Analyzing TAACCCT Grants Using the Career Pathways Framework

To better understand career pathways and career progression, we analyzed the same 36 third-party TAACCCT grant evaluations that were included in the meta-analysis using a career pathways framework developed by Bragg, Endel, and colleagues at Jobs for the Future as part of What Works for Adult Learners.¹ In this framework, three dimensions of career pathways are identified as (1) pathway entry, (2) integrated training and education, and (3) career progression.

By pathway entry, we mean workforce development and training strategies, often non-credit in nature, that are designed to prepare students for education at the postsecondary level, including credit-bearing courses, and placement in entry-level employment. Pathway entry strategies include bridges, bootcamps, fast-track training, and other approaches found in the Integrated Basic Education and Skills Training (I-BEST), Accelerating Opportunity and similar models.² By integrated training and education, we mean blending of workforce development and training (non-credit or credit) with postsecondary occupationally focused credit education that leads to employment, beyond entry level. By career progression, we mean postsecondary education and training that enables career advancement so individuals can move up career ladders, including advancing through middle-skill occupations to professional-level employment. Career progression emphasizes the sequencing of programs of study with aligned high-quality credentials leading to associate as well as bachelor’s (or higher) degrees. This vision of career pathways recognizes career progression that enables workers to move up not as an “add-on” strategy, but as necessary for upward educational and economic mobility.

Using this framework, we studied the extent to which pathway entry, integrated training and education, and career progression were planned and executed in the TAACCCT grants. We re-analyzed the 36 third-party evaluation reports included in our earlier meta-analysis,³ and we supplemented these data with qualitative interviews with evaluators and grant personnel. We also compared these results to earlier results of the What Works for Adult Learners study, to provide further evidence of how career pathways were structured and implemented in the TAACCCT grants.

First, looking at findings from the What Works for Adult Learners study, we found only one-third of 16 evaluation studies funded by the federal government, mostly DoL or the Department of Health & Human Services, or private foundations, integrated career progression into career pathways. Instead, most career pathways focused on short-term credentials and did not include college degrees, with some also not including college credit. These pathways tended to prioritize student access to training for entry-level employment over advancement to postsecondary education and employment.

Next, applying the career pathways framework to the 36 evaluation studies included in our meta-analysis, we found 31 evaluations explicitly referenced career pathways as an overarching approach to TAACCCT and of these 31, two-thirds integrated career progression. This is a major difference from career pathways evaluations reported in What Works for Adult Learners that is worth exploring. One reason for this difference may be that the TAACCCT grant program emphasized transfer and articulation as a core element, encouraging higher education institutions to accept academic credit associated with career pathways. The prominent role of postsecondary career and technical education (CTE) programs that culminate in associates degrees, such as nursing and engineering technology programs, may have contributed to career progression too. Other strategies emphasized by TAACCCT may have also reinforced career progression, including the use of stacking and latticing credentials and articulation agreements linking applied associate degrees to bachelor’s of applied science degrees.

Having noted the promising development of career progression under TAACCCT, we also want to acknowledge the challenges faced. Numerous evaluations commented on grants falling short of goals to create transfer and articulation agreements. Some grantees limited plans to create credit-bearing course sequences and abandoned attempts to enhance transfer options. Given the importance of career progression to upward mobility, we need to know more about how career pathways integrate career progression in the context of TAACCCT.