(This lively debate on the future demand for college-educated workers will continue in our Forum.)

“About every two years someone comes up with this story. There is absolutely nothing to it—it's simply not true,” Peter Capelli, Professor, Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania, commenting on the Georgetown's college labor supply shortage forecast.

(This lively debate on the future demand for college-educated workers will continue in our Forum.)

“About every two years someone comes up with this story. There is absolutely nothing to it—it's simply not true,” Peter Capelli, Professor, Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania, commenting on the Georgetown's college labor supply shortage forecast.

—“Prediction of Worker Shortage Has Critics,” The Press-Enterprise (Riverside, Calif.), April 10, 2010.

The recent response by Anthony Carnevale et al. to our analysis of the fundamental shortcomings associated with their predictions of widespread college labor shortages focuses on three areas. First, they suggest that we are educational Luddites by noting in the title of their response that we believe too many people have earned college degrees in New England. Carnevale et al. claim that we think, “New England is producing 35% more college degrees than are actually required for current and future jobs” because we recognize the real labor market problems that confront too many of our college graduates. We don’t think that New England colleges produce too many graduates, but we do find that a considerable number of recent and past graduates are malemployed and don’t get much of a financial return on their investment and that of society.

We simply argue that Carnevale exaggerates the size of the existing college labor market and overstates demand now - and therefore in the future - because he defines every employed college graduate as being in the college labor market. Why does he do this? Primarily, because he refuses to recognize the widespread problem of malemployment of college graduates, especially in the current, very difficult, employment situation confronting the nation. An even casual reading of numerous articles in the media and on the Internet on the labor market adjustment problems of college graduates, their rising debt loads, and increasing loan defaults would illustrate the situation.

We find that about 25% of all employed college-educated adults in the nation and closer to 40% of recent graduates work in non-college labor market jobs. Some voluntarily do so while others are trapped involuntarily. But, in either case, they receive a substantially diminished rate of return to their degrees compared to those who become employed in a college labor market occupation. We do not argue that these graduates should not have gone to college. Instead, we argue that colleges, employers and other labor market intermediaries need to develop strategies to reduce malemployment rates among college graduates and help them obtain better access to occupations that allow them to utilize their college skills. Otherwise, the expected size of the payoff to a college degree for them is not very high. Denying the existence of widespread and costly malemployment problems does not make this very severe problem go away. It simply diminishes the ability of our education and labor market institutions to effectively respond to the needs of college graduates who are stuck in low-skill, low-mobility and low-wage jobs.

The second issue Carnevale points to is the long-term rise until recently (2000) in the economic return to a college degree, suggesting that we think that college does not pay-off. Again, we have argued that college pays off on average and have written plenty of papers about this. The results of our recent multivariate analysis of the annual earnings premiums of college graduates in New England during 2009 summarized in the Chart 1 below reveal very large earnings payoffs to college graduates. However, the findings clearly reveal that, whether a given graduate’s degree pays off, depends on the success of the individual becoming employed in an occupation that has a substantial set of duties and tasks that utilize the knowledge, skills and abilities that they acquired in college. The estimated annual earnings advantages over and above a high school graduate for those who earn a degree and become employed in the college labor market were 55% for those with an associate degree, 71% for those with a bachelor’s degree, and 107% for those who earned an advanced degree. Among those graduates who were malemployed, however, we found very modest annual earnings advantages ranging from only 5% to 8%.

Source: American Community Survey, Public Use Data Files, analysis by the authors

Carnevale argues that we use a rigid set of “elite, traditional white-collar and professional jobs” to define the college labor market. In fact, we use a very broad-based set of occupations and an objective source of information that utilizes large-scale occupational analysis studies of the knowledge, skills, and abilities used at the workplace. This system was developed and regularly updated by the U.S Department of Labor, Employment and Training Administration through its O*NET system. We readily admit that we exclude many occupations from our listing of college labor market jobs, and our argument is that if you include all occupations in the definition of a college labor market (as Carnevale does), then its usefulness as a measure of the demand for college-level skills has lost most of its utility. Including “everything” in your definition is hardly the basis of any classification system that could serve as a meaningful taxonomy of employer requirements around postsecondary knowledge, skills, and abilities.

The findings in Table 1 below provide estimates of the occupational distribution of the jobs held by recent college graduates under 25 who were malemployed during 2009. The table illustrates the kinds of occupations that we exclude when we define the college labor market. The data also illustrate the kinds of occupations Carnevale et al. include when they determine the size of the college labor market. These 15 occupations are dominated by waiter/waitress, bartender, cashier and retail sales jobs, and low-end service and clerical jobs. The inclusion of so many waitress, waiter, and bartender occupations gives a new meaning to STEM occupation. By the Georgetown authors’ reckoning, all of these are part of the college labor market.

Table 1:

Distribution of the Malemployed with a Bachelor’s Degree Only Under Age 25, by Occupation, Annual Averages, 2009, U.S.

What’s the rationale for including these occupations in the measure of the college labor market? Carnevale et al argue that college degrees generate positive earnings premiums whether graduates are employed as they put it as “insurance agents or a rocket scientist.” But this is a poor example of what they see as our exclusionary classification. We include both of these occupations in our current college labor market definition. We do exclude most clerical, blue-collar production, material moving, retail sales, low-level services and jobs like bartenders such as those listed in Table 1 where entry skill requirements are well below the college level. We suspect that most fair-minded observers would agree that these occupations do not require a bachelor’s degree to become qualified for employment. Nevertheless, the proof is in the pudding and this gets us to Carnevale’s third point.

Carnevale argues that college graduates working in these sorts of non-college labor market occupations earn more than their high school graduate counterparts who are employed in those same occupations—like bartenders or landscapers. As we noted in our initial article in NEJHE, we agree. College graduates who work in occupations outside the college labor market do typically earn slightly more than their high school graduate counterpart, but not much more, and a lot less than their fellow college graduates who did become employed in a college labor market job.

Our findings clearly reveal that in New England college graduates at the associate, bachelors and advanced degree levels employed in occupations outside of the college labor market had annual earnings that were only 5% to 8% higher than those of their high school graduate counterparts, a small but statistically significant annual earnings advantage. Based on other recent research by the Center for Labor Market Studies, we find that some of this advantage is associated with better literacy and/or numeracy skills, making these malemployed college graduates slightly more productive than their high school graduate counterparts—within the constraints of the task/skill requirements of their occupations. That is, being better at math may raise the earnings of malemployed college graduates relative to employed high school graduates—but not by much.

A malemployed college graduate’s earnings are constrained because their ability to use the college-level skills they acquired are limited by the job duties and work tasks associated with their occupation. Graduates of a rocket science program who work as bartenders gets bartender pay. However, their pay will rise sharply when they become employed in a rocket scientist occupation where they are able to engage in a set of job duties and work tasks that better capitalize on the knowledge, skills and abilities that they developed while earning their degree.

What is the evidence for this? As our regression results reveal, college graduates in New England who work in college labor market occupations had annual earnings premiums during 2009 that were about 10 times greater than those of their counterparts who worked in non-college labor market jobs. New England residents with associate degrees who worked in college labor market jobs had an annual earnings premium of 58% compared with just 5% premium for their graduate peers who worked in non-college labor market occupations. At the bachelor’s degree level, New Englanders who work in the college labor market had an annual earning premium of 78% compared to only 8% among those who were employed in jobs outside the college labor market. At the advanced degree level, those employed in the college labor market had an annual earnings advantage of 108%, compared with just 8% for those who worked outside the college labor market

Carnevale and his colleagues do a disservice to the nation’s higher education system by so dramatically overstating the size of the college labor market. The Georgetown projections exaggerate the demand for college degrees in the present and future while at the same time ignoring the large and severe problems of malemployment and even joblessness among college grads around the nation. The consequence is that it suggests that colleges should prepare for a labor shortage problem that is based on a false premise. The nation’s labor markets continue to struggle with unemployment rates that hover close to 10% and under-utilization rates closer to 20%. The Georgetown analysis also fails to recognize the collateral impact of malemployment among college graduates. As college grads move down the labor market queue into occupations dominated by those with less schooling, the employment rates among those with fewer years of schooling plunge. Added labor supply also depresses their wages. Especially hard hit are non-college-educated teens and young adults who can no longer find work as recent college grads crowd them out of the labor market. These displacement effects further erode the value of a college education. So the problem of malemployment among college grads creates additional problems of unemployment and underemployment among non college grads, especially teens and young adults.

The substantial earnings losses associated with malemployment of college graduates also reduce their tax contributions to federal, state and local governments in the form of lower income taxes, Social Security payroll taxes, and state sales taxes. Malemployed graduates are also much less likely to receive health insurance and pension coverage from their employers, further reducing the private and social return to their investments in college.

It is time to stop fantasizing about the future and to start addressing the severe malemployment and joblessness problems confronting college graduates in the present day. The nation needs a laser focus on creating college-related employment opportunities and upward mobility pathways in today’s job market. Right now, there are at least five unemployed workers for every vacant job, and our recent analysis of state job vacancy data suggests that the ratio is 8 to 1 when we focus on only full-time job vacancies and unemployed persons. The pace of new job creation in the U.S. has been sluggish at best. Indeed, at the current rate of growth, the nation won’t recover the entire payroll jobs lost during the Great Recession and its aftermath until the end of 2017. If the labor force continues to grow as projected, the pace of reduction in unemployment rates will be even slower. Higher education’s major challenge is not a labor shortage in 2018. Instead our task is helping our graduates find intellectually fulfilling and economically remunerative employment that provides upward mobility, and favorable economic returns on skills and abilities that all of us desired when we entered college.

________________________________________________________________________

Paul E. Harrington is associate director of the Center for Labor Market Studies at Northeastern University. Andrew M. Sum is the center’s director.

The notion of the "college labor market" as a fixed set of occupations is remarkably static. In contrast, we assume that job and skill requirements are dynamic.

(This lively debate over future demand of college-educated workers will continue in our Forum.)

Northeastern University economists Paul E. Harrington and Andrew M. Sum argue that in our ...]]>

The notion of the "college labor market" as a fixed set of occupations is remarkably static. In contrast, we assume that job and skill requirements are dynamic.

(This lively debate over future demand of college-educated workers will continue in our Forum.)

Northeastern University economists Paul E. Harrington and Andrew M. Sum argue that in our recent report Help Wanted, we “radically overstate the size of the college labor market.”  This overcount, they claim, has nothing to do with the recession. “Even in times of near full employment,” Harrington and Sum argue that “substantial shares” of college-educated workers are “overeducated,” or “malemployed.” Harrington and Sum argue that we so overstate demand for college labor that we “ignore perhaps the most pressing problem facing college graduates today: malemployment, arguing the reality is that more and more college graduates are stuck in low-wage, low-skill jobs. This assertion contradicts the best available data on the hiring and pay practices of American employers. The evidence on earnings and college degrees is unequivocal: Employers continue to demand better-educated employees, and are willing to pay more to get them.

Harrington and Sum rely on official national and state Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) data, which implies that that New England is producing about 35% more college degrees than are actually required for current and future jobs. If true, their empirical assessment of “substantial shares” of “malemployed” people with college degrees in New England includes about 1.1 million people. [1] However, the earnings data raise serious questions about the quality of particular state and national government education data that undergirds their analysis.

If Harrington and Sum and the national and state BLS data are correct, "overeducation" and “malemployment” are rampant in every one of the New England states:

• Connecticut has 248,062 unnecessary degrees;
• Maine has 79,738 unnecessary degrees;
• Massachusetts has 531,669 unnecessary degrees [2];
• New Hampshire has 119,705 unnecessary degrees;
• Rhode Island has 70,904 unnecessary degrees; and
• Vermont has 51,026 unnecessary degrees.

Harrington and Sum have a point on “malemployment.” We agree there is some mismatch between college curricula and career opportunities. As they demonstrate, there are bartenders with bachelor’s degrees even in good times. However, they take the argument about over-qualification too far. The bartenders with bachelor’s degrees (and similar stories) are a testament to our failure to connect college programs to career pathways, but they do not signal overproduction of college degrees in general.

To the contrary, since the 1980s we have been underproducing college talent, and the college wage premium is the proof. Degree production in the 1980s flattened out after baby boomers reached college graduation age, and has remained flat ever since, at slightly above 40% of the labor force. Over the past decades, employers have responded to scarcity in college talent by raising college wages relative to the wages of workers with no more than high school diplomas. Yet in spite of the growing economic advantage of college degrees, the overproduction, over-qualification or “malemployed” school of thought still has a strong following. Harrington and Sum are not alone in their view that Americans get more college than is good for them. [3]

Overproduction?

The overproduction argument is always in the public dialogue, but gets more traction in hard times when even the most highly educated are unemployed or underemployed. The Great Recession of 2007, like recessions before it, has many people publicly wondering whether college is a safe investment. Hard times always inspire stories like bartenders with bachelor’s degrees, as well as the ever-popular cab drivers with PhD's and janitors with advanced degrees. With many college graduates unsuccessful in finding work, the temptation to reject postsecondary education as a viable economic option grows more tempting, especially among working families where college costs are always a stretch. Since we project a continuing slow recovery through 2016, the over-qualification and “malemployment” argument will likely get even more traction.

Media stories on the value of college follow the business cycle, and the bad advice gets more pointed as the recession deepens. The prominent conservative economist Richard Vedder thinks we need only a small fraction of the college talent we now produce. Charles Murray believes the vast majority of Americans are not innately intelligent enough for real college curricula. A few months ago, The New York Times suggested “Plan B: Skip College,” while the Washington Post ran “Parents Crunch the Numbers and Wonder, Is College Still Worth It?” Even the Chronicle of Higher Education has succumbed, recently running “Here’s Your Diploma. Now Here’s Your Mop,” a story about a college graduate working as a janitor that implies a college degree may not be worthwhile in today’s economic climate.

The New York Times and other prominent newspapers were printing the same kind of stories in the early 1980s during the last severe recession. The Times ran headlines like “The Underemployed: Working for Survival Instead of Careers.” The Washington Post even ran the college graduate-to-janitor story back in 1981: “When Lyman Crump graduated with a liberal arts degree he was confident his future rested in an office somewhere. But after working a year as a file clerk, Crump, 31, took a higher-paying job as a janitor.”

These ideas of “overeducation” were popular among labor economists in the 1970s and 1980s. It was in the context of stagflation in the 1970s and early 1980s that the big think books and articles were written about over-qualification and “malemployment.”  In that era, Harvard economist Richard Freeman wrote the Overeducated American and University of Pennsylvania sociologist Ivar Berg wrote Education and Jobs: The Great Training Robbery. It was also in the 1970s  that Frederick Harbison, the seminal author mentioned in Harrington and Sum’s critique of our work, coined the term “malemployment” as he worried over the ability of the economy to employ the full talents of the baby boom in other than low-wage, low-skill jobs. The BLS chimed in as well. As late as 1984, as the “bidding war” for college talent was underway, the New York Times quoted BLS Associate Commissioner Ronald Kutscher as saying “We are going to be turning out about 200,000 to 300,000 too many college graduates a year in the 80's. ... the supply far exceeds the demand.”

A boom in college jobs and earnings

Their central premise proved embarrassing when the boom in college jobs and earnings came in the 1980s—a boom that has continued with no sign of stopping, although it has slowed in recessions and picked up again in recoveries. After the early 1980s, the surplus of baby boomer college grads quickly became a shortage and spawned the most rapid and highest college wage premium in history.

The source of error in the dire predictions in the 1970s and early 1980s was too strong a focus on demography and not enough focus on the "upskilling" that would come with the knowledge economy that was replacing the industrial economy. At 74%, the college wage premium still dominates our labor markets and is the major cause of growing income inequality. Moreover, most of the growth in college degree requirements and earnings came in occupations where college degrees weren’t deemed “necessary” in the official data—occupations like insurance agents and financial analysts.  Going forward, both the demography and economic change favor increased demand for college degrees. The baby boom that reduced the college wage premium in 1970s by surging into the workforce will be surging out of the labor force over the next two decades. This most highly educated generation includes more than 40 million workers, each with roughly 40 years of experience. The retirement of college-educated baby boomers will only increase the demand for degrees to make up for their lost educational attainment as well as their experience.

That’s why we use the actual earnings of college to determine the demand for postsecondary education in the labor market instead of relying on the BLS’s subjective and static designations of college and non-college occupations. We reason that if the wages of people with postsecondary education are high and/or rising relative to people without postsecondary education within an occupation, there is an advantage that postsecondary education confers.  People with postsecondary education in these occupations, therefore, are not overeducated, because they see a real return to their educational investment—while all degrees may not produce equal returns, in virtually all cases, that return is far greater than the cost of obtaining the degrees. [4]

The difference between Harrington and Sum and BLS and our method is that we believe that we should not define the "college labor market" as “essentially a set of occupations,” in keeping with the elite, traditional, white-collar and professional jobs. The notion of the "college labor market" as a fixed set of occupations is remarkably static. In contrast, we assume that job and skill requirements are dynamic. Technology and other economic forces are constantly updating the skill requirements in jobs.  We view a college job as any job that brings substantial, positive earnings returns to a college degree, irrespective of occupation—whether an individual is an insurance agent or a rocket scientist. In contrast, Harrington and Sum argue that the economy and employment is like a game of musical chairs where opportunity is limited by a very small and fixed set of college jobs, many fewer than the economy’s college graduations.

Most importantly, what Harrington and Sum miss by defining occupations as either college occupations or non-college occupations is the shift toward increased postsecondary requirements that occurs even within occupations that are not deemed college jobs at a given point in time.  Their conclusions don’t coincide with the consensus among labor economists—that there has been a consistent shift towards increased postsecondary requirements on the job across a growing share of occupations that previously did not require two year or four year college degrees. [5] The increasing demand for college degrees among managers, healthcare workers, and office workers are examples in the white-collar world.  The increasing degree requirements among computer and information systems workers, production workers who become degreed technicians, the growth in healthcare technicians, and increased degrees among workers in utilities and transportation are examples in the blue-collar and pink-collar worlds.

The standard explanation for those shifts within the economics literature is a concept called “skill-biased technology change.”  The core mechanism behind this is that information technology automates repetitive tasks, increasing the relative value of non-repetitive tasks in individual occupations.   The relentless engine of technological change, spurred onward by global competition, drives up skill requirements and demand for postsecondary education and training within occupations—all occupations, not just “professional, technical, managerial and high-level sales occupations.” There is no indication that the economic trend has suddenly reversed itself, and the demographic effects of baby boom retirement are clear.

Moreover, our method is careful to minimize counting statistical outliers like those ever-present bartenders, cab drivers and janitors with BA’s and graduate degrees. As we point out in our Help Wanted study, these kinds of mismatches between degrees and low-skilled jobs are relatively small in number and don’t matter much in an economy of almost 150 million jobs. In addition, we have to account for the fact that most bartenders with bachelor’s degrees will eventually move on to better-paying jobs. Many workers are just passing through low-wage, low-skill jobs as part of their natural career progression and are not indicative of career-long effects of college degrees. Over a 10-year period, each cashier job has 13 incumbents who permanently leave the occupation; among medical doctors, that replacement rate is only one. People rarely leave jobs that require college because they have the best earnings, benefits and working conditions. There are many more brain surgeons who used to be cashiers than there are cashiers who used to be brain surgeons.

In addition, these kinds of non-college jobs are greatly over-represented in the official data because so many of them are part-time.  Although low-wage, low-skill jobs make up 20% of all jobs in a single year, they only make up 14% of the hours worked in a single year. Jobs that require a BA or better make up 30% of  all jobs, but 75% of them are full-time, full-year jobs, compared with 64% of jobs that require a high school diploma or less.

The BLS method: flaws and misinterpretation

Bartenders with bachelor’s degrees aside, in the final analysis, Harrington and Sum rest their empirical case on an appeal to a higher authority above reproach: the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. Harrington and Sum write:

“Could BLS, the most objective, impartial and certainly data rich observer of American labor markets so objectively underestimate the demand for college graduates for such a relatively short time horizon? Our answer to this is no!”

We beg to differ.

We have high regard for BLS, and believe that the national and state level BLS occupational and employment data are unimpeachable. However, the BLS educational data is an offhand by-product of its employment and occupational data and is of substantially lower quality.

To a large extent, the poor quality of data that connects education to labor markets is a natural function of institutional silos. Labor departments at the federal and state level produce good employment, earnings and occupational data but are weak on its link with education. Education departments are strong on educational data but not its linkages with occupational and labor market data. Since no agency has responsibility for linking education and employment data, the connection is done badly and does not square with the broader economic literature that has shown skyrocketing returns to college degrees since the 1980s. That is why we set out in Help Wanted to link degrees and jobs both historically and over the near future.  Our report includes our results.

Because of the silos that separate official data on jobs form the official data on college degree production, the quality of data that links education to careers gets very little scrutiny  Every state and the vast majority of social scientists use the BLS education data uncritically. Similarly, Harrington and Sum accept the BLS data as gospel. In this regard, they are not alone. BLS’s deserved reputation on employment data gives its undeserved credibility to its static and misleading metrics on education requirements in labor markets. Very few ever look closely enough to see the huge discrepancies between the BLS and Census data on educational demand, or read the fine print, indicating that the Bureau does not claim to project educational demand. [6]

The Census data allow us to assess the BLS method. The Census Bureau actually counts college workers and their earnings in jobs. As time passes and the census data catch up with the BLS projections, we can determine if the BLS projections were accurate. To get to the punch line: The BLS projections always underpredict college demand.The BLS estimate the numbers of college degrees required and the census data report the actual numbers of college degrees employers hired; their conclusions are dramatically different. When we compare the BLS projections for 2006 and the actual count of people in the labor force with degrees in 2006, we see that the BLS undercounted the true count of postsecondary-educated workers by 17 million  in 2006, or roughly 30%, and by 22 million, or 40% in 2008. Our alternative method missed by 4%.

The bottom line is that the BLS predictions didn’t even come close to what actually happened in the economy. The only way to reconcile the BLS projections with what actually happened is to assert, as BLS, Harrington and Sum argue, that BLS is predicting the number of college degrees that employers require, not the actual numbers of college educated workers that employers hire. If this is the case then not only did employers hire these "extra" workers, in 2006 and 2008, but paid them more than 70% wage premiums for postsecondary degrees they didn’t need.   This would be cause for concern—it would mean that in 2008, 22 million workers—or more than a third of all workers with postsecondary education—got an appreciable economic benefit from their degrees that they didn’t earn. It would mean that employers were smart enough to cut back the college wage premium in the 1970s when they experienced an oversupply, courtesy of the baby boom, but the same employers started throwing money at degrees in the 1980s and continue to do so. If Harrington and Sum are correct, crisis abounds, markets don’t work, employers are irrational, and preparing your children for college is naive for all but a very select few.

We hope the dialogue over the measurement of the future demand for postsecondary-educated workers does not end here, but is carried into state agencies.  We need to know why the national and state BLS data show so much difference between what they estimate as the number of required college degrees and the actual counts of college degrees in each state. Intuitively, the difference between what the BLS says is required and the actual number of degrees is overqualification or “malemployment.” If that’s what the BLS believes, it needs to expand on why overqualified workers with college degrees make so much more than workers with high school or less. Eventually, the steady progress in most states to align education and careers will ultimately make the current flaws in our information systems moot, but in the meantime the myth of overeducation is perpetuated in national and state labor market data.

Unfortunately, the myth of overeducation misinforms policymakers looking for places to cut their budgets, and, worst of all, discourages decisions about college-going that are made at kitchen tables all across America. The sensationalist stories, the high unemployment among college graduates, and the misleading official data are unlikely to keep middle- and upper-class youth from going to college.  The real tragedy of these headlines is the message they send to less privileged youth for whom college is not an assumed path. The negative press on college fuels preexisting biases among working families that college is neither accessible nor worth the cost and effort. Moreover, the bad press and worse data strengthen the hand of elitists who argue that college should be the exclusive preserve of those born into the right race, ethnicity and bank account.

[1] Nationwide, a comparison of the BLS and Census data shows 37% or 22 million college degrees that are not required, even though employers pay much higher wages for these unnecessary degrees than they do for high school degrees.  See author’s calculations, CPS, various years.

[2] This count includes associate degrees and higher.

[3] Anyone who knows them or their work knows that Harrington and Sum are not to be associated with another popular view on overqualification that begins with the assertion that the majority of Americans are not smart enough for college. This elitist view on what’s best for other people’s children is most closely associated with Charles Murray and Richard Vedder and many more who believe we are lowering the bar by increasing access to college. To their credit, Harrington and Sum worry that college isn’t good for many students, not that the students aren’t good enough for many colleges. Our argument with Harrington and Sum is one of fact not values.

[4] Our projection method intentionally minimizes the impact of outliers—like bartenders with college degrees. For more information, please see the technical report on our website and Appendix 4 in our report.

[5] There is a deep and long literature on this subject.  It is best and most recently summarized in Claudia Goldin’s and Larry Katz’s book The Race Between Education and Technology (Harvard University Press, 2008).  The empirical essence of Goldin’s and Katz’s and Katz’s narrative is that the rising wage premium for college proves that technology is increasing the demand for college workers faster than we can produce them since the 1980s.

[6] The BLS does not claim to analyze educational demand nor do they project these estimates. The BLS data don’t project skill change at all. Instead they “assign” the most significant education and training requirements for employment in 755 particular occupations. BLS does not track skill or earnings from skill in occupations empirically.  Their educational assignment method is based on the subjective judgment of analysts in consultation with experts and 755 occupations, and requires a lot of subjective judgment and consultation. To some extent, BLS‘s limited efforts are a function of their limited goals. The fine print in the BLS data states at great length that their purpose is to represent the most significant education and training requirement in particular occupations. BLS recognizes assigning a single education level to a job does not accurately reflect what is needed on the job.  As they will tell you if asked, virtually every occupation in the economy comes with a variety of legitimate educational attainment levels.  According to BLS:

Because of the variability of job functions within a given occupation, and because different employers have many different requirements of education and training, workers in the same occupation can have substantially different education and training backgrounds. [BLS, 2009]

The New England states, like the rest of the nation, are finally starting to show signs of a recovery from the Great Recession of 2008, albeit at different paces. Three of the states, however, still have unemployment rates that are about four percentage points above where they were before the recession began in 2007 ...]]>

The New England states, like the rest of the nation, are finally starting to show signs of a recovery from the Great Recession of 2008, albeit at different paces. Three of the states, however, still have unemployment rates that are about four percentage points above where they were before the recession began in 2007 (Rhode Island, Massachusetts and Connecticut). The smaller increases in unemployment rates in the remaining states (Maine, New Hampshire and Vermont) can be partially explained by an increasing fraction of people joinin g the ranks of the discouraged worker, or a changing demographic composition favoring older workers.

Arising from this recovery, America will find itself on a collision course with the future: not enough Americans are completing college. In its most recent report, Help Wanted: Projections of Jobs and Education Requirements Through 2018, the Georgetown University Center on Education and the Workforce has shown that by 2018, we will need 22 million new college degrees to meet employers’ demand—but at current graduation rates, we will fall short of that number by at least 3 million postsecondary degrees, associate or better.

This 3 million shortfall is the equivalent of 300,000 additional graduates each year between now and 2018, or a 10% a n nual increase in degrees conferred by colleges and universities nationwide. College degrees are not the only kind of credential the American economy will come up short on; we will also need at least 4.7 million new workers with postsecondary certificates. At a time when every job is precious, this shortfall will mean lost economic and social opportunity for millions of American workers.

We cannot afford to linger on memories of an economy that promised well-paying jobs for anyone who graduated from high school. Over the past three decades, higher education has become a virtual must for American workers. Between 1973 and 2008, the share of jobs in the U.S. economy that required postsecondary education increased from 28% to 59%. According to our projections, the future promises more of the same. The share of postsecondary jobs will increase from 59% to 63% nationally over the next decade. High school graduates and dropouts will find themselves largely left behind in the coming decade as employer demand for workers with postsecondary degrees continues to surge.

In addition to the increasing education requirements of occupations, postsecondary education has become the threshold requirement for a middle-class family income.  In 1970, almost 60% of high school graduates were in the middle class. By 2007, the share had fallen to 45%. Over that same period, people with college degrees (bachelor’s and graduate degrees) have either stayed in the middle class or boarded the escalator upward to the highest three family income deciles.

The increased earning power conferred by postsecondary education and training is both tangible and lucrative over a worker’s lifetime. The range in lifetime earnings by educational attainment is greatest between high school dropouts and professional degrees—a range of $1,198,000 to $4,650,000, or a difference of $3,452,000.

Postsecondary education is your umbrella to weather the storm of economic adversity. During this recession, high school dropouts were three times as likely to be unemployed as holders of bachelor’s degrees or better. Yet, a higher level of education alone is not the answer to greater opportunity. Occupational choice and to a lesser extent, industrial choice also determines wages and economic prospect. For instance, 43% of workers with licenses and certificates in fields such as drafting or electronics earn more than their colleagues with an associate degree. About 27% of workers with licenses and certificates earn more than employees with a bachelor’s degree, and 31% of those with associate degrees earn more than their counterparts with a bachelor’s degree according to the National Education Longitudinal Study, 2000 .

These are the tangible benefits to postsecondary education. There are unmeasurable benefits as well. For example, education an educated citizenry can continue to defend and promote democratic ideals. Ultimately, however, the economic role of postsecondary education is central, especially in preparing American youth for work and helping adults stay abreast of economic change.

Our Help Wanted report demonstrates that employers will increasingly demand proof of competency of workers, not only in terms of formal degrees, but also through industry-based certification programs and credentials that require periodic renewals. We must create the appropriate infrastructure to generate:

1. Highly structured “learn and earn programs” like apprenticeships and on-the-job training;
2. Compressed training programs that integrate basic skills preparation with fast and intensive occupational training leading to postsecondary certificates with demonstrated labor market value;
3. Effective job and skill counseling for unemployed and underemployed experienced workers and working students to provide accurate information on earnings potential and career pathways;
4. Systems for maximizing the labor market value of postsecondary education and training programs by tying postsecondary transcript data with employer wage records data currently housed in the U.S. Employment Services; and
5. Statewide and nationwide development of online job search systems that match job openings and career pathways to available courses offered by nearby postsecondary institutions and as online courseware.

The New England states should make a firm commitment to improve access, reduce cost, improve efficiencies and better align students with viable job opportunities. Such a commitment is even more relevant as the U.S. Government considers requiring short-term credentialing programs to pass an earnings potential litmus test in order to be eligible for federal student aid programs.

New England: A Look at the Numbers

Table 1: Percentage of jobs that will require postsecondary education by 2018

The educational demand for jobs in New England in the next decade is as diverse as the states themselves.  Relative to the national average of 63% of jobs requiring postsecondary education and training, three states, Massachusetts, Connecticut and New Hampshire (68%, 65% and 64% respectively) are above average; Rhode Island and Vermont are just below the national trend. Due to a variety of economic factors explained in greater detail below, Maine demonstrates below average proportions of jobs (59%) requiring postsecondary education and training in the future. It is 32^nd in the nation.

These outcomes are influenced by many factors including the industrial make-up of the state, educational characteristics of the workforce and, increasingly, by the occupations that make up the different industries.   Career ladders are increasingly tied to occupations, that is, what you do, rather than where you do it. People no longer work their way up from the loading dock to the CEO’s office; instead they get educated and trained to perform a specific role, and progress upwards in an occupational hierarchy. Some occupations are tied to particular industries, such as healthcare occupations, but in many other cases, people cross between industries throughout their career. Someone trained in a sales occupation can make a living selling travel deals, computer equipment, and then stocks and bonds. Though these are all different industries, the jobs the individual holds will continue to require higher and higher levels of formal education tied to his or her occupation.

Occupations, Industries, and Education

Of all the occupations, Healthcare Professional and Technical, Education, STEM, Community Services and Arts and Managerial and Professional Office have the highest concentrations of jobs requiring some college education, a postsecondary vocational certificate or degree.

Among industries, our forecasts show that Information Services, Private Education Services, Government and Public Education Services, Financial Services and Professional and Business Services industries, have the highest concentrations of jobs requiring some college education, a postsecondary vocational certificate or degree. Furthermore the education-intensive industries of Information Services, Wholesale and Retail Trade Services, and Healthcare Services are the three fastest-growing industry sectors, while the traditional, less education-intensive base industries of Manufacturing and Natural Resources rank seventh and 13^th.  This means that states that use that particular occupational and industrial mix most intensely, by definition, will require the highest concentrations of postsecondary training of its workforce.

Overall, both occupations and industries with the fastest-growing output have the highest education requirements.  Thus, economic growth in the coming decade will be driven by the ongoing shift to a “college economy.”

Maine Will Fail to Attract High Paying Jobs in Growing Sectors

In 2018, 59% of all jobs in will require postsecondary education and training beyond high school.  The current job mix for Maine shows below average concentrations of workers in Private Education, Professional and Business Services, Information and Private Education Industries and above average concentrations in Manufacturing and Natural Resources. These characteristics contribute to a subdued demand for postsecondary education in Maine, compared with other New England states. There is an extraordinarily high demand for workers with high school diplomas, ranking Maine third in the nation in the proportion of its jobs for high school graduates.

Table 2: Snapshot of Educational demand for Total Jobs (2008 and 2018)

In 2018, there will be more jobs in Maine whose highest level of education is high school than jobs for holders of bachelor’s degrees and graduate degrees combined. The high school dropouts will still be concentrated in traditional industries like natural resources and manufacturing and occupations such as installation, maintenance and repair jobs, production occupations and farming fishing and forestry. Jobs requiring postsecondary education will span the entire occupational spectrum, but are generally organized in Education, Sales and Office and Administrative Support, Healthcare Practitioners and Managerial fields.

Maine will create 196,000 job vacancies from new jobs and from job openings due to retirement, 115,000 of which will be for those with postsecondary credentials.

Today, Maine is on par with the rest of the nation in the proportion of its residents with a college degree. But the state will fall behind in this measure if current trends in college completions and net migrations continue, according to research by the National Center for Higher Education Management Systems (NCHEMS).

New Hampshire Poised for a Boom in Post-recession Postsecondary Jobs But Will its Workers Be Prepared?

By 2018, 64% of jobs in New Hampshire will require postsecondary education and training beyond high school.  The current job mix for New Hampshire shows above average concentrations of workers in Professional and Business Services, and Healthcare Industries. These characteristics contribute to an elevated demand for postsecondary education in New Hampshire, compared to her New England sister states. There is particularly high demand for workers with bachelor’s degrees, ranking New Hampshire seventh in the nation in the proportion of its jobs for high school graduates. New Hampshire will show the biggest growth of all the New England states in net new jobs, 11%, by 2018. The largest growth in net new jobs created will require bachelor’s degrees (11%) or graduate degrees (13%).

Table 3: Snapshot of Educational demand for Total Jobs (2008 and 2018)

Job opportunities for those with postsecondary education and training will be twice as large as those for high school graduates in 2018. Bachelor’s degree jobs will increase by close to 20,000 over the 10-year timeframe. The jobs for holders of bachelor’s degrees will be concentrated in white-collar fields such as Computer and Mathematical Sciences, Education and Managerial jobs.  Substantial numbers of jobs also exist for holders of associate degrees in Sales and Office and Administrative Support fields.

New Hampshire will create 223,000 job vacancies, including new jobs and replacement jobs due to retirement, 141,000 of which will be for those with postsecondary credentials.

Vermont to Create Thousand of Postsecondary Jobs Despite Slow Growth

By 2018, 62% of Vermont jobs will require postsecondary education and training beyond high school.  The current job mix for Vermont shows above average concentrations of workers in Private Education and Healthcare Services. These characteristics contribute to a great demand for postsecondary education in Vermont, compared with other New England states. There is a relatively high demand for workers with bachelor’s degrees, ranking Vermont ninth in the nation in the proportion of its jobs for holders of bachelor’s degrees. Graduate degree jobs will grow by 8%, higher than any other education category over the 10-year timeframe. Despite these achievements, however, net new jobs will only grow by 3%– the second lowest rate of all New England States.

Table 4: Snapshot of Educational Demand for Total Jobs (2008 and 2018)

The distribution of jobs for those with postsecondary education and training will be very diverse in 2018.  Jobs at the top end for holders of bachelor’s degrees or better will outstrip jobs in the middle for holders of “Some College" or associate degrees by 18,000. Education and Healthcare will be the most substantial employers of college-educated citizens of Vermont.  Sales jobs, Food preparation and Serving and Office and Administrative support will dominate the demand for holders of high school diplomas.

Vermont will create 100,000 job vacancies from new jobs and job openings due to retirement, 62,000 of which will be for those with postsecondary credentials.

Today, Vermont ranks substantially above the rest of the nation in the proportion of its residents with a college degree and will remain ahead in this measure if current trends continue, according to NCHEMS research.

Massachusetts to Produce Half of All Postsecondary Job Vacancies in New England

By 2018, 68% of all jobs in Massachusetts will require postsecondary education and training beyond high school.  The current job mix for Massachusetts shows above average concentrations of Healthcare Services and Professional and Business Services. These characteristics result in an elevated demand for postsecondary education in Massachusetts compared with her New England sister states. Not only is the demand for postsecondary education in training highest in Massachusetts of the New England states, that demand is concentrated in bachelor’s degrees or better. Massachusetts ranks first in the nation in the proportion of its jobs for bachelor’s degrees and second in the proportion of its jobs for graduate degree holders. Bachelor’s degree and graduate degree jobs will have the largest growth in net new jobs created at 7% and 9% respectively.

Table 5: Snapshot of Educational Demand for Total Jobs (2008 and 2018)

There will be over 2.5 times as many jobs for holders of some postsecondary education and training than jobs for high school graduates by 2018. Graduate jobs will be concentrated in Education and Healthcare Professional jobs while bachelor’s degree jobs will be concentrated in Office and Administrative Support and Managerial professions.

Massachusetts will create 1 million job vacancies from growth and retirement, 707,000 of which will be for those with postsecondary credentials.

Today, Massachusetts is the best performing state in the nation in the proportion of its residents with a college degree and will remain on top if current trends in college completions and net migrations continue, according to NCHEMS research.

Percentage of Jobs for High School Dropouts Highest in Rhode Island

By 2018, 61% of all Rhode Island jobs will require postsecondary education and training beyond high school.  The current job mix for Rhode Island shows relatively high concentrations of workers in Healthcare and Leisure and Hospitality, and below average concentrations in Professional and Business Services and Finance. These characteristics result in a slightly lower demand for postsecondary education in Rhode Island, compared to the rest of New England. There is a very high demand for workers with graduate degrees, leading to Rhode Island ranking ninth in the nation in the proportion of its jobs for holders of graduate degrees.

Table 6: Snapshot of Educational demand for Total Jobs (2008 and 2018)

Eleven percent of jobs in 2018 will require a high school diploma—the highest proportion of high school jobs in the New England states. Job opportunities for those with middle education levels—associate degrees and "Some College" will be just as large as job opportunities for high school graduates.  These “middle-skill” jobs will be concentrated in Office and Administrative Support, Sales and Blue-collar jobs by 2018. Bachelor’s degree holders will be concentrated in Education and Managerial occupations.

Rhode Island will create 153,000 job vacancies due to both retirement and job growth, 93,000 of which will be for those with postsecondary credentials.

Today, Rhode Island ranks ahead of the nation in the proportion of its residents with a college degree, and NCHEMS research suggests the state will perform substantially above average in this measure if current trends continue.

Connecticut to Produce a Quarter of All Postsecondary Job Vacancies in New England

By 2018, 65% of all Connecticut jobs will require postsecondary education and training beyond high school.  Connecticut’s economy features above average concentrations of workers in Healthcare, Professional and Business Services, and Financial Services. These characteristics result in an elevated demand for postsecondary education in Connecticut, compared to the rest of the region. There is an extraordinarily high demand for workers with bachelor’s degrees or better, ranking Connecticut 8^th in the nation in the proportion of its jobs for bachelor’s degrees holders and fourth nationally in the proportion of jobs for those with graduate degrees.

Table 7: Snapshot of Educational demand for Total Jobs (2008 and 2018)

Jobs for holders of a bachelor’s degree of better will exceed the number of opportunities for workers with middle skills (Some College or Associate’s degrees) or holders of a high school diploma only. Graduate degrees and bachelor’s degrees will be concentrated in Education and Healthcare fields.

Connecticut will create 564,000 job vacancies from new jobs and job openings due to retirement, 359,000 of which will be for those with postsecondary credentials.

Today, Connecticut is above the rest of the nation in the proportion of its residents with a college degree. NCHEMS research however, has estimated that this state will fall behind if current trends in college completions and net migrations continue.

Bridging the Gap: Developing a Career Development Information System

The Help Wanted report highlights the need in the U.S. economy for more workers with postsecondary education and training in order to leverage economic opportunity. The next stage of this analysis should discuss the data we need to better align curricula to training and to jobs. In the above diagram, the units of analysis at the pinnacle are the decision-makers—both from an institutional perspective of placing scarce resources to their most efficient use—and from an individual’s perspective of making long-term career decisions and selecting the education and training required to achieve their goals.

The U.S. is unable to help people match their educational preparation with their career ambitions—but not because it cannot be done. All the information required to align postsecondary educational choices with careers is available, but unused. The forecast in this report demonstrates that projecting education and job requirements is technically feasible with a minimum amount of error. We need to build analytical capacity to empirically answer the questions that parents, young adults and educators alike have been asking all along. The mechanism required should connect the college supply engine (transcript data) to workforce development (unemployment wage records) to opportunities in real time (current job openings).

The data apparatus in the figure above closes the loop of institutional decision-making and individual career choices and outlines a system that could fully address the following challenges:

1. Are some credentials worth more than others, and if so by how much?  Connecting wage records to transcript data will allow us to give a more nuanced answer than the standard hierarchical relationship between formal education levels and compensation differentials.
2. What are the successful education and career pathways? To what extent have the steppingstones of certificates achieved their goals of providing upward mobility for lower-income Americans? An analysis of longitudinal survey data that traces individual attainment, occupational choice and wage outcomes is the only way to test the long run successes of individuals as they navigate their lives.
3. Are students able to define the distance in bite-sized attainable clusters of courses between their current level of attainment and the attainment required to gain access to their desired profession? A “learning exchange” could connect the students to current job openings and a sample of colleges and universities that offer the courses he or she needs to attain that job.
4. How closely aligned are curricula to the knowledge, skills, abilities, work activities and interests of occupations? How effective are institutions of higher learning at preparing their students for the tasks and work activities that they will encounter in the workplace? For example, the O*NET database created by the National O*Net Consortium and funded by the U.S. Department of Labor specifies the full set of occupational competencies required for success in particular occupations and related clusters of similar careers. Currently, its primary use is as a counseling tool for career planning, delivered online through a user-friendly interface. Its potential remains largely untapped.
5. The human capital landscape has evolved beyond traditional formal diplomas and degrees to include industry-based certifications and state required licenses. How valuable are industrial-based certifications, how prevalent are they in the society and to what is their marginal value to formal education levels?

The current economic climate further heightens the need to create data system that increase the efficient allocation of scare resources, reduces employment search time due to mismatch and asymmetric information and provides decision makers with the resources they need to better align career decisions with long term economic interests.  To do otherwise risks leaving hundreds of thousands of workers behind, as the economy recovers and builds for the future.

And that would be a dismal recovery, indeed.

________________________________________________________________________

Anthony P. Carnevale is director of the Georgetown University Center on Education and the Workforce. Nicole Smith is senior economist at the Georgetown University Center on Education and the Workforce.

The U.S. once had the world’s highest percentage of adults with a college degree, but has now dropped to 10th, according to the OECD. In an attempt to reverse this slide, a number of policymakers and foundations have sought to make increased degree attainment a national priority. President Obama has articulated the goal that America ...]]>

The U.S. once had the world’s highest percentage of adults with a college degree, but has now dropped to 10th, according to the OECD. In an attempt to reverse this slide, a number of policymakers and foundations have sought to make increased degree attainment a national priority. President Obama has articulated the goal that America will regain the world’s highest rate of degree attainment and challenged every American to complete at least one year of postsecondary education. The Lumina Foundation for Education, likewise, has set a goal to increase the percentage of Americans with high-quality degrees and credentials from the under 40% today to 60% by the year 2025, while the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation aims to double the number of low-income adults who earn postsecondary degrees or other credentials by age 26.

Increasing the number and percentage of Americans with postsecondary education will require a number of strategies, including increasing capacity at colleges and universities and providing access to high-quality college education for more Americans.

But these ambitious goals cannot be met without also dramatically increasing the completion rates at our public colleges and universities. College completion rates in the U.S. are troubling: At public, four-year institutions, fewer than 55% of students earn a degree within six years, while at public, two-year institutions, fewer than 30% of students earn a degree within three years, according to the U.S. Department of Education. Overall, only half of the nation’s students will ever receive the degree they sought to earn. These lost students, who have already demonstrated their desire for postsecondary education and made steps toward reaching it, hold significant potential for being among America’s critical next generation of college-educated workers.

States are the key

Almost three quarters (74%) of America’s college students are enrolled in public institutions of higher education, according to the U.S. Education Department. Since states often have statutory control over public higher education and provide the largest single source of funding, state leaders hold critical levers—and are uniquely accountable—for reshaping policies and improving outcomes in public higher education.

While implementing dramatic reforms may seem daunting to state policymakers in the midst of budget crises, focusing on college completion is critical for states, even—and perhaps especially—in these challenging economic times. First, increasing completion rates will allow America to meet the needs of a new economy that rewards knowledge and innovation. In the next 10 years, more than 60% of jobs will require a college education; indeed, the jobs currently growing the fastest require either an associate or bachelor’s degree or a certificate, according to research at Georgetown University’s Center for Education and the Workforce. Second, college completion can bring positive outcomes to individual students, including increased wages and benefits, plus non-monetary benefits such as better health and better outcomes for future generations, according to 2007 College Board research by Sandy Baum and Jennifer Ma. The current economic crisis has demonstrated the importance of education for individuals and families: Unemployment rates are more than twice as high for those with just a high school diploma (10.9%) than with those with a bachelor’s degree or higher (4.7%), reports the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. Third, these individual benefits translate to significant societal and state benefits, including increased tax revenues and decreased reliance on state services, broader civic participation and increases in the earnings of all workers as overall educational attainment rates rise.[1] College completion is truly a tide that raises all boats.

Joining with other national groups in making college completion a priority, Complete College America (CCA) has set a goal that by 2020, six in 10 young adults in the U.S. will have a degree or certificate, up from the 38% of adults ages 25-34 hold who now hold a college degree, according to the U.S. Census Bureau, 2008 American Community Survey.[2] Such a large increase in completion rates and educational attainment will require more than tinkering around the edges; we need major changes in the way public higher education conceives of and delivers postsecondary education to today’s generation of students—we need innovation at scale.

Bold action

The first step to enabling these bold changes is improved data collection, without which policymakers are hampered in their efforts to analyze barriers and identify opportunities for improvement, show progress over time, and hold individuals and institutions accountable. Much of the data collected today (particularly by the Department of Education’s Integrated Postsecondary Data Systems, or IPEDS) fail to adequately capture college completion rates for huge numbers of America’s students—especially part-time and transfer students. Nor does IPEDS allow for disaggregation by ethnicity, income or by age groups, all of which are necessary in order to close gaps and ensure that postsecondary success rates are keeping up with the dramatic demographic shifts taking place across the country. Collecting data that are comparable across institutions and states will also help to identify barriers to student achievement and guide actions that might improve student success. In addition to completion, these data should include measures of progress and the intermediate milestones that research has shown predict student success in earning a degree or certificate.

In addition to collecting and analyzing the data, a number of other state policy levers are critical for driving improvements in college completion. States have the opportunity to influence policy by using performance funding, by transforming the delivery of developmental (remedial) education, and restructuring the delivery models of higher education to meet the needs of today’s new generation of students—both young and adult. [See “Putting Money Where the Mouth Is Ways to Build Momentum for College Completion,” The New England Journal of Higher Education, Dennis Jones.]

Performance funding ties institutional appropriations to outcomes, not simply to enrollments, and allows states to align their fiscal policies with their statewide goals for workforce development and economic prosperity. For example, states can provide funding based on the number of courses completed or the number of degrees and credentials earned. While the use of performance funding has been controversial and its implementation uneven, states can emphasize specific goals by providing funding incentives in areas such as the success of low-income or underrepresented students or degrees produced in key industry sectors such as health care, engineering, and technology.[3]

States must also take on remedial education; while evidence on the effectiveness of remedial education is mixed, for far too many students, it represents a dead end. Students who need remediation are required to take courses that do not count toward their degrees, adding time and expense to their studies with dismal results. More than 40% of all students (and 60% of community college students) enter postsecondary education needing remediation, but fewer than 25% of students who enter remedial courses ever earn a degree or certificate, according to research by Thomas Bailey of the Community College Research Center at Teachers College, Columbia University.

Innovative programs in community colleges have shown that remediation can be improved by targeting it through improved diagnosis of student needs, tailoring it to focus only on those skills that students need, and helping move students as quickly as possible into courses that count towards a degree. Specifically, remediation can be embedded within credit-bearing courses, technology can target specific academic deficiencies, and anchor assessments can be performed while students are still in high school to accelerate their progress once they arrive in college (e.g., the California State University “Early Start” program and Tennessee’s community colleges’ implementation of the National Center for Academic Transformation remedial education models).

Finally, public colleges and universities must restructure the delivery of higher education to meet the needs of today’s students. No longer does the majority of students attend full-time, live on campus, and complete a degree within four years; instead, most students are attending school part-time while juggling families and work. Promising models suggest that restructuring the delivery of postsecondary education with a focus on transparency, consistency and structure leads to significantly better outcomes for students. These models use block scheduling, offer degree programs instead of courses, take advantage of the known benefits of cohorts and learning communities and integrate remediation into credit-bearing or career-oriented courses.[4]

Each state faces its own set of demographic and economic challenges, but increasing educational attainment is a common goal for state policymakers as they seek to ensure the future health of their economies. Twenty-two states have joined the Complete College America Alliance of States in order to elevate college completion in their policy agendas and develop plans to make dramatic increases in attainment over the next decade. These and other states have also been leaders in helping their public colleges make improvements in access and completion through participation in national initiatives like Achieving the Dream and Access to Success. These complementary efforts have shown promising results, yet in light of the promise postsecondary education holds for each individual, family, and community—and to meet our goals as a nation—there is much left to do.

Stan Jones is founder and president of Complete College America. David Soo is state policy analyst at Complete College America.

Endnotes

[1] Sandy Baum and Jennifer Ma note in their report Education Pays: “Estimates suggest that controlling for other factors, a 1 percentage point increase in the proportion of the population holding a four-year college degree leads to a 1.9% increase in the wages of workers without a high school diploma and a 1.6% increase in the wages of high school graduates.”

[2] No reliable national data are available on the percentage of adults who hold a postsecondary certificate. The president and other national organizations, including CCA, believe that completion should be defined as a earning a bachelor’s or associate degree, or a certificate of at least one year in length that has demonstrated labor market value (Bosworth, 2010; Carnevale, Strohl & Smith, 2009; Washington State Board for Community and Technical Colleges, 2005; Wheary & Orozco, 2010).

[3] Under its current performance funding system, Indiana rewards increases in the on-time graduation rates at public colleges and universities, increases in transfer rates for community colleges, and increases in the numbers of low-income graduates. Ohio has also phased in a performance funding system that utilizes different formulas for each sector (community colleges, branch campuses, and research universities) and incorporates progress indicators for community colleges.

[4] For examples of successful highly structured and accelerated programs, see the City University of New York (CUNY) Accelerated Study in Associate Programs (ASAP); Community College of Baltimore County’s Accelerated Learning Program (ALP); and the Tennessee Technology Centers.