The Tennessee Coaching Project: Coaching for Careers
By Erin Delle and Lindsey Koch
In the fall of 2022, TBR—The College System of Tennessee launched the Tennessee Coaching Project to provide additional support for students in corequisite support courses following pandemic-era declines in student success. The project funds coaches who help students navigate college, connect with campus resources, and explore careers.
The initiative has shown promising early results in the project’s first year. By the end of the first year, 72% of the 600 students selected for coaching engaged with their coach, leading to higher persistence rates and improved math success than for those without coaching. As the project continues, coaches are enhancing their career coaching with new data tools.
In this blog post, we will explore the research derived from two new data tools developed by the TBR team: the Labor Market Outcomes for Community and Technical Colleges interactive policy brief and the Careers Start Here data dashboard. We’ll also delve into how coaches have been trained to incorporate career and labor market information into their work with students.
Labor Market Outcomes for Community and Technical Colleges
Research has explored the economic value of community and technical college credentials, and the Tennessee Coaching Project emphasizes the importance of putting this knowledge into practice. As part of the Tennessee Coaching Project, we conducted a rigorous analysis of employment data and TBR students’ labor market outcomes. The analysis revealed the significant economic benefits of earning a credential from these institutions. Compared with the wages of student peers who enrolled but did not complete a credential, completers consistently earned higher wages.
Students who completed an applied associate degree reaped the highest benefits, followed by subassociate certificate completers. However, completers of university parallel degrees (i.e., associate degrees built to transfer to universities) who did not pursue further postsecondary education experienced the lowest wages among programs included in the analysis. This demonstrates the importance of selecting a credential aligned with industry demands and workforce needs for students in university parallel programs who do not intend to transfer to a university.
Notably, the wage differences between completers and non-completers remained relatively similar regardless of a student’s level of academic preparation coming out of high school. This highlights the potential of certificate or associate degree program completion to bridge the wage gap associated with underprepared students’ initial academic challenges.
Careers Start Here
To further support the work of connecting students to career-focused programs aligned with labor market demands, TBR—The College System of Tennessee has launched the Careers Start Here dashboard, which tracks aggregate employment outcomes for graduates of TBR colleges over the past decade. This tool, made possible through a partnership between TBR and the Tennessee Department of Labor and Workforce Development (TDLWD), enables colleges to examine employment rates, average annual wages, and industry of employment for their graduates. The launch of the Careers Start Here dashboard, coupled with the ongoing efforts of the Tennessee Coaching Project, demonstrates the commitment of TBR, TDLWD, and the state of Tennessee to put labor market outcomes knowledge into practice.
Career-Focused Coaching
The coaches participating in the Tennessee Coaching Project serve as students’ primary academic advisors, allowing them the opportunity to guide students in both their coursework and their career goals in every student meeting. Coaches meet with students multiple times a semester, weaving career-focused topics and tools into conversations about their major and college goals.
Coaches engaged in trainings to help them incorporate career-focused tools into their coaching practice. Coaches were trained to use TBR’s recent Labor Market Outcomes policy brief, guided pathways recommendations, and career interest assessments. These opportunities equipped coaches with the knowledge and tools needed to best assist students in making an informed choice aligned with their career goals when picking a program of study.
Additionally, coaches engaged in role-playing scenarios with one another to put knowledge and tools into practice. These scenarios centered on background information about the individual student, the student’s desires, and challenges the student may face in college. Coaches were then asked to apply the knowledge from the training and tools to help their students choose the best majors to meet their career or education goals.
By equipping coaches with these valuable insights and tools, the Tennessee Coaching Project hopes coaches can guide students toward career-focused programs that align with labor market opportunities. This approach helps students achieve their individual goals and contributes to the state’s overall economic growth by meeting the growing demand for skilled workers in Tennessee. To see more information on how coaches are incorporating labor market and career data into practice, see the Coaching with Labor Market Data: Recommendations for Practice brief.
This project is supported by the Institute of Education Sciences, U.S. Department of Education, through Grant R305S220005 to the Tennessee Board of Regents.
Erin Delle is the coordinator of strategic research initiatives at TBR—The College System of Tennessee. Lindsey Koch is the director of policy research at TBR.
