This volume addresses the efforts in several states, including California, Florida, North Carolina, and Washington, to determine the economic gains of community college graduates by measuring their post-college earnings. Articles include: (1) "Economic Benefits of a Community College Education: Issues of Accountability and Performance Measures"…

Reauthorization of welfare reform legislation has focused attention on the effectiveness of short-term training as a means for welfare recipients to attain self-sufficiency. Its effects on employment and earnings have been one focus of recent evaluations of federal programs. Although some Job Opportunities and Basic Skills programs produced…

This paper traces the development of community colleges, analyzes their curricular functions, and discusses their contributions to the American educational system. First, several hypotheses accounting for the rise of the community college in America are summarized, including those pointing to a conspiracy of the elite, a populist alliance, and a…

Over the next ten years, the United States will need to train an additional 1.9 million workers in the sciences. Increased participation of women and minorities is essential in meeting the projected need for Science, Mathematics, and Engineering (SME) workers. Women, who received 56% of B.A.'s overall, comprised 37% of the SME bachelor degrees…

Changes in the economy and declining profit margins are prompting many businesses to question the value of their training investments. Companies that had been operating under the assumption that they were reaping positive benefits from their training efforts are asking their human resource managers to provide proof that their training programs are…

The passage of the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act (PRWORA) in 1996 has ushered in a new era of welfare reform. A work-first approach emphasizes self-sufficiency designed to move welfare recipients into the workforce as quickly as possible. The first of two issues related to the current context of welfare-to-work…

Since the 1970s, federal legislation and public and private sector initiatives have attempted to increase the numbers of women employed in occupations considered nontraditional for females. In 1998, women accounted for 20-25% of employees in a handful of nontraditional occupations (NTOs) but less than 10% of employees in many other NTOs. Secondary…