The TAACCCT Grant

Seeking policy levers to help turn around the nation’s weakest economy since the Great Depression, Congress created the created TAACCCT and tasked the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) to administer the grant program, in collaboration with the U.S. Department of Education (ED). Making an unprecedented investment in the nation’s community and technical colleges, the DOL sought to direct its federal-funding authority in the Trade Adjustment Act (TAA) to substantially increase college access and credential attainment for adult workers detrimentally impacted by the recession. Beginning October 1, 2011 and continuing through September 30, 2018, almost $2 billion was invested in integrating postsecondary education and workforce training into programs of study in a wide range of occupational fields, from manufacturing to healthcare to energy. The DOL charged grantees with implementing programs that would not only help students secure immediate employment but also create career pathways that could offer longer-term economic and other benefits to participants over a lifetime. Put succinctly, the major goal of TAACCCT was to “provide workers with the education and skills to succeed in high-wage, high-skill occupations” (DOL, 2016, p. 3).

A specific charge of the TAACCCT grant was for community and technical colleges, and other postsecondary institutions, to enroll adult workers who had lost their jobs or who needed initial training or retraining to find employment in a dramatically changing workforce. From 2011 to 2018, four-year TAACCCT grants were made to all 50 states, Puerto Rico, and the District of Columbia (DC) with the stipulation that these federal funds be used to implement new or update programs of study using evidence-based innovations and strategies that increase the capacity of colleges to deliver more and better integrated postsecondary education and workforce training. Results reported by the DOL (2019) after the conclusion of the grant noted that TAACCCT supported an extensive amount of this activity.

TAACCCT grants created nearly 2,700 new or redesigned programs and enrolled over 500,000 students who earned more than 350,000 credentials. Across all rounds, the DOL awarded $393,734,412 in institutional grants to 146 single institution grantees, $1,120,036,098 to 84 single-state consortia, and $412,014,608 to 26 multi-state consortia (DOL, 2016). Manufacturing and healthcare were the two sectors with the largest grant activity, followed in descending order by energy, information technology, transportation and logistics, green technology, and agriculture (DOL, 2016).

Because TAACCCT sought to address the needs of individuals detrimentally impacted by the nation’s depressed economy, the student populations targeted for recruitment and enrollment reflected this phenomenon. The Solicitation for Grant Application (DOL, 2011) articulated that the TAACCCT should target “workers who have lost their jobs or are threatened with job loss as a result of foreign trade” (p. 1). As the economy improved in an uneven way across the country, the TAACCCT grantees were encouraged to implement programs targeting individuals eligible for training under the “TAA for Workers” program, as well as veterans, students with disabilities, and students who qualified for Pell grants. However, throughout the entire grant period, the DOL maintained a consistent emphasis on enrolling non-traditional age students, including individuals who were unemployed or underemployed. Reporting participation for these diverse populations was also a priority of performance-reporting requirements, so student enrollment was reported by grantees by gender, race/ethnicity, employment and enrollment status (full- or part-time), and veteran, disability, and Pell-eligibility status; however, evaluation results measuring the impact of the grants were not required for sub-populations, which is a point we will return to toward the conclusion of this paper.

After three rounds of TAACCCT grant awards, Durham et al. (2017) reported the average age of TAACCCT participants was 31 years, and also described a higher proportion of men than women enrolled in grant-funded programs (60% compared to 40%, respectively). Whereas the distribution by race/ethnicity of TAACCCT participants was similar to the nation’s population as a whole, the proportion of grant participants identifying with a non-white racial or ethnic group was lower than the overall average enrollment of racially minoritized groups in community and technical colleges nationally (59% versus 49%, respectively). This statistic varied by round but never approached the level of racial/ethnic minority representation in student enrollment in two-year colleges nationwide. Given the preponderance of grant activity in manufacturing and other occupations historically predominated by males, it is not surprising that more total participants were male than female, although it seems TAACCCT could have done more to close this gender gap. Interestingly, TAACCCT grants tended to enroll slightly more full- than part-time students, which is counter to national enrollment statistics for community colleges (American Association of Community Colleges, 2019); however, this relationship flipped between round three and round four when a higher proportion of TAACCCT participants were part-time enrolled and also full-time employed (46%), mirroring national statistics and possibly also reflecting the improving national economy.

Besides the occupational-technical programs created or improved with TAACCCT funding, grantees were encouraged to implement core elements identified as having sufficiently rigorous evidence to support federal funding. Shifting somewhat in foci across the rounds of the grant awards, some core elements consistently mentioned in the Solicitation for Grant Application (SGA) included the general categories of evidence-based designs; career pathways and stackable credentials; transfer and articulation; online and technology-enabled instruction; employer engagement; and strategic alignment with industry, governors, the public-workforce system, and others. These core elements help organize and provide some consistency for the wide-ranging programmatic approaches that grantees chose to pursue in the TAACCCT grant.