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Five Things Policymakers Should Know About Short-Term Credentials

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Introduction

Within higher education, there are bleak differences in the return on investment for different types of credentials and degrees. Differences in the types of credentials students earn and where they get them have long-term implications on income, career satisfaction, and diversity within the U.S. workforce.1

Research shows that Black students, women, and older adults are more likely to enroll in sub-baccalaureate programs than any other subgroup of students.2 However, these credentials may have depreciating labor market value3 compared to bachelor’s degrees that are substantially more likely to lead to continuous increases in earnings.4

As a result, there is growing concern about the inevitable, continued stratification of higher education attainment, in which our most vulnerable students earn non-degree credentials that tend to be valueless towards social and economic mobility.5 Where research shows positive income gains for such non-degree credentials, studies find these gains are modestly concentrated in specific industries6 and tend to fade quickly.7 And for students who experience economic benefits from their non-degree credential, research shows it overwhelmingly favors men, while women with similar credentials do not experience such high economic returns.8 Other research studies on non-degree credentials find null or even negative returns on earnings, with short-term credentials9 showing the most dismal return.10

Despite the limited evidence showing significant value of sub-baccalaureate programs, they are the largest-growing credential within higher education.11 As of 2015, half (51 percent) of undergraduate credentials were at the sub-baccalaureate level.12 Survey research found that one in four in the current workforce have some form of a non-degree credential, such as a certificate or license.13 The largest growing subset of these credentials are from short-term programs (those that require less than a year of study to complete). From 2000 to 2010, colleges witnessed a 151 percent national spike in the number of short-term certificates awarded.14

The growth of short-term credentials, combined with relatively scant research on whether these programs pay off, raises reason for caution around them, especially for historically underserved students. This issue brief seeks to identify some of those key concerns for policymakers by evaluating nationally representative data on adults’ awarded short-term certificates and participation in work-experience programs. The data for this brief comes from the 2016 Adult Training and Education Survey (ATES), as well as regional focus groups we convened to better understand students’ perceptions, beliefs, and experiences. The focus groups included adults currently enrolled in, or who graduated from or previously attended, a very short-term program15 across various fields.

The primary goal of this brief is to evaluate the participation and labor market experiences of students with non-degree credentials, with a focus on short-term certificates (programs of approximately 15 weeks or fewer).16 A secondary goal is to learn more about students’ work-experience programs, including students’ access to them and their perceptions of their usefulness in the labor market. The analyses specifically evaluate across gender and race/ethnicity to identify if there are equity implications from the experiences and outcomes of short-term programs. This brief aims to build an evidence base around federal policymaking on this issue.

Box 1

Methodology

For this analysis, we are primarily interested in short-term, non-degree credentials. Using the Adult Training and Education Survey (ATES) data, we defined a short-term certificate as requiring 40 to 479 hours to complete as a proxy for programs fewer than 15 weeks long. We are interested in programs fewer than 15 weeks because they are currently ineligible to receive Pell Grant funding, but there are proposed bills to extend Pell grants to students enrolled in those programs.17 We used weighted estimates for all variables.

ATES gathered information from individuals ages 16 to 65 (N= 47,744) in 2016. The primary purpose of the survey is to capture the prevalence of non-degree credentials (licenses, certifications, and certificates). The survey’s secondary purpose is to learn more about work-experience programs. This survey is ideal for our analysis, as it provides estimates of adults who have a postsecondary certificate, including their fields of study (as defined by ATES) and perceptions of the usefulness of their credentials in the labor market. ATES also provides estimates on the characteristics of adults in work-experience programs and the perceived usefulness of such programs in the labor market.18

To supplement the ATES data, New America worked with Lake Research Partners to conduct focus groups of adults who enrolled in short-term programs and/or earned short-term credentials. Through the focus groups, we explored participants’ reasons for enrolling in these programs, perceptions of the quality and outcomes of their programs, and future educational and career goals and plans.

Sample

For the ATES analysis, our sample criteria included (N=1,393):

  • adults (18+ years of age) and
  • those with at least a high school equivalence but less than an associate degree (i.e., highest level of education is a short-term postsecondary certificate requiring 40–479 hours to complete).

Our focus groups included 48 adults from Atlanta, GA and Richmond, VA via in-person and telephone conversations. The participants represented short-term programs of fewer than 15 weeks, including certifications, certificates, and licenses, in a variety of fields. Several were conducted for specific occupations, including a Richmond group of current or recent attendees of a commercial driver’s license (CDL) program; a Richmond group of current or recent attendees of a child development associate (CDA) program; and a Richmond group of current or recent attendees of a certified nursing assistant (CNA) program. Graduates of programs were required to have completed the program within the last five years.

Limitations

For the ATES data, we are unable to account for students with multiple postsecondary certificates due to limitations of the survey questions.

For our earnings analysis of the ATES data, we are unable to separate the income from each job for individuals with multiple jobs due to limitations of the survey questions.

Limitations of survey data include, but are not limited to, the fact that respondents may not feel encouraged to provide accurate, honest answers or may not be fully aware of their reasons for any given answer.

The focus groups are not nationally representative, but shed light on the perceptions, beliefs, and experiences of adults with short-term credentials.

One more caveat: our initial, in-person focus groups (conducted in February and early March 2020) occurred prior to COVID-19 restrictions. In these conversations, students expressed excitement. In contrast, participants of the focus groups in April and May expressed heightened anxiety due to uncertainties stemming from the pandemic.

Citations
  1. CJ Libassi, The Neglected College Race Gap: Racial Disparities Among College Completers (Washington, DC: Center for American Progress, May 23, 2019), source
  2. Jizhi Zhang and Ceylan Oymak, Participants in Subbaccalaureate Occupational Education: 2012 (Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Education, June 2018), source
  3. Clive Belfield and Thomas Bailey, The Labor Market Returns to Sub-Baccalaureate College: A Review (New York: Center for Analysis of Postsecondary Education and Employment, March 2017), source
  4. Clive Belfield and Thomas Bailey, “Does it Pay to Complete Community College—And How Much?” Center for Analysis of Postsecondary Education and Employment, March 2017, source
  5. Belfield and Bailey, “Does it Pay?”
  6. Belfield and Bailey, “Does it Pay?” page 2.
  7. Belfield and Bailey, The Labor Market.
  8. Zhang and Oymak, Participants in Subbaccalaureate.
  9. Defined as requiring less than one year of full-time study (as defined by federal data systems).
  10. Di Xu and Madeline Trimble, “What About Certificates? Evidence on the Labor Market Returns to Non-Degree Community College Awards in Two States,” Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis 38, no. 2 (June 2016): 272–292, source
  11. Zhang and Oymak, Participants in Subbaccalaureate.
  12. Zhang and Oymak, Participants in Subbaccalaureate.
  13. Clive Belfield and Thomas Bailey, Stackable Credentials: Do They Have Labor Market Value? (New York: Community College Research Center, November 2017), source
  14. Mina Dadgar and Madeline Joy Weis, Labor Market Returns to Sub-Baccalaureate Credentials: How Much Does a Community College Degree or Certificate Pay? (New York: Community College Research Center, June 2012), source
  15. For the focus groups, we defined short-term credential as a program of 15 weeks or fewer (including certifications, certificates, and licenses in a variety of fields)
  16. Defined as requiring 40–479 hours to complete. New America analysis of Adult Training and Education Survey (ATES), administered as part of the 2016 National Household Education Surveys Program (NHES: 2016; public use file).
  17. Pell Flexibility Act of 2019, H.R. 2161, 116th Cong. (2019), source
  18. Stephanie Cronen, Meghan McQuiggan, and Emily Isenberg, Adult Training and Education: Results from the National Household Education Surveys Program of 2016 (Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Education, February 2018), source

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Five Things Policymakers Should Know About Short-Term Credentials