Scaling Up Career Pathways Through TAACCCT

Between 2011 and 2018, the federal government made an unprecedented investment in community colleges to help get Americans back to work. In a nutshell, the TAACCCT grant program funded new and improved integrated workforce training and postsecondary programs in industry sectors recognized as integral to stimulating state and local economies. In total, 256 grants equaling nearly $2 billion were awarded to single postsecondary institutions and multi-institutional consortia. Eighty-six percent (630) of 729 institutions funded by TAACCCT were community colleges.¹

The significance of TAACCCT on building the capacity of community colleges cannot be overstated. More than any other federal grant program in U.S. history, TAACCCT targeted community colleges as the primary provider of education and training for unemployed and underemployed adult workers. TAACCCT had another important impact unknown at the time of its passage and that is the blueprint it provided community colleges for recovery from crises such as the one we face now. As COVID-19 spreads, disproportionately impacting Black, brown, and low-income populations, TAACCCT offers lessons on how community colleges can help the nation recover from the pandemic.²

Through TAACCCT, career pathways became the mechanism for delivering high-quality credentials, extending from short-term, non-degree certificates to college degrees. From the first solicitation for grant application (SGA) in 2011, the U.S. Department of Labor incentivized implementation of new and improved programs and services in single institutions or consortia of institutions in each of the 50 states and U.S. territories. In the SGA, the DoL emphasized the uniquely important role community colleges play to “create tailored education and training programs to meet employers’ needs and give students the skills required to obtain good jobs, earn family-sustaining wages, and advance along a career pathway.”³ TAACCCT envisioned partnerships involving community colleges, workforce development, and employers in service to their communities as the driver of economic recovery.

Evaluation conducted by researchers at the Urban Institute confirms the importance of career pathways in the TAACCCT grants. Urban Institute researchers confirmed community colleges used TAACCCT to create a wide range of programs and services aligned with the career pathway approach. They observed TAACCCT was instrumental in “support[ing] the creation of career pathways by developing stackable credentials, most typically in the form of certificates,”⁴ noting these credentials support employment in health care, manufacturing, information technology (IT), energy, and other industries important to revitalizing local and state economies.

Other results published in the federal evaluation of TAACCCT show promising employment outcomes, and additional analysis of TAACCCT evaluation studies further support these findings. For example, a team of researchers affiliated with DVP-Praxis, LTD worked with third-party evaluators to re-analyze data from seven TAACCCT consortia involving 49 colleges in eight states. This study concluded TAACCCT participants who completed non-degree credentials were more likely to be employed than comparison groups who did not finish these credentials.⁵ Moreover, the findings showed credentials of six months to two years produced stronger employment outcomes than shorter term, non-degree credentials of less than six months, lending credence to career pathways that emphasize career progression and upward mobility.