Virginia Workforce Recovery: A Research Partnership to Strengthen G3

In this project, researchers will work with Virginia Community College System (VCCS) partners to examine and improve Get A Skill, Get A Job, Get Ahead (G3), VCCS’s pandemic workforce recovery initiative. G3 is built around a last-dollar scholarship targeting low-income students in workforce programs in five high-demand fields (healthcare, information technology and computer science, manufacturing and skilled trades, early childhood education, and public safety) and also provides pathways into longer-term programs, dedicated advising, and other resources to help students earn certificates and degrees. 

VCCS is leveraging G3, which launched in fall 2021, to increase college enrollment, particularly among historically marginalized adults; improve workforce program persistence and completion rates; generate more racially equitable credential attainment; and increase labor market returns for historically marginalized adults. This research will support VCCS’s efforts to improve workforce training and provide information to the broader field on important questions of quality and equity in the implementation of workforce programs. 

This project is supported by the Institute of Education Sciences, U.S. Department of Education, through Grant R305X220024 to Teachers College, Columbia University. For more information on the Virginia Workforce Recovery project, visit the Community College Research Center’s website. 

Nikki Edgecombe is a senior research scholar at CCRC and an expert in community colleges, developmental education reform, education equity, teaching and learning, and faculty development. She can be reached at edgecombe@tc.edu.

Sade Bonilla is an assistant professor at the University of Pennsylvania Graduate School of Education. She is an expert in economics of education and education policy and studies local and state policies affecting transitions between high school and college and the labor market. She can be reached at sadeb@upenn.edu.

Maria S. Cormier is a senior research associate at CCRC and an expert in community colleges, workforce education, and developmental education reform. She can be reached at cormier@tc.edu.

Catherine Finnegan is the assistant vice chancellor for research and reporting at the Virginia Community College System, where she leads institutional research, data warehousing, and assessment activities.