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The number of jobs in computer science (CS) and information technology (IT) is projected to grow rapidly in the United States over the next decade as the demand for workers expands and current CS and IT workers retire. Against the larger backdrop of growth in CS and IT employment and wages nationally, Ohio is looking for ways to grow and diversify its CS and IT workforces. To help support this effort, a RAND research team examined the current state of Ohio's CS and IT workforces and identified ways in which the state might strengthen and diversify these workforces. The team drew on quantitative data from a national survey of households in Ohio and elsewhere in the United States, as well as Ohio administrative records, complemented by qualitative data from focus groups with Ohio students. This brief presents key findings from the research report detailing that study, "Growing the Computer Science and Information Technology Workforces in Ohio. Research Report. RR-A3449-1."

Many states, including Ohio, intend to strengthen and grow their computer science (CS) and information technology (IT) workforces. Jobs in CS and IT are projected to grow in coming years, but it is not always clear how states can expand and diversify their CS and IT workforces. In this report, the authors leverage representative national and state survey data, detailed state administrative data, and focus group data to evaluate how Ohio residents obtain postsecondary CS and IT education, their wages on completion of this education, and factors that facilitate or impede their education and employment in CS and IT. In doing so, the authors aim to help pinpoint ways that Ohio might grow its CS and IT workforces. They also offer suggestions on how state leaders across the United States can grow and diversify these workforces.

More than ever, nations around the world understand that science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) skills are key to driving economic growth and overall competitiveness. A compact between the United States, through the Millennium Challenge Corporation, and the country of Georgia's government sought to bring international higher education to Georgians -- particularly in the area of STEM -- to develop human capital, advance economic growth, and reduce poverty in the country. This effort included a project to ensure and enhance the delivery of high-quality STEM bachelor's degrees in Georgia in four ways: (1) partnering with a U.S. university to offer U.S. STEM degree programs, (2) improving STEM-related infrastructure and technology in partner Georgian universities, (3) assisting partner Georgian universities in reaching international STEM standards and acquiring international program accreditation, and (4) preparing world-class skilled STEM specialists from diverse backgrounds. San Diego State University (SDSU) partnered with three Georgian public universities -- Tbilisi State University, Georgian Technical University, and Ilia State University -- to fulfill these goals. In this report, the authors assess the project's implementation, graduate outcomes, sustainability, and return on investment.

This report describes how six Colorado community colleges used $1.4 million of pandemic relief funding to support individuals pursuing short-term credentials. The authors examined state and college decisions about program eligibility, student eligibility, grant amounts, funding uses, and application requirements as well as outcomes for those receiving funding. Findings from the report can inform future short-term credential funding efforts. [This report was funded by the Colorado Community College System.]

Rising rates of individuals with mental illness in the United States have policymakers, education officials, and medical professionals worried about the need for additional support for struggling college students--and the ability of higher education institutions to provide it. Many colleges have designed and implemented a variety of interventions to ensure that mental health issues do not interfere with students' abilities to persist and succeed in college. In many cases, colleges have begun to integrate mental health supports into wider efforts to proactively connect students with relevant supports to help them address academic and nonacademic challenges. However, some colleges--particularly community colleges--continue to face challenges, such as insufficient resources and capacity to treat mental illness, that prevent them from adequately addressing students' mental health needs. The authors of this report present findings from a descriptive study of ten community colleges in Texas that are working to address student mental health at their institutions. They document the strategies and supports that those colleges have implemented to support student mental health, how the colleges are working to integrate these approaches into the organizational fabric of the colleges, and key challenges to supporting student mental health in a community college setting. They offer a set of recommendations for decisionmakers who are interested in addressing student mental health on community college campuses.

Community colleges and the broader U.S. higher education system are struggling to respond to rising rates of mental health problems among students. Without adequate mental health supports, students risk a wide variety of serious and lasting consequences. Confronted with these issues, federal, state, and college officials lack research guidance about the effectiveness of campus- and system-level mental health responses at community colleges--and how such efforts might integrate with schools' other student support services. In "Understanding How Texas Community College Campuses Are Supporting Student Mental Health," RAND researchers documented their collaboration with University of Texas, Dallas researchers who led the study of ten Texas community colleges' approaches to supporting student mental health. The research team found that while the schools offer a variety of mental health supports, many of these approaches are not evidence-based, and few target students at higher risk of mental illness (e.g., Black, Indigenous, and other students of color; students identifying as lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer or questioning [LGBTQ]; and first-generation college students). The research team also identified various challenges to supporting student mental health, including schools' limited resources and care capacity and students' low awareness of mental health supports.

Micro-credentials are increasingly being adopted across a variety of industries and countries, including the kindergarten through grade 12 education system in the United States, as a way to identify workers with specific skills, knowledge, and competencies. This report presents the results of a study conducted by RAND researchers who investigated the implementation and impact of teacher micro-credentials intended to improve high school science, technology, engineering, and math teaching and learning in Louisiana. The creation, design, and implementation of micro-credentials was undertaken through a collaboration between the Louisiana Department of Education, Louisiana State University, and BloomBoard. RAND researchers designed and executed a randomized controlled trial of the effectiveness of micro-credentials and an implementation study. The study indicated that teachers' engagement with micro-credentials was relatively low and that micro-credentials did not lead to an increase in student achievement. That said, participating teachers reported that the micro-credentials were well aligned with their courses and supported their teaching practice. Study implications include that micro-credential providers and stakeholders should clearly communicate the value proposition and time requirements of micro-credentials to teachers, as well as provide ample peer and asynchronous supports to teachers for undertaking them.

Until recently, many colleges provided academic support to students by requiring students to complete one or more developmental education courses in a subject area before they could enroll in college-level coursework. Now colleges have been experimenting with new approaches that accelerate students into college courses, including corequisite remediation. Corequisite remediation requires that students who are identified as requiring additional academic support be placed immediately into a college course while receiving aligned academic support during that same semester. Research has shown that corequisite remediation has positive impacts on academic outcomes relative to the traditional approach of requiring students to take developmental education courses. However, little is known about how student experiences differ in corequisite remediation relative to developmental education courses. In this report, researchers use student survey and administrative data from a randomized control trial at five community colleges in Texas and qualitative data to examine contrasts in student experiences between college students who were assigned either to corequisite remediation or to standalone developmental education courses. Findings indicated that corequisites improved student experiences in many areas, including: early opportunities to gain momentum; intensity and compression of academic practice; rigor of coursework and expectations; alignment of academic remediation with college coursework; and opportunities for peer learning. Findings also indicated that corequisites reduced student exposure to stigma. Our measures of opportunities for student-centered learning and support for success skills indicated no differences or favored traditional developmental education.

Federal, state, and local initiatives have encouraged education and training providers to build stackable credentials, a series of postsecondary credentials that can be earned over time and that build on each other to prepare individuals for different needs for knowledge and skills throughout a career. By offering flexible pathways that allow individuals to earn credentials incrementally and work as they earn credentials, stackable credentials can advance economic and educational opportunity for low-income individuals and other groups that have not been well served in traditional degree programs. However, there is limited evidence on whether low-income individuals are benefiting from stacking credentials and whether low-income individuals face systemic barriers to equity within stackable credential pipelines. In this report, the authors take a mixed methods approach to examining stackable credential equity in Colorado and Ohio, two states pursuing stackable credential initiatives. The authors analyzed administrative data to describe patterns in credential-stacking and in earnings for low-income individuals relative to middle- and high-income individuals. They identify four potential systemic barriers to equity within stackable credential pipelines and interview key stakeholders to learn more about factors contributing to these barriers and discuss options to ensure equitable opportunities to stack credentials across fields of study and institutions.

Community colleges enroll a diverse set of students who often face challenges meeting their basic needs. This report describes the potential benefits and costs of one low-cost and relatively light-touch tool that colleges might use to increase students' access to basic needs assistance. The authors focus on the Findhelp platform, which is modeled as a "social care network" that connects students through an online platform to services that provide help. Findhelp is a website that lists local resources and services, and it is available to anyone affiliated with an institution partnering with the platform. There is little research on Findhelp and similar light-touch resources, so this research documents how the resource was implemented at four community colleges in North Carolina, its implementation costs, and its impacts on student success following implementation. The authors use information from interviews with the campus staff who implemented the platform, administrative student-level data from the North Carolina Community College System on student persistence and credits attempted and completed, and data from Findhelp on how much individual students interacted with the platform. Overall, Findhelp usage rates were low, though usage varied across the participating colleges. Campus staff were enthusiastic about the potential of the platform, and there is some evidence that student success increased when the platform was implemented. In addition, the platform was relatively low-cost to implement compared with other more-intensive approaches for supporting students' basic needs.

The United States faces an unprecedented mental health crisis, with youth and young adults at the center. Even before the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic, nearly 50 percent of college students reported at least one mental health concern. Without adequate mental health support, college students, including those at community colleges, may be at risk for a variety of academic and nonacademic consequences that negatively affect their overall well-being, including lower college completion rates, higher rates of substance use, and lower lifetime earning potential. This research brief describes a study examining eight community colleges from across the United States which found that, although the institutions did offer mental health services, most lacked a clear organizing framework for those efforts, and that financial challenges limited the support offered to students. The research also highlighted the importance of community college leaders explicitly prioritizing student mental health, as well as broad staff buy-in to the effort. [For the full report, "Supporting the Mental Health Needs of Community College Students. Research Report. RR-A2552-1," see ED627480.]

The United States faces an unprecedented mental health crisis, with youth and young adults at the center. Even before the COVID-19 pandemic, nearly 50 percent of college students reported at least one mental health concern. The COVID-19 pandemic notably exacerbated these issues and underscored the urgent need to identify and implement ways to ameliorate the youth mental health crisis. In 2021, the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine called on the field of higher education to address growing concerns about student mental health by identifying and elevating emerging and promising approaches that offer a more holistic way to support students' mental health. Serving as the main entry point for more than 40 percent of students seeking a postsecondary degree, community colleges represent a tremendous and untapped opportunity to better address mental health in the United States, particularly for students who have been traditionally underserved (e.g., students of color, first-generation students, and low-income students). However, community colleges have limited evidence and guidance to inform the implementation of multilevel, holistic approaches to support students with varying mental health needs. To address this knowledge gap, this report shares a descriptive study of eight community colleges at the forefront of implementing multilevel approaches (a combination of prevention, early intervention, and treatment services) to support student mental health, as well as key facilitators for and barriers to their success. [For "How Community Colleges Can Support Student Mental Health Needs. Research Brief. RB-A2552-1," see ED627489.]

The educational outcomes of youth in foster care are far worse than those of other students, in part because transitions into or out of the foster care system and placement changes can lead to frequent school transfers, which are associated with a host of problems. Since the early 2000s, policymakers at the state and federal levels have passed legislation to promote collaboration between the education and child welfare systems, with the goal of improving educational stability for youth in foster care and, in turn, their educational outcomes. But two features of public-sector systems in the United States might pose barriers to cross-system collaboration: (1) fragmentation?within?systems; and (2) jurisdictional misalignment?across?systems. In this report, the authors explore the implications of fragmentation and misalignment for cross-system collaboration between public education and child welfare systems. They draw on interviews with education and welfare system representatives and adults who have experience in foster care, as well as case studies of four states' efforts to implement cross-system collaboration. The authors find common challenges to collaboration, including high staff turnover, limited preservice training on educational stability, and geographical dispersion. The authors offer suggestions for how policymakers at the local, state, and federal levels could encourage better cross-system collaboration.

A growing number of postsecondary institutions and systems have begun offering or scaling stackable credential programs. These structured education and training pathways--in fields such as health care, information technology, and manufacturing and engineering technology--provide individuals with opportunities to earn certificates, postsecondary credentials that require less time to complete than an associate's degree, typically between several weeks and a year of coursework and training to complete. These initial certificates provide individuals with immediate job possibilities. Stackable credential programs may be especially helpful for individuals from historically underserved communities. These programs offer greater flexibility to simultaneously navigate education, employment, family, and other responsibilities. Using administrative data from Colorado and Ohio, this study examined differences in credential stacking and labor market returns from stacking for low-income individuals versus middle- and high income individuals (combined). This report describes this study's approach, its key findings, and the implications of those findings. This report also describes work done by RAND Education and Labor and the Center for the Study of Higher and Postsecondary Education at the University of Michigan--Ann Arbor and documented in "Stackable Credential Pipelines and Equity for Low-Income Individuals: Evidence from Colorado and Ohio. Research Report. RR-A2484-1" (ED627835).

The U.S. manufacturing industry is experiencing a resurgence and faces a growing need for highly skilled workers. Recent reports project that demand for highly-skilled manufacturing workers will outpace supply in coming years, and this shortage may grow as the U.S. manufacturing industry grows and its labor needs shift. Furthermore, manufacturing has traditionally employed a largely white and male workforce, and there is growing interest in bringing a more diverse set of workers into manufacturing. To identify promising strategies to expand the supply of highly skilled manufacturing workers and meet employers' growing skill demands, a group of RAND researchers examined the pipeline between Ohio's postsecondary education system and manufacturing employment in Ohio. The researchers also explored the extent to which workers with manufacturing-related skills or credentials forgo work in the industry. This research brief summarizes the education and employment patterns revealed by the research.

Manufacturing employers often cite challenges to finding and hiring a sufficient number of highly skilled and diverse workers, so it is important to understand how pathways into manufacturing and the retention of manufacturing workers may be improved. The authors of this report address this research gap by examining the pipeline between Ohio's postsecondary education system and the manufacturing workforce. They focus on understanding potential ways to expand the supply of workers and the diversity of the manufacturing workforce. Although Ohio represents a subset of the U.S. manufacturing industry, it has a significant share of manufacturing employment and production. Therefore, it can be instructive for more broadly understanding the challenges and opportunities that workers, employers, and educational institutions in manufacturing face.

"Stackable credential programs" are designed to make it easier for students to earn multiple postsecondary certificates or degrees in a field as they advance in their careers. To examine the stacking of credentials in Ohio and inform ongoing efforts to scale stackable credential programs, the Ohio Department of Higher Education and the RAND Corporation formed a research partnership. In May 2020, RAND released "Stacking Educational Credentials in Ohio: Pathways Through Postsecondary Education in Health Care, Manufacturing and Engineering Technology," and Information Technology, a report that documented how students were moving through stackable credential pipelines in Ohio postsecondary institutions between 2005 and 2015. This toolkit is intended to be a companion document to that report, providing a how-to guide for practitioners who are overseeing stackable credential programs to identify issues in their stackable credential pipelines and make data-driven improvements. Using three stackable credential pipeline issues identified in the 2020 report--i.e., improving rates of stacking for Black students and adult learners, increasing stacking opportunities among students who earn a certificate at an Ohio Technical Center, and reducing excess credit hours--the toolkit illustrates how practitioners can use a four-step process to (1) take high-level statewide findings and collect additional evidence to explore these issues in their context, (2) narrow in on specific levers for change, (3) identify improvements and a framework for assessing them, and (4) carry out rapid cycles of improvement. [For "Stacking Educational Credentials in Ohio: Pathways through Postsecondary Education in Health Care, Manufacturing and Engineering Technology, and Information Technology," see ED613709.]

Stackable credential programs--that is, programs that facilitate students' ability to earn multiple postsecondary certificates or degrees--have been a priority for Ohio, which has a long history of legislation, state and regional initiatives, and institution-led efforts to build more-effective pathways to address the needs of employers and students. To assess progress and inform ongoing efforts to scale stackable credentials, the Ohio Department of Higher Education and the RAND Corporation established a research partnership. In this report, RAND researchers examine students who earned postsecondary certificates in health care, manufacturing and engineering technology (MET), or information technology (IT) fields at Ohio institutions between the 2004-2005 and 2012-2013 academic years and went on to earn (or stack) additional educational credentials. The authors descriptively examine the completion of credentials over time, the types of students who are earning certificates and going on to stack credentials, the subfields and levels of credentials earned, the types of institutions students earned credentials from, and the credit accumulation and terms of enrollment for students earning different types of credentials. The findings indicate increased numbers of students earning certificates and stacking credentials in Ohio. Certificate-earners were diverse, but rates of stacking were lower for Black students and adult learners (i.e., ages 25 and older). Most of the students who stacked credentials had earned a degree within four years, and most stacked within the same field.

RAND partnered with Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board and American Institutes for Research to support the state's developmental education reform efforts through a combination of continuous improvement support and analysis of statewide data on implementation. One of the reforms examined through the study was the state's recommendation that colleges should offer targeted academic support to students who tested at the lowest levels on the state placement exam (i.e., below the ninth-grade level) beginning in fall 2015. To support colleges, Texas policymakers offered resources and guidance in three areas: (1) new, detailed assessment scores that were developed to better identify students entering at the lowest levels of readiness; (2) course offerings and funding that allow colleges to offer concurrent academic support alongside entry-level courses; and (3) guidance and funding to support the referral of students into to adult and continuing education programs. In addition to describing these reform efforts and the students they targeted, this report provides findings from case studies and statewide survey data regarding how institutions responded to the state's recommendations and the challenges colleges faced. The report also highlights lessons learned for colleges in Texas and across the nation as they explore options for serving students who test at the lowest levels of readiness.

All students--particularly students of color--benefit academically and socially from having teachers who are people of color. However, people of color face systemic barriers to becoming and remaining teachers at multiple points throughout their careers. For example, people of color are more likely than their White peers to incur student debt, might not have access to teacher role models who share their lived experiences, experience bias during the hiring process, and are more likely to work in challenging environments once they become teachers. This report presents selected findings from the 2022 State of the American Teacher survey related to increasing the racial and ethnic diversity of the teacher workforce. The authors surveyed and interviewed teachers and convened a panel of education policymakers to gain deeper insight into the policies and practices that could be most effective for recruiting, hiring, and retaining teachers of color. The teacher voices presented in this report provide a source of evidence that teacher preparation providers, education leaders, and policymakers could use to identify and prioritize a set of practices to increase workforce diversity in their localities. [For "State of the American Teacher and State of the American Principal Surveys: 2022 Technical Documentation and Survey Results. Research Report. RR-A1108-3," see ED621137.]

In March 2022, RAND researchers administered the fourth and final Learn Together Surveys (LTS) via the RAND Corporation's American Educator Panels. The 2022 LTS differs in two key ways from its predecessors. First, the 2022 sample includes K-12 educators whereas previous administrations of the LTS sampled only educators in schools serving grade 6 or higher. Second, the 2022 LTS greatly expands the number of items on teaching math. This report provides information about the sample, survey instrument, and resultant data for the 2022 LTS. It includes a full set of basic frequency tables for each survey. The LTS focus on several topics, including serving students with disabilities, supporting students' postsecondary pathways, data for decisionmaking, teaching math, social and emotional learning, and educator well-being. The survey results are intended to inform policy and practice related to these and other topics. This report serves as technical documentation for reports and data notes that draw on 2022 LTS data. The 2022 LTS yielded 3,608 complete responses for teachers and 1,696 complete responses for principals, and the responses are weighted to ensure that they are nationally representative. [For the 2021 report, see ED615574.]

Community colleges play a key role in driving talent development in the United States, producing workers with the kinds of training that employers need while enhancing economic mobility for students. There has been a push among policymakers at the federal and state levels to hold community colleges accountable for the employment outcomes of their students, with funding and legislation that endorses models that strengthen college partnerships with employers. In this report, the authors systemically examine the type of career services and college-employer partnership practices in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) fields across three states -- California, Ohio, and Texas -- and a sample of community colleges that operate within them. In addition, the authors investigate the challenges that these colleges face in facilitating student employment and the ways in which state policies may have influenced practice. They reviewed state policies and collected interview data from 134 participants, including state and system leaders, college leaders, program heads and faculty, career service leaders and staff, and employers.

This report in brief shares findings from the RAND Corporation's five-year study of The Wallace Foundation's University Principal Preparation Initiative (UPPI). The job of the school principal has become much more complex and demanding over the past several decades. Many university-based principal preparation programs (PPPs)--which prepare the majority of school principals--have struggled with how to make the fundamental changes needed to prepare principals for today's schools. To test a path forward, The Wallace Foundation provided grants to seven universities and their partners to redesign their PPPs in line with research-supported practices. Key findings, which suggest that significant change around research-based practices is possible, are presented in this report. This report illustrates that it is feasible for universities -- in partnership with high-need districts, state agencies, and with the support of mentor programs that have engaged in successful redesign -- to improve principal preparation programs to reflect the best available evidence. [For the full report, see ED620465.]

The job of the school principal has become much more complex and demanding over the past several decades. Many university-based principal preparation programs -- which prepare the majority of school principals -- have struggled with how to make the fundamental changes needed to prepare principals for today's schools. This report shares lessons learned from redesigning university principal preparation programs. From 2016 to 2021, seven university principal preparation programs, with their district and state partners, fundamentally reshaped their principal preparation programs under The Wallace Foundation's University Principal Preparation Initiative (UPPI). This report describes the methods of and findings from the RAND Corporation's five-year study of UPPI. It is primarily intended as a secondary resource for readers who would like more detail about the study's findings and methods. Key findings are highlighted in the report in brief and three upcoming targeted reports: one for principal preparation programs, one for school districts, and one for state education organizations. [For the report in brief, see ED620468. For Volume 2, see ED609667.]

In the past decade, various stakeholders in the public and private sectors in Hawai'i have sought to increase the state's investment in child care and early learning programs. A new Executive Office of Early Learning was established in June 2012 to build a statewide early childhood development and learning system. The state also established a publicly funded preschool program in 2013-2014 with the eventual aim of universal access for all 3- and 4-year-olds. At the same time, like other states, Hawai'i has struggled to ensure that it has a well-prepared and well-compensated early care and education (ECE) workforce commensurate with this vision. Through a contract with the Research Corporation of the University of Hawai'i, this RAND Corporation report is intended to provide analytic support for the ECE Project's compensation and financing strategy by (1) documenting the landscape for the ECE workforce in the state in terms of compensation, working conditions, and professional development and (2) identifying policy options for addressing challenges in these areas. In an effort to expand understanding of the ECE workforce and develop a road map for the future, the study brings together previous data and research; new data collected by the RAND team through interviews, focus groups, and a survey; and case studies. [This report was sponsored by the University of Hawaii at Manoa, College of Education.]

Community colleges play a key role in driving talent development in the United States, producing workers with the kinds of training that employers need while enhancing economic mobility for students. There has been a push among policymakers at the federal and state levels to hold community colleges accountable for the employment outcomes of their students, with funding and legislation that endorses models that strengthen college partnerships with employers. In this report, the authors systemically examine the type of career services and college-employer partnership practices in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) fields across three states -- California, Ohio, and Texas -- and a sample of community colleges that operate within them. In addition, the authors investigate the challenges that these colleges face in facilitating student employment and the ways in which state policies may have influenced practice. They reviewed state policies and collected interview data from 134 participants, including state and system leaders, college leaders, program heads and faculty, career service leaders and staff, and employers.

The job of the school principal has become much more complex and demanding over the past several decades. Many university-based principal preparation programs--which prepare the majority of school principals--have struggled with how to make the fundamental changes needed to prepare principals for today's schools. To test a path forward, The Wallace Foundation provided grants to seven universities and their partners to redesign their principal preparation programs in line with research-supported practices. This targeted report shares findings from the RAND Corporation's five-year study of The Wallace Foundation's University Principal Preparation Initiative (UPPI), with an emphasis on findings for school district leaders. [For "Collaborating on University Principal Preparation Program Redesign: A Summary of Findings for University Principal Preparation Program Providers. RAND Principal Preparation Series. Volume 3, Part 3. Research Report. RR-A413-5," see ED621347.]

The job of the school principal has become much more complex and demanding over the past several decades. Many university-based principal preparation programs--which prepare the majority of school principals--have struggled with how to make the fundamental changes needed to prepare principals for today's schools. To test a path forward, The Wallace Foundation provided grants to seven universities and their partners to redesign their principal preparation programs in line with research-supported practices. This targeted report shares findings from the RAND Corporation's five-year study of The Wallace Foundation's University Principal Preparation Initiative (UPPI), with an emphasis on findings for state policymakers. [For "District Partnerships with University Principal Preparation Programs: A Summary of Findings for School District Leaders. RAND Principal Preparation Series. Volume 3, Part 4. Research Report. RR-A413-6," see ED621351.]

The job of the school principal has become much more complex and demanding over the past several decades. Many university-based principal preparation programs--which prepare the majority of school principals--have struggled with how to make the fundamental changes needed to prepare principals for today's schools. To test a path forward, The Wallace Foundation provided grants to seven universities and their partners to redesign their principal preparation programs in line with research-supported practices. This targeted report shares findings from the RAND Corporation's five-year study of The Wallace Foundation's University Principal Preparation Initiative (UPPI), with an emphasis on findings for other principal preparation programs. [For "Redesigning University Principal Preparation Programs: A Systemic Approach for Change and Sustainability--Report in Brief. RAND Principal Preparation Series. Volume 3, Part 2. Research Report. RR-A413-4," see ED620468.]

This Perspective summarizes recent trends in young peoples' entrance into and completion of postsecondary educational programs. Education is an important pathway into well-paying jobs and the American middle class. Education levels have been rising for the past 50 years, including large gains for many demographic groups. But declining public support for higher education, increasing costs of college attendance, and low college completion rates threaten young adults' pathway to a two- or four-year college degree. Additional research is needed on how to bolster college success and improve our understanding of alternative college credentials. [Funding for this research was made possible by the Lowy family, whose generous gift established the RAND Lowy Family Middle-Class Pathways Center.]

Instead of enrolling for four or more years to get a bachelor's degree, what if individuals could work their way toward a degree gradually? First, they would attend college or a trade school for six months or a year and earn a certificate that prepares them for an entry-level job in various fields. Then, they would pursue additional knowledge and skills at the time they need them to advance their careers, reenrolling in college to continue progress toward a second certificate or degree. This might allow these individuals to invest their time and tuition dollars more strategically, and they might come away with training that better fits their needs. This approach to education and training is often referred to as "stackable credentials." Stackable credentials are most common in fields that offer many "middle skill" jobs--those that require some postsecondary education and training below the bachelor's degree level--such as health care and information technology. Ohio has been a leader in scaling stackable credential programs. It established statewide agreements that require credits to be awarded for certain blocks of coursework that previously were not eligible for credit, and it increased the funding allocated to certificate programs. Have institutions changed the programs that they offer? Are students stacking credentials, and, when they do, are they seeing an increase in earnings? Researchers at the RAND Corporation and the Ohio Department of Higher Education (ODHE) established a multiyear partnership to answer these questions and others. To find the answers, the team examined the state's stackable credential offerings and student outcomes in three fields: health care, manufacturing and engineering technology (MET), and information technology (IT). This brief describes work in the reports "Stacking Educational Credentials in Ohio: Pathways Through Postsecondary Education in Health Care, Manufacturing and Engineering Technology, and Information Technology" (ED613709); "Making Improvements to Stackable Credential Pipelines: A Toolkit on Using Data to Drive Improvement in Ohio Postsecondary Institutions" (ED613757); and "Stackable Credential Pipelines in Ohio: Evidence on Programs and Earnings Outcomes" (ED613593).

This document provides the technical appendix that accompanies the study, "Student Experiences in English Corequisite Remediation versus a Standalone Developmental Education Course: Findings from an Experimental Study in Texas Community Colleges. Research Report. RR-A810-1" (ED612531). Between fall 2016 and fall 2018, the authors conducted an evaluation of English corequisite models in five Texas community colleges. Students were randomly assigned to corequisite remediation (a college-level English composition course paired with one to three hours of weekly academic support) or to a standalone developmental education course (an integrated reading and writing course that did not offer students transferrable credit). The authors collected student-level administrative and survey data to examine contrasts in experiences quantitatively, and we also gathered qualitative data to shed light on these experiences. In this technical appendix, the authors provide a description of the randomized control trial and the data sources that were used for the report to examine student experiences. They also provide more-detailed findings on the key measures from the student-level administrative and survey data and some of the results from the faculty survey to supplement the findings present in the report.

Until recently, many colleges provided academic support to students by requiring students to complete one or more developmental education courses in a subject area before they could enroll in college-level coursework. As early as 2010, research indicated that very few students were making it out of these developmental education courses and into credit-bearing coursework. Colleges have been experimenting with new approaches that accelerate students into college courses. In this study, researchers focus on one of these approaches to acceleration: corequisite remediation. "Corequisite remediation" requires that students who are identified as requiring additional academic support be placed immediately into a college course while receiving aligned academic support during that same semester. Research has shown that corequisite remediation has positive impacts on academic outcomes relative to the traditional approach of requiring students to take developmental education courses. However, little is known about how student experiences differ in corequisite remediation relative to developmental education courses. In this report, researchers use data from a randomized control trial at five community colleges in Texas to examine contrasts in student experiences between college students who were assigned either to corequisite remediation or to standalone developmental education courses. Researchers examined eight areas: (1) early opportunities to make progress, (2) intensity and compression of academic practice, (3) rigor of coursework and expectations, (4) alignment of academic remediation with college coursework, (5) opportunities for student-centered learning, (6) opportunities for peer learning, (7) support for success skills (e.g., study skills, social and emotional competencies), and (8) exposure to stigma. [For the technical appendix to this report, see ED612842.]

Almost every state offers some kind of college tuition assistance for students from low-income families who attend in-state colleges and universities. This aid is important: It can make all the difference as to whether students finish a degree program that can help pave their way to a well-paying job and meaningful career. In New Jersey, residents attending in-state colleges and universities can receive grants from the Tuition Aid Grant (TAG) program. Grants range from $1,000 to more than $12,000 per year that students can apply toward college costs and do not need to pay back. Students qualify based on a complicated formula that considers their family's income and assets, adjusting for age and the type of college they attend. While other state and federal aid programs have lost ground to tuition growth, TAG has maintained its status as the most generous program in the nation per undergraduate student. Focusing on eligibility thresholds is not a new idea, but RAND researchers combined hundreds of different thresholds to evaluate how aid effectiveness varied by family financial resources. The research team considered how TAG works differently across the state's many different higher education institutions: community colleges, public universities, and private nonprofit colleges. This brief summarizes some key findings, with details in the full report "Cutting the College Price TAG: The Effects of New Jersey's Tuition Aid Grant on College Persistence and Completion. Research Report. RR-A101-1" (ED612167).

Individuals in the United States can pursue a variety of different types of postsecondary education credentials. This Perspective describes four common types: degrees, certificates, industry certifications and licenses, and apprenticeships. Bachelor's degrees are the most commonly awarded postsecondary credential in the United States (approximately two million each year), though at least one million each of associate degrees, graduate degrees, and certificates are also awarded annually. Programs such as apprenticeships and dislocated worker programs also provide training to hundreds of thousands of adults each year, and these programs often result in industry-recognized credentials. In national surveys, 47 percent of Americans report holding some type of degree, and approximately one-fifth report holding a license or certification. While those earning postsecondary credentials are diverse, disparities by race and ethnicity remain. White individuals are more likely to have earned bachelor's and graduate degrees and more likely to hold licenses and certifications relative to Black and Hispanic individuals. Women are slightly more likely to earn postsecondary education credentials of all types relative to men. [This research was conducted within the RAND Lowy Family Middle-Class Pathways Center.]

RAND researchers studied more than 450,000 recipients of New Jersey's Tuition Aid Grant (TAG) -- the nation's most generous state-funded grant program per state resident college student -- to explore whether getting larger amounts of grant aid led to higher graduation rates for students at varying income levels and attending two-year, four-year, public, and private institutions. The data set covered school years 2012-2013 through 2019-2020 at 52 colleges and universities. Students received from $1,000 to $13,000 per year in TAG awards, plus $600 to $6,000 per year in federal Pell Grant aid. Grants help students cover tuition and living expenses and do not need to be paid back. On average, TAG aid increased the rate of on-time bachelor's degree completion at public universities, the sector where TAG has the most recipients and covers the largest percentage of tuition costs. An additional $1,000 in aid over four years led to a 2.6 percentage point increase in the graduation rate from a sample average graduation rate of 35 percent, a significant increase and higher than the average effect found in prior studies of other aid programs. In community colleges and at private colleges and universities, the effect of TAG for its lowest-income recipients on four-year graduation outcomes was positive and marginally statistically significant.

Stackable credential initiatives aim to build education and training pipelines in applied fields that allow individuals to earn educational certificates or other industry-recognized credentials and then build on these short-term credentials to earn additional certificates and degrees throughout their careers. Stackable credentials have the potential to provide more flexible education and training options for individuals and align better with employer needs. Stackable credentials are a priority for Ohio and a national trend in postsecondary institutions, yet little research has been conducted on whether institutions are scaling stackable programs, how students are stacking credentials, and whether these programs benefit individuals and employers. In this report, the authors examine Ohio's stackable credential pipelines in three fields--health care, manufacturing and engineering technology, and information technology--during the period between 2005 and 2019. They explore two areas: (1) growth in short-term education programs offered by Ohio public institutions and the degree to which programs incorporated features that characterize stackable credentials; and (2) earnings outcomes for certificate-earning students who went on to stack postsecondary education credentials. [For the technical appendix to this report, see ED613594.]

This appendix supplements the report "Stackable Credential Pipelines in Ohio: Evidence on Programs and Earnings Outcomes" (ED613593). In the appendix, the authors provide more details about the data and empirical approach, additional information about the samples, and some alternative results from analyses related to those that appear in the main report. The following are presented: (1) Data Sources; (2) Details on the Program Analysis; and (3) Details on the Earnings Analysis.

Although there is great interest in attracting talented and underrepresented individuals into public-sector careers, there is also concern that graduates of colleges and universities may not be considering the public sector and that government agencies are not doing all they could to attract the next generation of workers. This report seeks to help bridge these gaps by identifying the most promising strategies that public-sector agencies, colleges and universities, and community organizations can pursue to increase the flow of talented and underrepresented workers into public-sector careers. This report examines one regional public-sector workforce, that of Southern California, but many of the issues and strategies that the authors identify are broadly applicable to other regions. These strategies focus on two fundamental goals -- increasing underrepresented students' awareness of rewarding opportunities in the public sector and making public-sector organizations more diverse -- that should reinforce each other. [Additional support for this study was provided by Southern California Association of Governments (SCAG).]

School districts in the United States are responding to the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic in significantly different ways. The authors of this report fielded the third American School District Panel (ASDP) survey in June 2021 to discover what changes districts are making to their academic and nonacademic offerings for the upcoming 2021-2022 school year, and whether parental demand has played any role in prompting districts to make these changes. In this report, the authors summarize key ASDP findings based on the responses of 292 district leaders, after weighting their responses to make them nationally representative. Survey results suggest that while public schools are expanding their nonacademic offerings, much of their academic offerings for 2021-2022 remain the same. The authors examine differences between pre-pandemic and 2021-2022 offerings among district subgroups in the areas of summer programming, tutoring, grade retention practices, technology-related services, student health and weekend meals, academic recovery measures, and scheduling. The authors also found that most district leaders did not perceive a strong parental demand for changes to their children's schooling; however, there were some notable exceptions among leaders of urban, suburban, and majority-students of color districts, even though the correlation between perceived demand and district provision is currently weak. Parents' demands may still change public education in the long run, but the authors did not find evidence for this thus far. [This report was prepared by the RAND American Educator Panels.]

This report provides information about the sample, survey instrument, and resultant data for the 2021 Learn Together Surveys (LTS) that were administered to secondary principals and teachers in March 2021 via the RAND Corporation's American Educator Panels. It includes a full set of basic frequency tables for each survey. The LTS focus on several topics, including serving students with disabilities, supporting students' transitions to postsecondary pathways, data use, student voice, and social and emotional learning, and the survey results are intended to inform policy and practice related to these and other topics. This report serves as technical documentation for reports and data notes that draw on 2021 LTS data. The 2021 LTS yielded 3,605 complete responses for teachers and 1,686 complete responses for principals, and the responses are weighted to ensure that they are nationally representative. [For the 2020 report, see ED615566.]

Experts from the RAND Corporation prepared this independent report on New Jersey's Tuition Aid Grant (TAG) program for low-income college students. TAG is the nation's most generous state-funded financial aid program on a per-resident-undergraduate basis. Currently, TAG distributes around $475 million in grants per year, and an award covers about 40 percent of the average recipient's tuition and fees. Recent evidence shows positive impacts of the program on graduation. Leaders in New Jersey are further evaluating TAG to explore how the program design has evolved and how it might be improved. The authors used new data sources to build actionable evidence on each of the issues put before a legislatively mandated TAG Study Commission. These issues include TAG recipients' graduation rates, the history of program design choices and funding, alternative eligibility calculations, and alignment with federal methods. The authors drew on conversations with the Higher Education Student Assistance Authority and the commission, analysis of student-level data from New Jersey, analysis of institution-level data from the College Scorecard, and context from other states and broader research on college affordability. The authors evaluated policy options discussed by commission members and put forth some added considerations that could be important for the state and for other states with need-based aid programs.

We leverage variation in the timing of women's colleges' transitions to coeducation throughout the 1960s-2000s to study how exposure to a gendered social environment affects women's human capital investments. Applying event study and synthetic control analyses to newly collected historical data, we find that the share of women majoring in STEM at newly coeducational colleges declined by 2.0 percentage points (24%) after ten years of coeducation. Coeducation induced a large increase in the male share of the student body, but did not measurably influence the male share of faculty, capacity constraints or the ability composition of female students. A simple extrapolation of our main estimate suggests that gendered peer effects can account for 34% of the gender gap in STEM majoring. These findings support the hypothesis that non-pecuniary factors, related to social norms and gender roles, shape gender gaps in major choice.

This report provides information about the sample, survey instrument, and resultant data for the 2020 Learn Together Surveys (LTS) that were administered to principals and teachers in March 2020 via the RAND Corporation's American Educator Panels. It includes a full set of basic frequency tables for each survey. The LTS focus on several topics, including social and emotional learning, postsecondary pathways, data use, and supports for students with disabilities, and the results are intended to inform policy and practice related to these topics. This report serves as technical documentation for reports and data notes that draw on LTS data. The 2020 LTS yielded 3,784 complete responses for teachers and 1,438 complete responses for principals, and the responses are weighted to ensure that they are nationally representative. [For the 2019 report, see ED615564.]

This report provides information about the sample, survey instrument, and resultant data for the 2019 Learn Together Surveys (LTS) that were administered to principals and teachers in March 2019 via the RAND Corporation's American Educator Panels (AEP). It includes a full set of basic frequency tables for each survey. The LTS focus on several topics, including social and emotional learning, postsecondary pathways, data use, and supports for students with disabilities, and the results are intended to inform policy and practice related to these topics. This report serves as technical documentation for reports and data notes that draw on LTS data. The 2019 LTS yielded 3,744 complete responses for teachers and 1,679 complete responses for principals, and the responses are weighted to ensure they are nationally representative.

The Intensive Partnerships for Effective Teaching initiative, which was funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, was a multiyear effort to improve student outcomes--particularly high school graduation and college attendance among low-income minority students--by increasing student access to effective teaching. The RAND Corporation worked with the foundation to collect and warehouse data from participating sites and to produce annual data dashboards that presented quantitative information about key indicators of the progress of the reforms. During the course of this project, the RAND data team conducted four key activities: (1) defining the metrics that would be used to monitor and assess annual progress and that would appear in the dashboard, (2) collecting the data from the sites to compute the metrics, (3) managing and standardizing the data, and (4) creating the dashboard and reporting the metrics to the sites and the foundation. This report discusses the challenges in defining metrics and collecting data. It also describes how the RAND data team addressed those challenges. Specifically, the authors examine challenges and recommendations in four areas: (1) issues related to defining metrics used to track system performance; (2) issues related to data collection; (3) issues related to managing and standardizing data across sites; and (4) issues related to data confidentiality, data sensitivity, and partnerships. The authors also draw overarching lessons related to the systematic use of education data for periodic program monitoring.

Schools play a critical role in brokering access to college and career information and resources. The authors used the American Teacher Panel and American School Leader Panel to survey nationally representative samples of teachers and principals in U.S. public high schools about their perceptions of the quality and availability of their schools' supports for college and career transitions. The authors found that, although both groups of educators reported widespread supports, inequities both within and between schools are likely to limit some students' opportunities to develop the knowledge and skills they will need to succeed after high school, as well as their awareness of available postsecondary pathways. Although sufficient postsecondary transition support was widely reported for high-achieving students, sufficient support for underrepresented minority students, low-income students, and underachieving students was reported less frequently. More than half of high school principals reported no access to data on their students' postsecondary remedial education or graduation rates. Finally, a geographic analysis concluded that local employment and region also play a large role in determining what supports are available for college and career pathways: High-resource schools do not unilaterally have more supports. Educators, school leaders, and policymakers alike can benefit from understanding the role of school supports and school context in contributing to or narrowing gaps in college and career outcomes.

Making college accessible to all includes making it affordable to lower-income families. A growing policy strategy at the state level is to provide individual students with need-based financial aid to offset tuition and living expenses. This strategy inherently presents challenges in choosing which income levels are eligible to receive aid, identifying the eligible population, and delivering aid at a time and in an amount that will meaningfully support college attainment. In partnership with the state of Wisconsin, RAND Corporation researchers created and analyzed a new database connecting state grant aid applications to the educational attainment of applicants. This report is a case-based effort to shed light on how well state aid policies are doing at closing attainment gaps between students from low- and higher-income backgrounds. It focuses on the successes, challenges, and opportunities for the state of Wisconsin and its flagship aid program, the Wisconsin Grant. This report examines three areas: the "design" of effective aid policies and processes, "program implementation" under time and budget constraints, and the "building of evidence" on aid program effectiveness. The findings related to the Wisconsin case can inform the state on how to build on successes and mediate challenges related to state student aid going forward. The findings also offer insight to other states wanting to better design, implement, and build evidence for their state student aid programs.

State policies to promote postsecondary education historically have been devoted to funding and operating public colleges and universities. Increasingly, states are funding direct aid to their residents to attend public and private colleges within state borders. The majority of state aid is targeted based on the student's family income. States are motivated to help their lowest-income residents graduate at higher rates, because degrees serve as pathways to long-term financial gain, career satisfaction, better health, lower rates of crime, and other positive outcomes. Yet, despite access to grant aid and open admissions to public colleges, students from lower-income backgrounds are far less likely than their higher-income peers to enroll in and graduate from college. What can state aid programs do to assure that more low-income students finish degrees? The RAND Corporation's Education and Labor division recently published a report that uses Wisconsin's state student aid policy as a case study to examine the design, implementation, and evidence base of state need-based aid. [This brief describes research documented in "Need-Based Financial Aid in Wisconsin: State Policy and Student Pathways. Research Report. RR-3057-GLHEC" (ED605976).]