Ascendium Education Group awards Di Xu and team $1.6 million grant to investigate noncredit workforce training programs
The 50-month grant will provide empirical evidence regarding how funding mechanisms may influence program offerings and quality, and racial gaps in student enrollment and outcomes.
By Carol Jean Tomoguchi-Perez
July 17, 2024
July 17, 2024
Di Xu
Di Xu, UC Irvine School of Education professor, is the PI of a $1.6 million grant recently awarded by Ascendium Education Group. Through a longstanding partnership with the Virginia Community College System (VCCS), the grant, From Training to Employment: A Multi-Inquiry Study of Noncredit Workforce Training Programs, will investigate Virginia’s FastForward programs. These noncredit Career and Technical Education (CTE) programs are designed to lead to an industry-recognized credential in a high-demand field. In 2016 the Virginia State General Assembly launched the New Economy Workforce Credential Grant Program (WCG) to expand noncredit workforce training program offerings and increase student access to and participation in these programs. The WCG, implemented as the Virginia “FastForward program,” provides a pay-for-performance model for funding noncredit CTE programs that lead to a credential in one of the high-demand fields set by the Virginia Board for Workforce Development and defined as a discipline or field in which there is a shortage of skilled workers to fill current job vacancies or anticipated additional job openings, including welding, certified medical assistant, and commercial driving.
The grant has four main research goals: to employ a quasi-experimental design to estimate the impact of the Virginia WCG on student noncredit participation, performance, and labor supply, which could be highly valuable to Virginia and other states interested in expanding workforce training; to investigate the signaling value of industry credentials in the labor market by quantifying the labor market benefits attributable to participating in noncredit training versus obtaining a noncredit credential and disentangling training from credential through a quasi-experimental design that leverages student testing records and an audit study that directly examines employers’ perceptions of the value of the FastForward training and industry credentials; to identify sources of support and potential bottlenecks in noncredit programs and credential attainment—prior analyses have surfaced several potential margins for improving outcomes among students in FastForward programs, such as varying industry credential attainment rates across student demographic groups, and increasing credential attainment rates among all student groups could support key equity goals for education and economic mobility; and to estimate the relative impact of FastForward training programs on students’ academic and labor market outcomes, compared to similar programs offered on VCCS’s credit-bearing side.
From Training to Employment builds off earlier research supported by The Lumina Foundation and The Institute for Education Sciences, which provided important initial insights into the FastForward programs and characteristics of students enrolled in them. “Some of our existing analysis suggests that FastForward programs in Virginia have a remarkable completion rate and are related to high industry credential attainment rates. On average, earning an industry credential through FastForward increases quarterly earnings by approximately $1,000,” Xu said. “Considering that noncredit CTE programs such as FastForward often enroll a different segment of the population compared to credit-bearing programs at community colleges, these programs may provide an important alternative pathway to skills and workforce opportunities for populations traditionally underrepresented in the credit-bearing sector. With the additional support from Ascendium, our future research aims to shed further light on how these programs impact the local labor market supply of skilled workers, how they are perceived by employers, and how they can be optimized to serve students, especially those from marginalized groups.”
Co-PIs include Sabrina Solanki, research and program director, Postsecondary Education Research and Implementation Institute at UC Irvine; Benjamin Castleman, Newton and Rita Meyers Associate Professor in the Economics of Education, University of Virginia; Kelli Bird, assistant research professor, University of Virginia’s School of Education and Human Development; Catherine Finnegan, assistant vice chancellor for research and reporting, Virginia Community College System; Betsy Tessler, senior research associate at MDRC; and Daniel Firoozi, assistant professor of economics, Robert Day School of Economics and Finance, Claremont McKenna College. Castleman, Firoozi, Finnegan and Tessler are also subward PIs at their respective institutions. Additional personnel include Marina Bagreev, research analyst and Scott Murrah, data analyst and reporting coordinator at VCCS. The project will also include a postdoctoral researcher and a graduate student researcher at UC Irvine.
The grant has four main research goals: to employ a quasi-experimental design to estimate the impact of the Virginia WCG on student noncredit participation, performance, and labor supply, which could be highly valuable to Virginia and other states interested in expanding workforce training; to investigate the signaling value of industry credentials in the labor market by quantifying the labor market benefits attributable to participating in noncredit training versus obtaining a noncredit credential and disentangling training from credential through a quasi-experimental design that leverages student testing records and an audit study that directly examines employers’ perceptions of the value of the FastForward training and industry credentials; to identify sources of support and potential bottlenecks in noncredit programs and credential attainment—prior analyses have surfaced several potential margins for improving outcomes among students in FastForward programs, such as varying industry credential attainment rates across student demographic groups, and increasing credential attainment rates among all student groups could support key equity goals for education and economic mobility; and to estimate the relative impact of FastForward training programs on students’ academic and labor market outcomes, compared to similar programs offered on VCCS’s credit-bearing side.
From Training to Employment builds off earlier research supported by The Lumina Foundation and The Institute for Education Sciences, which provided important initial insights into the FastForward programs and characteristics of students enrolled in them. “Some of our existing analysis suggests that FastForward programs in Virginia have a remarkable completion rate and are related to high industry credential attainment rates. On average, earning an industry credential through FastForward increases quarterly earnings by approximately $1,000,” Xu said. “Considering that noncredit CTE programs such as FastForward often enroll a different segment of the population compared to credit-bearing programs at community colleges, these programs may provide an important alternative pathway to skills and workforce opportunities for populations traditionally underrepresented in the credit-bearing sector. With the additional support from Ascendium, our future research aims to shed further light on how these programs impact the local labor market supply of skilled workers, how they are perceived by employers, and how they can be optimized to serve students, especially those from marginalized groups.”
Co-PIs include Sabrina Solanki, research and program director, Postsecondary Education Research and Implementation Institute at UC Irvine; Benjamin Castleman, Newton and Rita Meyers Associate Professor in the Economics of Education, University of Virginia; Kelli Bird, assistant research professor, University of Virginia’s School of Education and Human Development; Catherine Finnegan, assistant vice chancellor for research and reporting, Virginia Community College System; Betsy Tessler, senior research associate at MDRC; and Daniel Firoozi, assistant professor of economics, Robert Day School of Economics and Finance, Claremont McKenna College. Castleman, Firoozi, Finnegan and Tessler are also subward PIs at their respective institutions. Additional personnel include Marina Bagreev, research analyst and Scott Murrah, data analyst and reporting coordinator at VCCS. The project will also include a postdoctoral researcher and a graduate student researcher at UC Irvine.
Ascendium Education Group is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization committed to helping people reach the education and career goals that matter to them. Ascendium invests in initiatives designed to increase the number of learners from low-income backgrounds who complete postsecondary degrees, certificates, and workforce training programs, with an emphasis on first-generation learners, incarcerated adults, rural community members, learners of color, and veterans. Ascendium’s work identifies, validates, and expands best practices to promote large-scale change at the institutional, system, and state levels, with the intention of elevating opportunity for learners from low-income backgrounds. For more information, visit https://www.ascendiumphilanthropy.org.
