The Mississippi Integrated Basic Education and Skills Training (MIBEST) program provides pathways into college for adult education students across the state. MIBEST is a workforce and economic development effort led by the Mississippi Community College Board and implemented with the state’s 15 community colleges. MIBEST concurrently delivers short-term workforce training, career and technical education, and adult education. The program targets residents without high school credentials, individuals with low incomes, and nontraditional students. This Urban Institute brief is a supplement to their original evaluation and provides an analysis of two factors: the outcomes of student parents and the outcomes of students in different geographic regions.

Over the past three years, the Michigan Center for Student Success (MCSS) at the Michigan Community College Association has focused on implementing the statewide Strengthening MiWorkforce Pathways project. The workforce-focused initiative is one of many system-level efforts among states in the greater Student Success Center Network that embrace and recognize learner agility and learning that happens outside the traditional classroom. The explicit focus on credit for industry credentials provides a framework for state-level strategies supporting community colleges’ efforts to improve student completion rates. This Jobs for the Future post provides an overview of MCSS as well as focus areas for future considerations to support colleges in their efforts to establish equitable credit for prior learning policies and practices.

Federal and state funding for infrastructure, workforce and economic development, and apprenticeship expansion are flowing into states and regional and local entities. These funds are aimed at the needs of industry, creating equitable pathways to well-paying work, and advancing the workforce development goals of federal and state government agencies. The new funding brings challenges around coordination and ensuring it works well with existing workforce development efforts. This AIR blogpost describes two of the primary challenges that come with the new funding and promising solutions to address them.

Young people need both cross-cutting skills and specialized knowledge to thrive in the rapidly changing economy, and business and industry leaders require fresh talent to innovate and grow. Pathways are a strategy to connect education with careers to meet the needs of youth, educators, and employers and create a more thriving and equitable economy. College and career pathways expand economic opportunity for all young people and meet regional talent needs. This Jobs for the Future framework outlines key considerations and promising strategies for pathways leaders who seek to achieve outcomes for youth while strengthening rural communities.

Students who face barriers to success need accessible pathways to economic mobility, but low income and low tolerance for debt present challenges. Strategies at all levels of education, as well as after they enter the workforce, could provide support to achieving their career goals. This Urban Institute report describes results from a survey of career and technical education program administrators, with insights about strategies that can support students in getting jobs that offer pathways to economic stability and long-term upward mobility.

The Office of Planning, Research and Evaluation Pathways to Work Evidence Clearinghouse case studies highlight innovative interventions that aim to improve employment outcomes for TANF participants and other individuals with low incomes, especially public assistance recipients. The purpose of each case study is to feature an innovative but untested intervention that a state, county, community-based organization, or other entity is undertaking. These 21 case studies are intended to help practitioners learn from the experiences of other organizations or agencies implementing innovative employment interventions.

The Launch Pathways Initiative (Launch) is a national college and career pathways initiative focused on advancing high-quality, equitable, and sustainable pathways models at scale. The Launch Partners provide technical assistance to twelve teams from eleven states, organized into two cohorts: the Impact Cohort and the Innovation Cohort. While state teams in both cohorts focus on building more equitable and sustainable college and career pathways systems, the cohorts will follow two distinct paths. This New America blogpost provides a glimpse into the work of the Impact Cohort.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, unemployment in the American economy spiked to 20 million in mid-2020. While it dropped to 5.7 million in December 2022, the labor market is still in flux, and jobs in some fields remain unfilled. In response, higher education systems and states across the country are turning to community colleges to provide both long- and short-term workforce training programs in high-demand fields. The Virginia Community College System has developed programs for helping adults access training and earn credentials that improve their labor market prospects and provide on-ramps to further education. Two of these programs include FastForward and Get a Skill, Get a Job, Get Ahead. This Accelerating Recovery in Community Colleges Network blogpost introduces two research projects on the programs that will provide information about the associations between postsecondary student aid and student education and workforce outcomes, and how community colleges can build pathways to high-opportunity jobs and careers.

Can the promising IT job market improve the economic mobility of adults who are unemployed or looking for higher-wage jobs? This Office of Planning, Research and Evaluation paper examines the Per Scholas WorkAdvance program by exploring opportunities for advancement in two of the IT occupations targeted by the program. The paper outlines potential advancement opportunities within the IT sector and details the career advancement outcomes (as measured by earnings) of program participants. The key findings noted that most participants completed Per Scholas’s WorkAdvance IT training and obtained an industry-recognized certification. Many participants who started Per Scholas’s WorkAdvance IT training increased their earnings over time.

The authors of these five essays explore the extent to which young people from socioeconomically disadvantaged backgrounds achieve steady, decent-paying employment by their early thirties. Using multivariate analysis, they identify factors predicting membership to four different earnings groups. Factors associated with membership in one or both of the higher-earning groups include higher education, military service, union membership, job-related training, and working in a non-service sector occupation at age 25. Factors associated with belonging to a lower-earning group include incarceration, work-limiting health conditions, and prolonged unemployment.