Skills Builders: Research on Upskilling That Helps Community Colleges Redefine Success

The Challenge

Across the country, the push for students to finish their degrees, earn certificates, or transfer to 4-year institutions has helped community colleges focus on clear goals they can measure. But focusing only on completion can hide the value of tailored job training. The way we currently measure completion doesn’t count the achievements of students who

  • participate in apprenticeship programs,
  • earn industry certifications or professional licenses, or
  • take just one or two courses to learn new skills to advance in their careers.

Community colleges need to

  • revise enrollment and funding policies that make it easier for adult learners to engage in short-term upskilling opportunities and
  • help learners build on initial coursework to earn credentials that will increase their earning potential.

How We’re Taking Action

For over a decade, WestEd has partnered with Dr. Bahr to quantify short-term course-taking patterns in community colleges. Together, we coined the term “skills builders”: students who enroll in community college for a short period of time and successfully complete a handful of career-oriented classes. Looking across states and economic cycles, we found that skills builders represent a significant share of community college students and that most realize earnings gains. However, low-income skills builders rarely advance to a more secure economic position.

WestEd helps colleges respond to the need for workers to access additional training to keep up-to-date with evolving job requirements while also addressing the growing narrative that it is possible to secure a well-paid job with minimal education. This includes clarifying the types of courses that skills builders take, the earnings gains that they secure, the characteristics of people who secure those earnings gains, and how those skills relate to regional labor markets. For example, our research showed the following:

  • People who are already making a living wage are successfully leveraging community college courses to advance in their careers in key sectors like public services or wastewater technology.
  • Short-term course-taking in high-demand fields like early childhood education or short sequences of courses taken by recent high school graduates rarely result in living wages.

Outcomes data is only the starting place. Colleges need concrete information to advise both high school students and experienced workers about the pathways that are most likely to help them attain their career goals. WestEd’s Center for Economic Mobility provides information in a format that allows educators to build on existing momentum. For example, we have helped colleges identify whether skills-builder courses are aligned with certificate and degree programs. This lets colleges use research to reach out specifically to skills-builder students to encourage them to return and complete programs that would help them advance in their career.

Resources

Research Conducted in 2022

The University of Michigan analyzed data from Colorado and Ohio and partnered with WestEd to support action planning.

  • View slides from a presentation on research results.
  • Read a practical guide describing actions you can take to strengthen economic mobility for skills builders.
  • Download a methodology for identifying skills builders and their economic outcomes.
  • Read a synopsis of findings tailored for California.
  • Watch a webinar on how findings were integrated into Guided Pathways implementation in Ohio.
  • Watch a 12-minute video on better serving adult learners.
  • Read the transcript of this video.

Research Conducted in 2020

The University of Michigan examined data across California, Colorado, Michigan, and Ohio to analyze skills-builder prevalence, characteristics, course-taking, and educational and labor market outcomes.

Research Conducted in 2013–2015

WestEd and Dr. Bahr conducted qualitative research, funded by LearningWorks, to better understand skills-builder pathways at 10 colleges and created discussion guides and collaborated with practitioner-based organizations to start conversations about the implications of this research.

  • What’s Completion Got to Do With It? applies a cluster analysis to the current conversation on improving completion outcomes and includes a series of questions that could be used to discuss the research. Inquiry Guide

The Ones That Got Away: Why Completing a College Degree Is Not the Only Way to Succeed draws on numerous studies to explore alternative approaches to measuring how well community colleges serve career and technical education students. Executive Summary | Full Report

WestEd’s groundbreaking work on identifying skills builders fundamentally reshaped how we define student success in California’s community colleges by highlighting the value of earnings gains via upskilling. This research has empowered colleges to better understand employment outcomes and design programs that more effectively support students who are enhancing their workforce readiness for career advancement.

Jesse Crete Regional Director, Orange County Center of Excellence for Labor Market Research

What Makes Us Different

Neutral analysis – Rather than arguing that short-term course-taking is beneficial or harmful, we help to clarify the contexts where it makes a difference and who is benefiting from the opportunity.

Practical solutions – In addition to clarifying the economic impact of upskilling, we help colleges design interventions that are specific to their local labor market and educational offerings.

Policy frameworks – We have on-the-ground experience amending local and state incentives that make it easier to serve adults who are seeking to advance in their careers.