Certificates: A gateway to college and careers

According to a recent report: “The postsecondary certificate has become a cost-effective tool for increasing postsecondary educational attainment and gainful employment.  Certificates are a homegrown American invention and are expanding rapidly in response to a wide range of educational and labor market demands. ” The full report can be downloaded here.

 

The report also suggests that two out of three workers who have a certificate and a college degree, earned the certificate first and so certificates can serve as a stepping stone to a college degree. There is enough evidence of economic returns of certificates although the payoff is understandably dependent on the focus and the local labor market. More than half of the certificates are granted by public institutions while the rest are by private colleges.

Do you have a career planning focus in your program? Are your students interested in certificates that are being offered at your local public or private institution?

This timely report can be an excellent resource as you are planning a new career pathway program or considering adding another focus area to an existing program.

I look forward to hearing from you.

Best,

Priyanka Sharma

National College Transition Network

Comments

Underemployed and Overinvested

Underemployed and Overinvested: Should We Be Trying to Increase College Degree Attainment?

Priyanka and all: This is a timely topic. Today adult educators are being asked to provide college readiness education to adult learners in the Adult Education and Literacy System (AELS). This is a challenging task and it is not clear that it should be the business of the AELS to do this. But that is another issue. For now the question is how wise is the general policy of college for all. In their January 2013 policy paper entitled Why Are Recent College Graduates Underemployed? University Enrollments and Labor-Market Realities, Richard Vedder, Christopher Denhart, and Jonathan Robe of the Center for College Affordability and Productivity examine the wisdom of the college for everyone movement being spurred by the federal government. Here are some extensive quotes from the policy paper:

 

Quote:”The mismatch between the educational requirements for various occupations and the amount of education obtained by workers is large and growing significantly over time. The problem can be viewed two ways. In one sense, we have an “underemployment” problem; College graduates are underemployed, performing jobs which require vastly less educational tools than they possess. The flip side of that, though, is that we have an “overinvestment” problem: We are churning out far more college graduates than required by labor-market imperatives. The supply of jobs requiring college degrees is growing more slowly than the supply of those holding such degrees. Hence, more and more college graduates are crowding out high-school graduates in such blue-collar, low-skilled jobs as taxi driver, firefighter, and retail sales clerks.59 Credential inflation is pervasive. And, as Hernstein and Murray noted nearly two decades ago, one by-product of this phenomenon is a dumbing down of the college curriculum; as they put it “credentialism… is part of the problem, not the solution.”60

 

That suggests the earnings advantage associated with a bachelor’s degree will change over time. By one way of looking at it, the college degree becomes less worthwhile financially: If one compares earnings of those with bachelor’s degrees with that of all workers (not merely high-school graduates), the day may come when the bachelor’s degree will pay less than that of all workers, as the proportion of workers with more than bachelor’s degrees comes close to approximating that of those with less than a four-year diploma. The college degree will be the new normal, and the credential inflation leading to more and more college-educated taxi drivers will continue to escalate. Yet this is not to say going to college is unnecessary: Indeed, it would be almost impossible to get a job without a degree. Vocational success would require even more education.

 

But at what cost? Can we afford to expend $100,000 or more in resources giving kids a college degree, only to see them take taxi driver jobs for which the college education added hardly a scintilla of employment skill? Can we afford to lose the labor services of 18-to-22 year olds going to college for little employment advantages, persons who could start driving a taxi or working as a bank teller at 18 instead of 22? In an era where the worker-to-dependent ratio is rapidly falling, the underemployed college graduate isan expensive luxury we can ill afford as a nation. …

 

All of this calls into question the wisdom of the “college for all” movement. Does it make sense to become the world’s leader again in the proportion of young adults with college degrees? Is the goal of individuals like President Obama or groups like the Lumina Foundation to increase college degree attainment desirable? Should we look for new and cheaper ways to assure employee competency?... Economists for generations have long accepted the law of diminishing returns—when one adds more and more resources, at some point the marginal contribution to output falls. The law applies to education as to almost everything in life. “end quote

 

So how will this affect our profession of adult education? I suspect that we may find it more and more difficult to provide the extensive service that the very least prepared adult learners require to make even modest gains, while we invest more and more in trying to provide college readiness education that will in fact help a relatively small percentage of undereducated adults achieve college degrees (at least 2 year college degrees) while failing to find a very large increase in the percentageof adult students who actually move from entry levels of education in the AELS to the completion of college.

 

Tom Sticht

 

 

Tom and others,

At the risk of oversimplification, there are basically  two arguments for encouraging as many people who wish to, to go to college:
1. The Liberal Arts Argument. Higher education is good in itself. Regardless of whether there is a "return on investment"; there is a lifelong return on understanding your society, culture, world and its fascinating history, politics, economics, arts, and literature. With more college education, you will be able to understand and appreciate more, have a better life, be more empathetic, communicate more effectively, learn on your own, be a more effective citizen....and more.
2. The Return on Investment Argument. Higher education is a good investment. With more years of schooling you will earn more, and you and your family will have a better standard of living. Some have also argued, especially recently, that if more Americans had higher education we would have a more competitive country in the world economy.

These two arguments are not new. Some people argue for one or the other; some for both. What is new is that higher education may be more accessible now, and that it is way more expensive. It is also new that many other countries, some of those so-called developing countries that we are competing with such as India, China and Brazil, are offering good quality higher education of their own.

Those seeking higher education in the U.S. need to weigh the cost and benefits of their higher education decisions. (The cost of higher education may be coming down now that there are inexpensive online courses; brick and mortar colleges are encouraging students to do a mix of face-to-face and online courses. Costs may also come down because of increased competition from high quality colleges in other countries. Fifteen years ago when I was working in the Philippines I became aware of Americans studying medicine there because the quality of (some) universities was good and the cost was considerably less. That trend of world higher education competition may cause American colleges and universities to figure out new ways to lower the cost of their tuition.)

Based on the quotes you have provided, Tom, I am not sure that the January 2013 policy paper entitled Why Are Recent College Graduates Underemployed? is asking the right question. The answer to a broad brushstroke question such as "Should we be trying to increase college degree attainment?" has to be "It depends." It depends on why someone wants higher education, and what s/he wants the outcome(s) to be. The problem is that "going to college" isn't necessarily a good economic investment. It depends on what you study and what kind of degree you (do or don't) get.

A better question might be: "For people whose goal in attending higher education is a return on their investment, what degrees have a track record of assuring that return?" Going to college is a good investment for those who seek out certain kinds of degrees, broadly those in Science, Technology, Engineering and Math (STEM). I haven't seen any research that disagrees with that, have you, Tom? Has anyone? College can also be a good investment -- depending on where one lives -- in a great many other areas; for example, in some places certain kinds of degrees in hotels and hospitality; health care; Heating, Ventilation and Air Conditioning (HVAC); and many other areas have a track record of paying off.

So the problem as I see it, is not that we are encouraging adult learners and high school students to consider getting a college degree, but that they mistakenly think that "going to college" and getting a degree in anything is a good investment, when they need to be more sophisticated in their understanding of what kinds of degrees are a good investment.

This means that adult education programs need to help adult learners, especially those at the adult secondary education level, as part of their high school equivalency studies, to think critically not only about how to solve problems in algebra, how to write a persuasive essay, and how to critically read texts and write about them, but equally important, how to think critically about their education and training choices. They need information; they need to understand themselves -- their interests, needs, talents and abilities; they need to understand how career pathways work; they need to understand higher education costs and how to pay for them, and much more. They need to weigh this information in the context of making an important (and potentially expensive) decision.

Of course, there are other options besides higher education that may also provide a return on investment: certain kinds of apprenticeships, and certain kinds of entrepreneurship, for example. And these should be weighed as well.

Maybe it was a lot easier when your job in life was what your parent or grandparent did. Easier, however, isn't necessarily better.

David J. Rosen
djrosen123@gmail.com
 

I was reading this article in New York Times yesterday, The Great Aid Gap, that talks about the dearth of available financial aid for students who are pursuing certificates. 

An excerpt: 

"Northern Virginia is offering a program for certified nurses’ aides this spring, but officials there said they were forced to delay it until April because several interested students were having problems pulling together the money needed to enroll. Some students, for the most part those who have been unemployed, can obtain federal aid for programs under the Workforce Investment Act, but many fail to, partly because there is not enough money."

This reveals yet another flaw in how the education system does not meet the needs of the students. Do read the article to find an interesting and controversial quote from Anthony Carnevale about how the financial aid process should be tied to a course of study. I am looking forward to the upcoming report funded by the Gates and Lumina Foundations about recommendations for the Pell Grant program to get their take on this issue. 

Priyanka Sharma

National College Transition Network 

Tom and David,

I have nothing to add to your comments. I just want to thank you for addressing and discussing some of the issues and concerns that have come up within the ABE field in Minnesota. It seems like nobody is really talking about the bigger picture of what impact the "college push" will have on all ABE learners.

Julie Dincau

ABE Transitions Specialist

Minnesota Dept. of Ed.

Hi all,

I am not an Adult Educator.  My area of expertise is career and technical education.  The word college is frequently misused to reflect expensive four-year degrees.  And many of those graduates have invested thousands of dollars in an interesting education but not always a money-earning education.  The newer language about "middle-skill" jobs indicates a high demand for technicians and other 2-year types of college degrees.  In the modern career and technical education programs, the information age of the 21st century, is providing good career and earning opportunities for Associates of Applied Sciences college degrees.  Certificates that stack toward a degree allows students to experience accomplishment while managing educational costs across time.  The old images of "blue collar" workers is outdated.  Today's automotive and construction technicians, welders, machinists, cosmetologists, etc. can improve their potential earnings dramatically with associate's degrees.  Their continuing education could supplement a basic skill with advanced competencies related to numerous other career fields.  The health industry provides many opportunities for career advancement and growth as certificates become associate's degrees.  Many associate degrees in career and technical education can be stepping stones to four-year degrees with half the cost: criminal justice, pre-engineering, business and marketing, information technology, etc.  Really, shouldn't all levels of education be expressed to students as steps forward to the next level?  Yes, there will be need for entry-level, high school graduate workers.  In my opinion, as educators, our role is to help each student have the confidence to envision how far they can reach in a 21st century information age that will require lifelong learning.  The mistake may be in the push to make all 18-year old high school graduates go to a university without adequate career exploration, guidance and research.  That can be a very expensive youth development process.  Certificates and 2 year degrees allows a lower cost approach to searching for career options.