Table Of ContentPENNSYLVANIA
COMMUNITY COLLEGE
WORKFORCE EDUCATION STUDY
In late 2020, Pennsylvania community colleges participated in a national study of community college
workforce education. Pennsylvania was one of 14 states where education authorities volunteered to
encourage colleges to respond early enough in 2020 to receive preliminary statewide results in January
2021. This brief compares Pennsylvania to the 14 states in this early-responder group.
The goal of the study: to explore the innovation under way at community colleges across the US and
highlight what these institutions are doing to put Americans to work as the nation recovers from the
Covid-19 pandemic.
Early responders
Credit and noncredit enrollment Percentage of students in credit & noncredit programs
Community colleges report abundant information Pennsylvania
58% 42%
about students enrolled in credit-eligible programs. community colleges
Much less is known about learners enrolled in Credit Noncredit
institutions’ noncredit divisions. This study begins to
All early-responder
72% 28%
address that gap, with a special focus on two-year states
colleges’ noncredit workforce education programs Credit Noncredit
and relationships with employers.
In 2019, 58 percent of Pennsylvania community college students were enrolled in credit-eligible programs; 42
percent were enrolled in noncredit programs. This is a significantly larger share than the average across all
early-responder states, where 28 percent of students were enrolled in noncredit programs.
Noncredit programs
Noncredit programs may include customized contract training provided for specific employers,
occupational education programs open to all qualified students, remedial education, English as a second
language and personal interest courses, among other types of instruction.
In 2019, 61 percent of Pennsylvania noncredit community college students were enrolled in
occupational programs open to all qualified students – a significantly larger share than the average in
all early-responder states.
Pennsylvania community colleges All early-responder states
5% Occupational programs open to all
qualified students 10%
Customized contract training
22%
17%
ABE/ESL/remedial education 42%
4% 61%
Recreational or personal interest 16%
8% courses
16%
Other
Noncredit workforce education
Credentials earned in noncredit occupational education programs
Students who complete noncredit workforce programs generally earn a credential of some kind,
sometimes several credentials. In Pennsylvania, 28 percent of students who completed noncredit
workforce programs earned industry certifications – a somewhat smaller share than the average in all
early-responder states.
Percentage of program completers who earned credentials
The round dots in this figure show the average percentage. The lines show the minimum and maximum
percentages across participating colleges.
Pennsylvania communitycolleges All early-responder states
49% 81% 100%
Noncreditcertificate
0% 55% 100%
0% 28% 53%
Industrycertification
0% 36% 100%
0% 3% 17%
Other third-partycertificationsuch
as governmentcertification orlicensure
0% 23% 100%
2
Embedding industry certifications
Unlike traditional academic credentials, which signal that students have attended and completed a
course of study, industry certifications signal what learners know and what job-related tasks they can
perform – occupation-specific knowledge and skills measured by tests developed by industry groups.
Percentage of Pennsylvania community colleges that embed certifications in credit & noncredit
programs
Credit programs Noncredit programs
Program prepares learners for the assessment but
17% 83% 80% 20%
does not require it
17% 83% Require an assessment to complete the 80% 20%
program
None Half of programs orless More tha n half of programs
Funding
Pennsylvania community colleges look to a variety of sources to provide funding for noncredit
occupational education, with 41 percent coming from students paying out of pocket.
Funding sources
The round dots in this figure show the average percentage. The lines show the minimum and maximum
percentages across participating colleges.
Pennsylvania communitycolleges All early-responder states
Formula-basedstate funding 0% 20% 45%
and state grants
0% 16% 73%
5% 14% 20%
WorkforceInnovation andOpportunity
Act (WIOA) funding
0% 8% 50%
10% 17% 35%
Employer-paid
0% 18% 100%
5% 41% 75%
Self-pay
0% 42% 100%
0% 8% 25%
Other
0% 16% 100%
3
Quality assurance
Pennsylvania community colleges use a variety of strategies to ensure the quality of noncredit
occupational programs. All two-year public institutions in the state said they use local employer input or
regional labor market information to design or revise programs, and 86 percent report that students
earn industry certifications or licensure.
How community colleges ensure the quality of noncredit programs
100%
96%
86% 91% 86%
64%
43%
25%
Programs are designed or revised Students earn industry Programs meet WIOA or Perkins Institution tracks post-completion
regularly based on labor market certifications or licensure standards or are approved by the employment outcomes
information or input from employers state workforce board
Percentage of Pennsylvania community colleges Percentage of community colleges from all early-responder states
Leveraging noncredit learning for college credit
Some 14 percent of Pennsylvania community colleges report that noncredit students who later enroll in
credit-eligible programs can leverage most or all of what they learned in a noncredit program for
college credit ‘most of the time’ – a somewhat smaller share than at community colleges across all
early-responder states.
Colleges where noncredit occupational students who later enroll in credit-eligible programs can
leverage what they learned for college credit
71%
45%
21% 20%
12% 14% 14%
0% 0% 2%
Never Rarely Sometimes Most of the time Always
Percentage of Pennsylvania community colleges Percentage of community colleges from all early-responder states
Demographics
Many community colleges do not track demographic data for noncredit workforce students. In
Pennsylvania, data on race and ethnicity are available for less than half of the noncredit workforce
student body. Across all 14 early-responder states, information of this kind is available for 68 percent of
noncredit workforce students.
4
Employer engagement
Employers collaborate with community colleges in a wide variety of ways, from offering occasional labor
market advice to partnering actively to design and provide instruction.
Employers offering customized contract Employers offering work-based learning, including
training internships, apprenticeships and co-ops
23%
30%
Percentage of employer
partners at Pennsylvania
community colleges
More about this study
A total of 14 Pennsylvania community colleges were invited to participate in this study in October 2020,
and seven responded by December 10, 2020, for a 50 percent response rate. This brief reflects the
responses provided by participating colleges only and may not be representative of all community
colleges in the state.
Pennsylvania data were compared with data from 127 community colleges in 14 early responder states.
All questions in the study asked about fiscal year 2019. Participating colleges could pass over questions
they were unable to answer; missing responses were excluded from calculated percentages.
As postsecondary workforce education evolves, so does the language used to describe it, and different
educators in different states often use different terminology. The language used in this study represents
an effort to find common ground but may not conform exactly with the terminology used in every state.
The survey is still being administered in some parts of the country and is still open to Pennsylvania
colleges that have not yet responded.
For more information about this report, please contact Nicole MartinRogers
at Wilder Research, 651-280-2682 or [email protected].
Authors: Nicole MartinRogers, Edith Gozali-Lee and Julia Miller
JANUARY 2021
