State Policy for Expanding Access to High-Demand Jobs: The Role of G3, GO Virginia, and Virginia’s Community Colleges
This ARCC Network brief examines two statewide workforce-focused initiatives, G3 and GO Virginia. The authors present a snapshot of how these initiatives interact on the ground and describe opportunities for more deliberate and strategic efforts to better align their goals and investments.
What’s the Value of a Master’s Degree?
Using administrative data from Ohio, this Third Way brief compares master’s degree completers’ earnings before and after graduate school and finds that, on average, earning a master’s degree increases earnings, though returns vary by field and student demographics.
Get a Skill, Get a Job, Get Ahead? Evaluating the Effects of Virginia’s Workforce-Targeted Free College Program
Using two quasi-experimental methods, this paper estimates the causal impact of Virginia’s Get a Skill, Get a Job, Get Ahead initiative on financial aid and academic outcomes of community college students.
Which Community College Awards Are Likely to Prepare Students for Post-Completion Success?
This report uses IPEDS and College Scorecard data to classify the credentials awarded by community colleges in 2022-23 and to assess which credentials are and are not likely to enable students to secure a living-wage job or transfer efficiently in a major.
Institutional and Student Responses to Free College: Evidence From Virginia
Using administrative data, this paper analyzes Get a Skill, Get a Job, Get Ahead (G3)—a free community college initiative that Virginia implemented in 2021—and shows that both institutions and students responded to the tuition-free messaging and eligibility criteria.