The data part of Workforce Pell

“The Pell Grant remains the best way to help low-income students afford college, and it’s especially important for community college students eager to learn and earn. Every year, 30% of all Pell Grant recipients attend community colleges. Now, with a law that takes effect on July 1, the Pell Grant is expanding to include students enrolling in high-demand, short-term workforce programs. An estimated 187,000 students will receive Workforce Pell Grants each year, averaging around $2,200 and covering programs from 150 to 599 clock hours, or 8 to 15 weeks. (Clock hours are the time students spend in classroom instruction, laboratory training or supervised internships.) Community college students will benefit from this new program, also called the short-term Pell , with an estimated $1.5 billion in grants over 10 years, but it’s too early to tell how much or how many. Much like workforce programs offered by the Department of Labor, Workforce Pell programs are largely determined by states. This has spurred extensive debate as well as the development of helpful tools, such as those provided by the Workforce Pell Data Collaborative . While we focus on state and college data, the impact on federal data collections has been less clear. With the introduction of the Workforce Pell Grant and the re-envisioning of the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) to be more responsive to local leaders – including college presidents – this is the perfect opportunity to revise federal data collections to better understand the success of Workforce Pell Grant recipients. Where things stand Today, colleges report all credit-earning certificates to NCES via the Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System (IPEDS). While colleges report enrollment to IPEDS, they don’t report by program. Rather, we rely on the IPEDS Completion Survey, in which colleges report the number of students completing a program of study and the type of credential earned. Credentials shorter in duration than an associate degree have long been a topic of debate in the data community. This is partly because some of the programs are offered without providing college credit (noncredit), because of the rapid growth of shorter-duration certificates, and because data reporters were concerned that graduation rates were skewed by very short programs. In 2017, NCES hosted a Technical Review Panel to explore how best to organize certificates of less than one year. The field weighed in with recommendations, and NCES decided to make a change starting in the 2019-20 award year. The decision: credit-bearing certificates that were less than one year in duration were split into two groups: “1a” certificates included those that were less than 300 credit hours, and “1b” certificates were between 300 to 899 clock hours. With this change, it was believed that the debate over how to categorize certificates of less than 1 year was resolved. But then comes the digitization of learning, a lagging post-Covid labor force and a re-energized push to count and fund noncredit learning. These underlying tensions contributed to increasing concerns about the cost and value of college. The last bit of added fuel was the Trump administration’s keen focus on aligning workforce-related education and training programs. And the environment was set for the creation of the Workforce Pell Grant – though just how this would impact federal data collection was left until the policymaking was complete. What’s a TRP? Now, NCES, operating at a limited capacity due to substantial staffing and funding cuts, is preparing to explore how to improve IPEDS. This comes at a critical time, not only because of operational cuts, but also because the contract to make IPEDS a reality recently changed after a competitive grant process. While these realities surely cause concerns, the field can take comfort in the fact that Acting IES Director and NCES Commissioner Matthew Soldner is a long-time public servant who is extremely well-versed in administrative procedure, IPEDS and Technical Review Panels. The field will rely on his leadership on June 2 and 3, when an IPEDS Technical Review Panel (TRP) convenes to give experts a chance to discuss the pros and cons. Opportunities ahead As the IPEDS TRP convenes, it’s a signal that NCES is beginning to normalize . The Workforce Pell may or may not be on the agenda; if it’s not, there is an open question whether a TRP should be convened on it. For the Workforce Pell Grant, there are four options to improve IPEDS. Here is how and why: Opportunity 1: Revise the Completions Survey, which defines what a certificate is. First, some basic math: One college credit hour is equal to 30 contact or clock hours. A Workforce Pell Grant program is between 150 and 599 clock hours, making it equivalent to a program that is between five and 19 credit hours. At present, IPEDS uses 300 clock hours as the threshold to split certificates that are less than one-year in duration into two types: “1a” and “1b.” If we compare these new parameters against existing IPEDS definitions, we see that the Workforce Pell Grant overlaps them. If NCES wants to align data collection with student aid program characteristics, the first step is to collect three certificate types in IPEDS, as shown here: Certificates less than one year in duration, by data source and credit hours Opportunity 2. Disaggregate degrees/certificates by Pell status. The IPEDS Completion Survey could be modified in one more way. It could require colleges to report whether a student who earned a certificate or degree ever received a Pell Grant. While technically feasible, this would add complexity to the form and a burden for colleges. And one could argue that the same approach should be applied to students who have received federal aid or a federal loan. One reason to justify Pell-only reporting is that it is not repaid, unlike loans, which must be repaid. It also would follow precedent with another IPEDS collection that requires reporting on Pell Grant students – the Outcome Measures Survey. Opportunity 3. Align graduation rates. The required 70% graduation rate for Workforce Pell programs makes the discussion about completion rates a bit of a contortion. The graduation rate requirement is set at 150% of the typical time to graduation mark. This aligns the Workforce Pell with Student Right-to-Know (SRK) graduation rates, which are codified in law and do not differentiate between learners who were awarded a Pell Grant. Alternatively, the Outcome Measures survey disaggregates outcomes by whether a student received a Pell Grant. So, the most direct fix is to ask institutions to disaggregate SRK graduation rates for students who have ever received a Pell Grant (even for only a term) and those who never received a Pell Grant. Opportunity 4. Add data on grad students . Because Workforce Pell is available to students who have already earned a bachelor’s degree, a graduation rate is being applied to a new type of student: a graduate student. There is an opportunity to make this prevalent in how data are structured, to highlight that completing college at every level in a timely fashion is important, and to remove inconsistent accountability. It also presents a new market segment for community colleges to offer certificates that augment bachelor’s degrees. It will be interesting to see what the future holds. And, surely, there are other elements of the Workforce Pell that need to be considered. Time will reveal the benefits for community college students and all learners. What is certain is that change is on the horizon. The post The data part of Workforce Pell first appeared on Community College Daily .

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