Podcast: How Workforce Education at Community Colleges Can Contribute to Pandemic Recovery
As community colleges continue recovering from the pandemic, workforce programs have shown a particular resilience, attracting investment and boosting enrollment. The ARCC Network is examining how colleges can design workforce programs to encourage students to reenroll and ensure the programs provide a leg up in the workforce.
In this interview, Jenna Terrell, a senior research associate with WestEd, and Maria Cormier, a senior research associate with the Community College Research Center, talk about their ARCC Network projects on career and technical programs and labor market demand in Florida and the G3 scholarship program in Virginia. The researchers discuss how the community colleges they are studying are developing programs and supports to serve their workforce students as they emerge from the COVID pandemic. A transcript of the recording is below.
Transcript
This transcript has been edited for clarity.
Elizabeth Ganga: I’m Elizabeth Ganga, and I’m speaking with Jenna Terrell and Maria Cormier about their work for the ARCC Network, focusing on workforce programs at community colleges. So Maria, can you introduce yourself and just tell us a tiny bit about your project in Virginia?
Maria Cormier: Sure. So, I’m Maria Cormier. I’m a senior research associate at CCRC, and I am the project director of the Virginia Workforce Recovery Project, which is looking at the early outcomes and implementation of G3. G3 stands for Get a Skill, Get a Job, Get Ahead. It is a state-funded last-dollar scholarship program implemented across the 23 colleges in the Commonwealth of Virginia. The scholarship program focuses on five high-demand CTE (career and technical education) and/or workforce training programs.
Jenna Terrell: My name is Jenna Terrell. I’m a senior researcher at WestEd. I’m the lead analyst for a project that is partnering with the Florida Department of Education, and we are trying to learn about how Florida state colleges and district technical colleges are aligning their CTE programs to the workforce.
Ganga: What are the big questions that you all had coming into these projects, and as you’re going through these projects, about workforce education and the role that it can play in getting students back on their feet after the pandemic?
Terrell: For our team in Florida, one of the things that we know is how foundational community and technical colleges are for training the local labor market and their workforce. So, thinking about the pandemic, we know that the labor market has changed a lot and it’s changed at a quicker pace, I think, than it has before. So, what we’re really wondering is how colleges are using data that they have around enrollment and completion and the labor market data that they’re collecting, and really using that to develop strong CTE programs. What structures do they have? What policies and practices are they using to keep up to date on what the labor market needs are in their surrounding communities and what those gaps are in their programming? Another key question that we have, especially after the pandemic, is what the term “local labor market” means now that we live in a world where remote work is becoming the norm for many industries. This is kind of a newer research question that we’re starting to explore with our work, and what grain size of data are institutions using when they’re examining their data in order to align their programming.
Cormier: With the Virginia Workforce Recovery Project, we entered into this in collaboration with the Virginia Community College System, similar to Florida, with the recognition that community colleges in the Commonwealth of Virginia are largely responsible for training, preparing students to enter into entry-level/mid-level careers and jobs in high-demand fields. So, with that in mind, we were particularly interested in the ways in which last-dollar scholarship programs such as G3 could incentivize students to reenroll. A lot of the discussion around the pandemic recovery efforts has focused on enrollment: How do we get students, how do we get particularly adult learners, back into college to train and upskill, if you will? So G3, with its focus on the scholarship, was really meant to incentivize students to enroll—and in some cases reenroll—and particularly in areas that were hardest hit by the pandemic.
A second underlying question we had was, What does this all mean for equitable outcomes? So, what does this mean for the communities who were disproportionately impacted by the pandemic, so those largely being minoritized communities, low-income communities, and women? And so, what does it mean for a program like G3 to offer this scholarship, to incentivize students to enroll? What does it mean for their labor market outcomes, for their ability to persist and complete in programs focused on these high-demand workforce programs?
Ganga: So, I’m actually not sure if this question makes a lot of sense since you’re both working with partners on these projects, but I was curious if the state-policymaker perspective was different from the researcher perspective, if they had any sort of different kinds of questions?
Terrell: When we came into this project, the pandemic had not yet really shown itself. So, one of the things I think that our state policymakers were interested in was this change to Perkins V, with having a comprehensive local needs assessment that community and technical colleges need to do every two years in order to make sure that their programs are aligned to the labor market. Our state policymakers were really wondering what that looks like.
Cormier: When we designed this project, we worked in collaboration with the Virginia Community College System around identifying research strands that could help improve the implementation and the outcomes of G3. So, how do you increase access to these funds for as many students as possible? Now, with that said, the state policymakers, by and large—we haven’t really heard a lot from them about G3. And this is in part because politically G3 is viable to a wide range of stakeholders in the Commonwealth because it targets the middle class. The threshold to receive G3 funds is 400% above the poverty line. So, that’s roughly $100,000. And so politically, policymakers have been quite happy with that and don’t really have a lot to say about G3, other than asking, Why are colleges not dispersing these funds in greater numbers? And so, really, we’ve been working closely with VCCS (the Virginia Community College System) around questions and trying to give them information that they can in turn use to inform the policymakers in their decision-making around G3.
Ganga: So, the Clearinghouse found in its most recent report that there was a 60% increase in enrollment in fall 2023 at the vocationally focused community colleges. So, do y’all have any sense of what’s going on there from your projects?
Terrell: My perspective would be that the purpose of these institutions is to really respond to the labor market. I also think that community and technical colleges have also been increasingly focused on the short-term certificates and credentials. And so, they’re getting more students in the door compared to four-year colleges, for example. And I think there’s also a lot going on in these colleges with getting non-credit-to-credit pathways. So, I think that that also is helping some of these vocationally focused colleges keep students who may be going in to upskill, and really getting them into a clear pathway to stay enrolled and complete.
Cormier: I would agree. Those are two great points. I would add to that: I think there’s a broader conversation happening right now within the higher ed space around the value proposition, right. So, the pandemic really put this light on the purpose, the function, and the return on investment that higher ed offers students, parents, communities. So, I think as part of that, there are a lot of colleges wrestling with this value proposition in a way that they didn’t necessarily have to. I think they were just kind of taking it for granted that they were getting students in the door, particularly for community colleges. Now, though, there really is this question, What is the value of a higher ed degree? What is the value of a transfer, when I can get a short-term credential that’s going to get me a job right away with a family-sustaining wage? So, I think this is all part of a bigger conversation that’s happening right now. And I don’t think the field has figured out what direction it’s heading, but I think the fact that it’s at least now being talked about in a very transparent, open way maybe points to why we’re seeing these enrollment trends in vocational-focused colleges.
Terrell: I would also just add that I think there’s a rebranding that’s happening within CTE (career and technical education). It’s not the vocational school anymore, so to speak. It really is a program that students can get in the door and make a high wage, but that has not always been the case.
Ganga: Do you think that that’s accurate? Are they living up to their mission, and are they doing the job that needs doing?
Cormier: Data still suggest that four-year degrees are going to ultimately lead to a better job and a better long-term career pathway and that two-year degrees in certain fields will also yield longer term, better wages for you. So, that said, I think short-term credentials, noncredit certificate programs—they serve a function. They serve a need. They’re meeting a need that’s out there. A sort of parallel conversation is unfolding now through some data analysis that’s been done looking at these programs of value, programs that do in fact lead to better jobs, and those that don’t. So, for example, in G3 one of the five high-demand programs is early education. And this historically and certainly currently remains a very low-wage career pathway, predominantly for women. So, this begs the question, Why are colleges continuing to offer this program if we know that it’s not leading to high wages, and it’s tracking women—and oftentimes minoritized women—into these low-wage jobs? But I do think there is some value in offering those for people who are interested.
Terrell: Going back to the value proposition, we’re starting to see the conversation change. Four-year degrees are not always for everybody. And that has been a push for so long because of the increase that you get in wages and salaries from getting a four-year degree. But I think that that conversation, that pendulum, is starting to swing back a little bit, and we’re starting to see more people say, you know, a two-year degree, a certificate in a high-wage, high-demand field is okay, and so we don’t have to push these students into a four-year degree. I think that there’s also an aspect of some of these in our survey. One of the things that we asked our institutions was about advisors, and that’s something that community and technical colleges continue to struggle with. And so, just putting a plug in there that the CTE directors and the advisory boards, they can do all this work, but advisors are sorely needed. Advisors need to also understand the labor market so that they can direct students into pathways that lead to a sustainable wage.
Cormier: I would agree. I would emphasize the point that you can redesign a program, you can have employer partnerships that all lead to a family-sustaining wage, but I think another way in which the conversation is broadening and shifting is the acknowledgment of the need for student supports and services. And what are those supports and services, and how do they need to be differentiated for different student populations? And that the needs of a student enrolled in a CTE program may be different from the needs of a liberal arts gen ed transfer student. So then, what are those? And so, similar to Florida, we’re starting to look into that and identify what some of those promising practices are. In Virginia, one area I think there is growing momentum around is the way in which colleges deliver career services. Some colleges don’t offer it at all; at some it’s folded into advising; some have an entire career service center that includes labor market, data analytics, and includes mock interviews, resumes, and really covers the gamut of career services, connects students to basic-needs services. So, there’s a wide range. And I think it speaks to the growing recognition of the role that these supports and services play in a student ultimately being able to secure a job and a living wage at the end of their program.
Ganga: And so, how is the pandemic affecting all of this? Is it creating challenges, opportunities?
Cormier: Yeah, I think enrollment is still not where it was before the pandemic. And I think as a group, as a network, we’ve started to surface some of the reasons why that may be. I think the financial need is front and center still for a lot of students. The pandemic just really made clear how hard it is for students to attend college financially. Who takes care of your children when you have that night class? All of these things that I think, prior to the pandemic, colleges recognized and were working towards, but it just was not so clear. And when you saw that enrollment drop, I think colleges were forced to recognize and deal with that.
So, I think that’s true across programs, and programs like G3 built that into their design. So obviously, it being a last-dollar scholarship, but also including advising as part of that and being intentional and connecting students to supports and services was certainly in response to the pandemic.
Terrell: I think one thing that we haven’t really touched on, or maybe we did just a little bit, was adult learners and that opportunity within CTE especially, but adult learners just at large within community and technical colleges and the opportunity that’s there. But I think there are also a lot of challenges that we see with our partners both on this project and in parallel work. So, just really being able to understand how to recruit these students—I think that there’s a lot of opportunity there. And we’re just not there yet.
Cormier: It’s a great point about adult learners. I will add that, with all of the momentum around workforce training programs, the field is also now starting to recognize the need to fold these into community college finance models, funding models. So, we’re starting to see these conversations pop up across the country and a lot of investment, whether it’s state or federal, into workforce training programs. And this looks very different from state to state, so some states like Virginia that are allocating money directly to the student, some are beginning to incentivize focus and emphasis on workforce training programs through sort of performance-based funding models. And so, I think this all speaks to the need for capacity, the need for resources, that if this is the direction we want to head, or we think there needs to be more attention to these pathways for students, colleges also need the resources to fund these programs.
Ganga: Well, thank you both for talking to me, very much. I appreciate it.
Cormier: This was fun. Let’s do it again.
