Ready for Work: Adapting High-Impact Workforce Training Models in Community College Settings

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Community colleges are essential providers of the education and training that individuals need to move into high-wage, high-demand careers. Available in nearly every locality throughout the United States, community colleges offer occupational training to the population at relatively low cost. Despite their potential, less than one third of community college students earn a certificate or associate’s degree.

In contrast, certain sector-focused workforce training programs—or sectoral programs—have demonstrated remarkable effects on their participants’ education, employment, and earnings in randomized controlled trials. Community colleges can learn about the features of effective sectoral programs and consider how to scale these features for their context. 

With funding from the Strada Education Foundation, AIR conducted a systematic review of the literature and interviews with leaders at three sectoral programs—including Per Scholas, Year Up, and Project QUEST—that have demonstrated long-term effects on participants’ education, employment, and earnings. The study analyzes the common features of programs and variation in their implementation to identify potential ways their successful workforce strategies could be adapted within community college settings.
 

Report Highlights and Recommendations

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Report cover

The report highlights three commonalities in effective sectoral programs’ practices: 1) deep employer involvement; 2) short-term occupational training tailored to employer and labor market needs; and 3) support services and advising that center on helping participants build workplace skills that employers seek, while providing wraparound supports that help them persist in the program. 

The report recommends that community colleges give equal weight to the development of students’ workplace readiness skills in their programming and practices and invest heavily in relationships with employers and bring their perspectives into multiple aspects of academic programming and supports. It further recommends that policymakers incentivize community college–employer partnerships and support more streamlined ways for curriculum changes.

AIR thanks the Strada Education Foundation for their generous support of this project.

Contact
Photo of Amy Feygin
Principal Researcher
Elizabeth Rutschow
Managing Researcher and Acting Director, PROMISE Center