Workforce Pell Success Might Depend on Career Coaching

As colleges nationwide scramble to prepare for the rollout of the newly enacted Workforce Pell grant program in July 2026, one challenge is making sure that programs lead to economic mobility. To stay eligible for federal financial aid, newly eligible Workforce Pell grant programs must demonstrate both program completion rates and job placement rates of 70 percent or higher. Over years of research on workforce training programs, MDRC has found that for short-term programs, job placement rates — and, even more importantly, earnings — often fall short of this mark. Research has also surfaced that program staff and program participants alike express a great need for career coaching to help students enter, persist, and thrive in their chosen field.

Dozens of research studies on workforce training programs, from those offered in community colleges to those funded through workforce development initiatives like the Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act (WIOA) to those operated by nonprofit providers, confirm that participants in these training programs often have high completion rates. Indeed, nearly all well-designed short-term training programs that we have studied show completion rates above the 70 percent threshold required by the new Workforce Pell legislation. However, rates of licensure and career entry are not nearly so high. In fact, plenty of program completers return to their previous jobs instead of entering their chosen career pathway.

Why? Often, the first job in a career trajectory in fields like allied health and information technology does not pay any better than where completers already work. Some people might even face a temporary pay cut to take an entry-level position in their new career. While there is a significant opportunity for wage growth in these fields, if the first job doesn’t pay better than other offerings — especially today, as fields like retail and fast food have seen wage growth in a tight labor market — it is tempting for participants to return to their previous roles purely for economic reasons.

Another common pitfall is that completing the workforce training program does not guarantee completion of state licensure for fields where that is required to start a career. In a commercial driving program, for instance, students may complete the program but still fail the written exam or the state-mandated driving test. While they can retry, if they have already left their training program, they may not have the opportunity to receive further test preparation, or they may feel discouraged or disconnected, losing momentum at a critical time.

In many fields likely to appear among programs funded by Workforce Pell, additional training is required to support mobility into a middle-class wage. An eight-week community college course in phlebotomy will often lead to a small pay hike but provides limited wage growth beyond that. To access better wages, individuals may need to move into related healthcare fields with additional training, such as becoming nurses or ultrasound technicians. Yet how to do that — how to stack relevant credentials to support career growth — is often confusing and opaque. In Virginia’s FastForward program, for instance, 90 percent of learners complete their short-term noncredit training program, but less than 12 percent then pursued subsequent training in credit-bearing programs in the state. The Work Advancement and Support Center Demonstration found that earnings gains were short-lived unless participants got guidance about accessing the right training.

Importantly, the Workforce Pell legislation identifies credential stacking as a key component of eligible short-term programs, yet colleges will be measured on participants’ wages alone. Workforce Pell requires individuals graduating from an eligible program to earn more (after subtracting 150 percent of the poverty level) than they paid for their program. To meet this measure, graduates should be earning a living wage, and the program’s cost should be kept as low as possible. Any of the issues outlined above may prevent program completers from accessing wage growth and may hinder the program from meeting the value-added earnings requirement and, crucially, keeping its financial aid eligibility.

To help, short-term Pell programs should experiment with incorporating career coaching. Qualitative research on past workforce programs has shown that participants benefit from guidance on what to expect when entering the field, how to navigate setbacks, how to land a first job, and how to achieve career growth over time. Often, colleges focus their advising on the academic side of the house. Hiring an advisor who can support students’ career entry out of these short-term programs, as well as providing guidance about returning to the institution for future stackable credential opportunities, might both help students complete their goals and make it likelier that short-term Pell is a sustainable, reliable funding stream for the institution, by improving outcomes.

For example, Lorain County Community College’s Fast Track program for stackable short-term credentials was integrated into campus-wide support services, using a caseload management advising model with at least five proactive outreach touchpoints per semester. In Virginia, FastForward services like career coaching were sometimes supported through state and college funding streams and, at other times, complemented through federal WIOA funding, one of the only such federal sources of this funding.

A useful career coaching component in short-term Pell-funded programs might include the following topics, all shown to be important in research on workforce development:

• Clear expectations about what the entry-level job will be like and what it will pay.
• Advice about timelines for wage growth and career growth.
• Employability skills like time management and networking.
• Clear paths for completers to return to the institution for additional stackable credentials, including information about financial aid, timeline, and the expected wage premium associated with further credentialing.
• Explanation of the medium- and long-term value of entering a career path with economic mobility over returning to previous employment without much chance of advancement.
• Information about common issues, like needing multiple attempts to complete licensure, to reduce stigma and improve the likelihood of persistence and success.

Across both workforce development and higher education research, we see that access to financial aid alone isn’t enough to guarantee a positive economic return for students. Incorporating career coaching could help institutions make the most of this new funding stream — both for students and for taxpayers.