. RAND Corporation researchers evaluated…

The U.S. workforce is increasingly comprised of older adults, women, and minorities who lack basic skills and are unable to acquire these skills through traditional educational and training programs. New approaches are needed to provide effective training to the adult learner and flexible support for nontraditional students who must balance…

The Skills for Jobs White Paper and funding and accountability consultation set out the Government's plans to introduce a greater focus on the outcomes of learning, including a new Skills Measure that looks at the employment and other outcomes that learners achieve. Will this give colleges and providers greater freedom to deliver for learners, or…

Investing in community college workforce training is a central part of the Biden administration's agenda for improving the lives of American families. Now more than ever, as the nation's economy enters a post-pandemic period of significant organizational and technological change, community colleges are well-situated to help millions of low-income…

In Australia, like many western countries, there has been a convergence of education policy around a set of utilitarian and economistic approaches to vocational education and training in schools. Such approaches are based on the assumption that there is a direct relationship between national economic growth, productivity and human capital…

The COVID-19 pandemic has illustrated with vivid clarity how important it is for people to have digital literacy skills. From the workplace to the classroom and beyond, being able to use digital tools effectively is fundamental to success. To succeed in this rapidly changing environment, workers need broad-based digital problem-solving skills that…

The California Community Colleges play an important role in boosting the state's economy by serving more than 2.3 million students a year. In fact, one out of three community college students in the U.S. is enrolled in a California community college, making it the nation's largest system of higher education. Their 112 colleges provide students…

The need to build a more robust workforce development pipeline is evident in the hundreds of thousands of job openings in our nation's advanced manufacturing industry. Rapid technological change has created a severe skills gap, compounded by a pending wave of retirements due to the aging of the workforce. These challenges are particularly…