Community access and participation for people with intellectual and developmental disabilities (IDD) depends in part on competent, committed direct support professionals (DSPs) who support people with IDD. With knowledge of the person's communication preferences, support needs, and environments where supports are provided, DSPs can support their…

What professional development do assessment professionals need to succeed in higher education? To meet the rising demands in the field, assessment professionals seek ways to improve their skill sets. The current study utilized survey responses from over 200 higher education assessment professionals across the United States to assess the amount of…

Many public workforce training programs lead to industry-recognized, third-party awarded credentials, but little research has been conducted on the economic benefits of these credentials in the labor market. This paper provides quasi-experimental evidence on the labor market returns to industry-recognized credentials connected to community college…

Across the country, as technology continues to advance rapidly, the labor market exhibits a growing need for workers who receive frequent and ongoing skill development. Employers in many fields struggle to find adequately trained workers to meet their needs. Community college noncredit career and technical education (CTE) programs are an important…

This article estimates earnings impacts for those who completed long-term college credentials (degrees or college certificates requiring a year or more of study) and those who did not in an experimental evaluation of a federally-funded sectoral job training program. The experimental evaluation found no overall impact of the program on earnings,…

Information technology (IT) plays an increasingly significant role in today's world. The COVID-19 pandemic has increased that reliance. Employers in all industries are struggling with considerable shortages of skilled IT workers and are seeking innovative alternatives to meet these needs. Digital badging and micro-credentials have emerged as an…

Economic shocks provide both risks and opportunities for workplace training programs--the risk of program cancellation or interruption to skills development, and the opportunity to be at the vanguard of economic recovery. This paper analyzes the impact of COVID-19 and the resulting economic shock on training programs in the US using a survey…

Jobs and the labor market have changed dramatically. The COVID-19 pandemic put millions of people, across all industries, out of work and disproportionately impacted workers of color, women, and workers without a college degree. This toolkit provides a map for how states that are looking to improve credential quality and transparency can use the…

Texas depends on a talented workforce to fuel its economy, and Texans depend on our public education system to prepare them for the jobs of today and tomorrow. But unfortunately, workforce and public education systems often operate independently, making innovation and improvement difficult. Between now and 2036, over 70% of the jobs in Texas will…

Individuals in the United States can pursue a variety of different types of postsecondary education credentials. This Perspective describes four common types: degrees, certificates, industry certifications and licenses, and apprenticeships. Bachelor's degrees are the most commonly awarded postsecondary credential in the United States…

Economic downturns, like a global pandemic, magnify the need for timely, accurate, and complete data that policymakers need to make data-informed decisions that will help workers, businesses, and their communities recover. Good data helps to better understand what's working and what's not in terms of creating greater access to workforce…

Interest in the field of career and technical education (CTE) has experienced a resurgence over the last decade, as the global economy has grown increasingly competitive while students have continued to leave school underprepared for well-paying twenty-first century jobs. Together and separately, the education and workforce sectors have sought to…

In Mississippi, 57% of job vacancies through 2022 will be middle-skill jobs, but only an estimated 50% of the state's workers will be trained to fill these jobs. The ACT WorkKeys assessment is the primary credentialing tool for high school students entering the middle-skill labor force. The problem addressed in this study is while Mississippi uses…

This report is a response to congressional requests for the Congressional Research Service (CRS) to identify, synthesize, and explain the core components of the workforce skills gap discourse and, to the extent possible, explore and clarify evidence on the existence of skills gaps. The report acknowledges that the skills gap label is often applied…

Weak labor markets typically lead young workers to invest in skills. High unemployment during COVID diverged from prior downturns: enrollment at community colleges dropped by 9.5 percent between 2019 and 2020, with the drop larger among men. COVID disruptions generated supply-side impacts on courses of study requiring significant capital and…