Results from our survey of employment counselors and program managers confirmed what many would already suspect is true - the attainment of a credential is an important factor in addressing barriers to employment. Research and policy development reflect this relationship between credentials and outcomes, with organizations advocating for the development of cost-effective, close ties between education and workforce development systems.1
Given research on the returns to education, we would expect employment outcomes to be best for postsecondary degree earners and worst for those who did not earn a postsecondary credential. The data presented here is only suggestive of the impact of credentials on employment outcomes-it doesn't tease out other factors related to employment in the way that the Net Impact project does.
A good illustration of this is the difference between the Median Annual Income graph and the Median Yearly Income Change graph with the filters set to "Recently laid off workers", "All Education Levels", and "All Regions". Postsecondary degree earners fare better than the other two groups in the Change graph, but all three groups fare about the same in the Income graph. This suggests that they started off at a lower income prior to participation. Likely, a lot of those participants who didn't earn a postsecondary degree through the program already had a Bachelor's degree or even Master's degree.
STEP 3: Select any combination of educational attainment and geographic region. | |
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Median Yearly Income Change Percent Consistently Employed One Year |
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Median Annual Income After Program Exit Credential Attainment PollChart |
These figures show average outcomes among three groups:
The program counselors we interviewed indicated they connected participants to training or education programs as a way to address employment barriers, and program managers also shared their experiences around credential attainment. A sample of gathered responses is shared below.
1 Among others, see:↩
