A long overdue, much needed transformation is underway in the higher education system. It started a decade ago, when federal and state policy­makers first began to collect data on what students earn after pursuing a postsecondary education. But new data are fundamentally differ­ent. Unlike broad-based national statistics, such as how much someone…

Background/Context: Sub-baccalaureate certificates can provide an accelerated pathway to gainful employment for the unemployed or underemployed. Certificates represented only 6% of postsecondary awards in 1980, but today they represent 22% of all credentials awarded and have superseded associate's and master's degrees as the second most common…

In terms of both dollars and number of participants, the scope of postcompulsory or lifelong learning in the U.S. is extensive. This report enumerates the number of participants in each lifelong learning program, estimates the cost of each program, indicates its funding sources, and describes program participants' demographic and economic…