National Academies Press: OpenBook

Preparing for the Workplace: Charting A Course for Federal Postsecondary Training Policy (1994)

Chapter: 2 OVERVIEW OF POSTSECONDARY TRAINING INSTITUTIONS AND PROGRAMS

« Previous: 1 INTRODUCTION
Suggested Citation:"2 OVERVIEW OF POSTSECONDARY TRAINING INSTITUTIONS AND PROGRAMS." National Research Council. 1994. Preparing for the Workplace: Charting A Course for Federal Postsecondary Training Policy. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/2123.
×

2
Overview of Postsecondary Training Institutions and Programs

Federal programs supporting postsecondary training for work cannot be understood apart from the institutions where this training takes place. The federal government does not directly provide training except—and it is a major exception—for training for its own employees, including the military. Instead, federal programs operate through a set of diverse institutions over which Washington has varying (and often quite limited) influence and which frequently have multiple purposes in addition to those established by federal mandate.

This chapter presents an overview of these institutions and examines the array of federal programs that have grown up to support postsecondary training. The following chapter identifies and assesses concerns that have arisen about the ability of these institutions and programs to provide the nation with a highly skilled work force.

INSTITUTIONS OF POSTSECONDARY TRAINING

The landscape of postsecondary training has become increasingly complex. At midcentury, vocational education was found predominantly in high schools. High school vocational programs have recently faded in importance as enrollments declined. They have declined for a variety of reasons, including the continuing low status of vocational education, the emphasis on academic achievement during the 1980s, and changes in state policies, such as increasing the number of academic courses required to receive a high school diploma.

Suggested Citation:"2 OVERVIEW OF POSTSECONDARY TRAINING INSTITUTIONS AND PROGRAMS." National Research Council. 1994. Preparing for the Workplace: Charting A Course for Federal Postsecondary Training Policy. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/2123.
×

Meanwhile, occupation-oriented education has become a key course of study at community colleges and postsecondary technical institutes, supplemented by training in area vocational schools that enroll both secondary and postsecondary students. In a wide variety of fields, profit-making, privately owned proprietary trade schools offer courses that require from a few months to 3 or 4 years to complete. Short-term job training programs, funded by both the states and the federal government, have spurred the establishment of special community-based training organizations that serve the clients of these government programs almost exclusively. Employers provide a great deal of formal and informal training to their employees and contract with vendors and consultants as well as with schools for additional courses. Employers also cooperate with labor unions to sponsor apprenticeship programs for individuals seeking to enter certain occupations. In addition to these major providers of training, which we will examine more closely below, other organizations, such as professional associations, also help give people needed job skills.

Community and Technical Colleges

The most noticeable change in the landscape of American postsecondary education in the past 30 years has been the phenomenal growth and increasingly vocational orientation of publicly funded 2-year colleges. Community and technical colleges have grown and expanded more quickly than any other level of postsecondary education. Enrollment at such institutions grew from 740,000 in the fall of 1963 to 4.9 million in the fall of 1990.

Of all undergraduate enrollment in 2- and 4-year colleges and universities more than 40 percent can be found in community and technical colleges. In the fall of 1990, part-time students accounted for 65 percent of public, 2-year college enrollments (National Center for Education Statistics, 1992c). Because many students at these institutions are not enrolled for a full academic year, the total number of students who participate at some point in the year is quite a bit larger than that reported in annual fall enrollment statistics. For the academic year 1989-90, the National Center for Education Statistics (1992a:xxiii) estimated a full-year enrollment in public, 2-year institutions of just over 7 million students.

There are approximately 1,000 community or technical colleges in the United States. This represents a meteoric increase: there were 297 in 1949 and only 520 in 1967 (National Center for Education Statistics, 1992c:237). These colleges are now spread fairly evenly across the nation, although the percentage of the population enrolled varies from state to state.

Despite the existence of some large institutions, most community colleges are fairly small. Thirteen percent reported a head-count enrollment of under 1,000 in the fall of 1990; two-thirds had fewer than 5,000 students.

Suggested Citation:"2 OVERVIEW OF POSTSECONDARY TRAINING INSTITUTIONS AND PROGRAMS." National Research Council. 1994. Preparing for the Workplace: Charting A Course for Federal Postsecondary Training Policy. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/2123.
×

Notable exceptions include Miami Dade Community College, with nearly 44,000 full- and part-time students, and the Houston Community College System, with over 36,000 students (National Center for Education Statistics, 1992c:212-213).

Historically, most public, 2-year colleges were created by the local community. Community colleges often evolved from junior colleges with an academic transfer orientation or from technical colleges. Two-year postsecondary institutions were often administered by local officials along with the public primary and secondary schools. They became increasingly comprehensive in the 1970s and 1980s, offering a broad menu of liberal arts, technical, and vocational education. This is true even of many institutions, such as those in South Carolina, that continue to be called technical colleges. Tuma (1992:44) estimated that by 1990 over two-thirds of the students in public, 2-year colleges who had selected a course of study were in vocational programs.

Community colleges, to a greater degree than other colleges and universities, are creatures of state and local governments. On average, they get two-thirds of their revenues from these sources, while 18 percent come from tuition and only 5 percent from the federal government (National Center for Education Statistics, 1992d:16). Their dependence on local governments has declined over the past 30 years, while state support has grown. In 1958, localities provided just under 45 percent of all community college revenues (Breneman and Nelson, 1981:17), but, by 1990, that had fallen to under 15 percent. Today, in at least 18 states, community colleges no longer receive any local funding. State governments now provide more than half of all community college revenues (Honeyman et al., 1991:7-8). State and local funding is usually given through formula-driven allocations based on enrollments (for the majority of the funds) and through special appropriations linked to other state initiatives, such as economic development or worker retraining.

Community colleges are unique in higher education for their open-door status. They are comparatively inexpensive: annual tuition and fees for instate residents averaged $962 in the academic year 1991-1992 (National Center for Education Statistics, 1992c:308). Since most students enroll part-time, costs are even lower. State and local governments generally do not explicitly restrict or cap enrollment, although most not limit enrollments at their 4-year institutions. Thus, community college enrollments tend to reflect student demand.

Virtually all community college students commute to the college campus, so the college must appeal to the local citizens. To increase enrollment, the college must draw from the local population. The college must either increase the participation rate of traditional students, appeal to adults or other nontraditional groups, or ride a wave of population growth. Over

Suggested Citation:"2 OVERVIEW OF POSTSECONDARY TRAINING INSTITUTIONS AND PROGRAMS." National Research Council. 1994. Preparing for the Workplace: Charting A Course for Federal Postsecondary Training Policy. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/2123.
×

half the students are 25 years of age or older, and, in 1990, 22 percent of community college students were racial minorities and 57 percent were women (National Center for Education Statistics, 1992c).

Community colleges might accurately be described as service conglomerates. They provide many different kinds of services to many different kinds of students. Community colleges offer both credit programs leading to associate degrees (typically requiring 2 years of full-time study) and shorter certificate courses in a variety of fields. In the hierarchy of programs within vocational education, those offered by community colleges are clearly at the top; they are longer than those offered by other institutions, more intensive, with relatively more programs in sophisticated and capital-intensive areas like electronics, computing, and computer assisted design/computer assisted manufacturing (CAD/CAM), and with more extensive requirements for related academic coursework as well as general education or "breadth" requirements. In most communities, these institutions are the only providers of postsecondary credit courses (those that can be counted toward baccalaureate degrees). Other providers tend to offer only noncredit courses.

Technical colleges or institutes, where they exist, have much in common with community colleges, although they may remain more narrowly focused on vocational fields of study and offer relatively few academic courses. They usually offer 2-year degree programs leading to an associate of science or associate of applied science degree as well as shorter certificate programs.

Community colleges also provide a menu of other services, including remediation, English as a second language (ESL), retraining for displaced workers, training for the hard-to-employ, assistance to local economic development initiatives, and recreation and community service programs. Remediation occupies a large chunk of the curriculum at most community colleges (though much of this coursework is noncredit).

Some community colleges also play an important role in providing education and training through federal retraining and second-chance programs like the Job Training Partnership Act (JTPA), Job Opportunities and Basic Skills (JOBS), and adult education. Program administrators often choose community colleges to provide occupational classroom training because these colleges offer a variety of courses at low cost to the federal government (thanks to institutional subsidies from state and local governments). Increasingly, many community colleges work with businesses to provide customized or contract training programs designed to meet the specific needs of individual firms. Customized training courses are usually relatively short (lasting anywhere from several hours to a few weeks) and are often devised by modifying existing courses to fit the specific needs of the sponsoring company. These courses may take place at the contractor's worksite, which

Suggested Citation:"2 OVERVIEW OF POSTSECONDARY TRAINING INSTITUTIONS AND PROGRAMS." National Research Council. 1994. Preparing for the Workplace: Charting A Course for Federal Postsecondary Training Policy. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/2123.
×

enables the college to use the company's own, perhaps more advanced, equipment.

Community colleges, therefore, are the one type of training institution in America that can truly be said to cover the range of training needs that we identified in the first chapter. Their activities attest to the entrepreneurship present in many such institutions. This characteristic potentially puts community colleges in competition with other providers of training in their local areas, at the same time that it creates a wider variety of offerings within the colleges themselves to meet the needs of a wider range of students. Some community colleges, however, are decidedly less entrepreneurial than others, dedicated almost entirely to promoting transfers to 4-year colleges.

The contribution of community colleges to qualifying training is growing, according to training surveys conducted by the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) (1985, 1992). The proportion of workers citing ''junior college or technical institute'' as a source of qualifying training for their current jobs increased from 5 to 8 percent between 1983 and 1991.

In summary, although their diversity makes it difficult to generalize, community colleges have several salient characteristics that explain much of their behavior and performance:

  • The location and character of each community college reflect local decision making and, more recently, state planning and rationalization of service areas. The federal government has had almost no role in the planning or operation of these institutions.

  • Enrollment is local and reflects consumer demand, not centralized planning. Although overall enrollment growth in the last 30 years has been meteoric, the typical community college has experienced considerable fluctuation over this time.

  • State funding has become the most important revenue source. Traditionally, state funding patterns have given community colleges a very strong incentive to increase enrollment.

  • The typical community college is a service conglomerate; it provides many different kinds of services to many different kinds of students and often offers all four of the different types of postsecondary training for the workplace identified in this report.

Proprietary Vocational Schools

Proprietary schools are for-profit educational institutions that offer primarily short-term, intensive, occupational programs in a single subject or a few related subjects: secretarial and clerical training, computer programming, certain trades, truck driving, cosmetology, and so on. These schools

Suggested Citation:"2 OVERVIEW OF POSTSECONDARY TRAINING INSTITUTIONS AND PROGRAMS." National Research Council. 1994. Preparing for the Workplace: Charting A Course for Federal Postsecondary Training Policy. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/2123.
×

have private owners who run them as profit-making businesses; while they must have state licenses, they have historically operated outside of and largely invisible to the traditional collegiate world and public oversight bodies. Even more than the technical institutes described above, they focus on providing students with highly structured, occupation-oriented courses of study that stray very little from the skills specifically needed by the occupation in question. While most proprietary programs last less than a year, there are some schools that offer associate and even baccalaureate degrees.

Precise information on enrollments in the proprietary sector is difficult to come by, and revenue statistics are largely nonexistent. Until 1987, the federal government, which has annually collected basic statistical data on colleges and universities for many years, did not include proprietary schools in its surveys. Sporadic, ad hoc attempts to collect information on this sector suffer from serious problems of comparability and coverage. Nevertheless, a recent study of the sector (Lee and Merisotis, 1990) reveals that the history of profit-making trade schools dates back well into the nineteenth century and that nearly 1,000 schools enrolled over 300,000 students in the years immediately following the First World War.

The U.S. Department of Education estimates that 722,000 students were enrolled in about 4,700 proprietary schools in the fall of 1989 (National Center for Education Statistics, 1992b:7).1 Since programs of study are often short, and new courses begin frequently throughout the year, a larger number of people (1.4 million) were enrolled over the course of the 1989-1990 academic year (National Center for Education Statistics, 1992a:xxiii). While some schools are very large (for example, DeVry Institutes of Technology and Business Training International each enroll over 10,000 students annually), the median fall enrollment was 64 in 1988 (Apling and Aleman, 1990:8).

Because they receive no direct government subsidy as community colleges do, proprietary schools are comparatively expensive. Since the Second World War, their fortunes have been tied in important ways to the availability of federal subsidies for their students, first through the G.I. Bill (and its successors) and then through student grant and loan programs that were originally established for students in colleges and universities in the mid-1960s (Lee and Merisotis, 1990:10-11). In 1989-1990, almost 80 percent of the students enrolled half-time or more received grants or loans from federal student aid programs, compared to a little under half of the students at private, nonprofit colleges; about one-third at public, 4-year institutions; and about one-fifth at community colleges.2 (Federal student aid, which will be discussed below, is largely limited to students enrolled at least on a half-time basis.) No reliable statistics are available on the overall revenues from various sources received by these schools, but it is clear that the federal government is of major importance to them.

Suggested Citation:"2 OVERVIEW OF POSTSECONDARY TRAINING INSTITUTIONS AND PROGRAMS." National Research Council. 1994. Preparing for the Workplace: Charting A Course for Federal Postsecondary Training Policy. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/2123.
×

Proprietary schools enroll somewhat disproportionate numbers of women, minorities, and low-income individuals. They do not appear to be heavily involved in federal second-chance programs like JTPA and JOBS, although some do obtain contracts to serve JTPA and JOBS clients. This tends to occur when lower-priced services are not available through community colleges or other local training organizations. They are also less apt than community colleges to work with businesses on customized training, although again there are exceptions. Because they are highly entrepreneurial (so long as outside funds are available) and unfettered by the rigidities of the academic calendar followed by many community colleges, they can be flexible and responsive in ways that the colleges may not.

Area Vocational Schools and Adult Education Schools

Following the implementation of the Vocational Education Act of 1963 (VEA), states began to use federal funds to establish new, locally operated vocational schools. In fact, President Johnson was explicit on signing the VEA that states could use the funds made available to them for this purpose (Gallinelli, 1979). Although there are no recent figures available, by 1979 there were over 1,300 such institutions nationally (Galladay and Wulfsberg, 1981).

Area vocational schools have changed in nature since their creation. Most of them were established in the 1960s and 1970s as secondary schools, designed to provide richer vocational programs than individual high schools could offer. In the 1970s and 1980s, many began serving adult students as well, usually through relatively short, noncredit programs. As secondary vocational enrollments dwindled in the 1980s, for the reasons mentioned above, and adult enrollments expanded, most area vocational schools became, in fact, predominantly adult institutions.

Such schools are not found everywhere, but similar programs are offered in some communities by vocation-oriented adult schools that are also part of the public school system. They offer subjects such as remedial education; preparation for high school general equivalency diploma exams (GED); English as a second language (ESL); avocational and hobby courses; and vocational courses, such as business, marketing, real estate, secretarial, automotive mechanics, air-conditioning maintenance and repair, and other trades. The presence or absence of such schools reflects state policies: in California, they are optional for localities; in Florida, school districts must operate adult schools in 14 counties, while in 14 others the community colleges, rather than school districts, are expected to provide noncredit adult education.

In fact, variation among states is particularly important to understanding these institutions. At one extreme, states such as Delaware have begun

Suggested Citation:"2 OVERVIEW OF POSTSECONDARY TRAINING INSTITUTIONS AND PROGRAMS." National Research Council. 1994. Preparing for the Workplace: Charting A Course for Federal Postsecondary Training Policy. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/2123.
×

to phase out area vocational schools, preferring to incorporate them into existing secondary schools. At the other extreme, Oklahoma attaches great significance to such schools and has developed a set of institutions (the Francis Tuttle School, for example) whose facilities are state-of-the-art.

Community-Based Organizations

Community-based organizations (CBOs) are responsive to specific, geographically, or ethnically based constituencies. The term came into usage in the 1960s to describe private, nonprofit organizations representing ethnic minorities and low-income groups that were run by representatives of these groups and which oriented their services toward meeting the needs of disadvantaged Americans. Many were created in response to the expansion of federal funding for employment and training programs in the early and mid-1960s. At various times, they received special funding priority, for example, under the now-defunct Youth Employment and Demonstration Projects Act of 1977. At that time, an increasingly diverse set of organizations began to consider themselves CBOs; and the term has evolved to mean any private, nonprofit organization that is representative of a community and provides education, training, employment, and social services to that community.

In the employment and training arena, CBOs are still almost entirely dependent on government programs for funding. They provide a range of services, including job development and counseling, job search and placement assistance, classroom skills training, remedial education, vocational exploration and prevocational training, and ESL. Services designed to help clients get jobs are more prevalent in CBOs than are education and training activities (Bailis, 1984), although CBOs account for approximately 20 percent of the classroom training providers in the JTPA program. CBOs appear more likely than other JTPA classroom training providers to serve minorities and high school dropouts. Information on who provided classroom training is missing for at least one-third of JTPA participants who received such training. It is difficult, therefore, to make accurate comparisons among classroom training providers as to the types of clients served or the outcomes of training. Available program data indicate that individuals who receive classroom training from CBOs tend to have shorter stays in JTPA (averaging 21 weeks) and to enter employment at a higher rate than individuals who attend public vocational schools, high schools, and community colleges under JTPA auspices (U.S. Department of Labor, 1992). Given the large number of participants for whom information on classroom training experiences is missing, however, these findings cannot be given great weight.

CBOs provide an added degree of flexibility and responsiveness to the

Suggested Citation:"2 OVERVIEW OF POSTSECONDARY TRAINING INSTITUTIONS AND PROGRAMS." National Research Council. 1994. Preparing for the Workplace: Charting A Course for Federal Postsecondary Training Policy. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/2123.
×

education and training "system" that would not otherwise exist. They are often thought to be particularly adept at certain functions—including recruitment, counseling, and job placement—that more traditional education providers may not wish or be able to provide. Because of their close community ties and commitment to their clients, CBOs provide assistance to groups with marginal access to labor markets who may be bypassed by more mainstream organizations (Grubb and McDonnell, 1991; Bailis, 1987).

Apprenticeship

Apprenticeship, a centuries-old mechanism for teaching a trade, is a comparatively minor source of training in the United States, especially compared to schools, although it remains important in some occupations. Interest in apprenticeship is growing, however, particularly because of the success that other countries have had in preparing youth for work through apprenticeships.

According to the U.S. General Accounting Office (GAO) (1992a:8), apprenticeship consists of "structured, long-term (typically 3 to 4 years), on-the-job training combined with related theoretical instruction, leading to certification of the attainment of journey worker status in a skilled trade."

Apprentices work closely with a particular employer. The employer pays the apprentice wages and provides the training costs. Frequently, employers receive funds for apprentices from both local and national trust funds that have been established jointly by unions and employer associations (U.S. Office of Technology Assessment [OTA], 1990:238). Because of this funding mechanism, apprenticeships are concentrated in a few, heavily unionized industries. Although registered apprenticeships exist in over 800 occupations involving 43,000 apprenticeship programs, half of these programs had no active apprentices during the first quarter of fiscal year 1991. Approximately two-thirds of all apprenticeships in the United States are provided in just 20 occupations, primarily in construction and metal trades (U.S. General Accounting Office, 1992a:2,17).

There were approximately 283,000 civilian workers in registered apprenticeship programs in 1990. In addition, 44,000 apprentices were being trained in the military, and an estimated 100,000 are trained annually in nonregistered programs (U.S. General Accounting Office, 1992a:2; U.S. Office of Technology Assessment, 1990:137). In the overall context of the U.S. work force, these numbers are quite small. In 1987, registered apprentices comprised only 0.16 percent of the civilian work force (U.S. Office of Technology Assessment, 1990:236). Apprenticeship in the United States, according to the GAO (1992a:4), "plays a minor and declining role in training United States workers." In fact, during the 1980s, overall employment increased by 18 million, but the number of registered civilian apprentices

Suggested Citation:"2 OVERVIEW OF POSTSECONDARY TRAINING INSTITUTIONS AND PROGRAMS." National Research Council. 1994. Preparing for the Workplace: Charting A Course for Federal Postsecondary Training Policy. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/2123.
×

dropped by 11 percent. The average age of apprentices in the United States is 29, which means that apprenticeship is not widely used to train students directly out of high school (Clark, 1992:914).

The number of workers trained through apprenticeship is limited less by an inability to attract interested workers than by difficulty finding firms to sponsor apprentices. In some industries, there are generally four applicants for every available opening (U.S. General Accounting Office, 1992a:20; U.S. Office of Technology Assessment, 1990:238). In part, this reflects a lack of infrastructure to support apprenticeships outside the unionized trades.

Minorities and women have traditionally been underrepresented in apprenticeship programs, though, in recent years, minority participation has increased so that it is now approximately equal to minority representation in the work force as a whole. Minorities now comprise 22.5 percent of all apprentices, a 50 percent increase since 1973. The percentage of female apprentices grew from virtually zero in 1973 to 6.6 percent in 1983. Since then, however, the growth has leveled off; women currently comprise just 7 percent of apprentices. Furthermore, both women and minorities tend to receive apprenticeships in the lowest-paying occupations that offer apprenticeships (U.S. General Accounting Office, 1992a:21-28).

The federal government has supported the apprenticeship system since 1934, when it created the Federal Committee on Apprenticeship. Three years later, Congress enacted the National Apprenticeship Act (often called the Fitzgerald Act), under which the federal government began setting standards for apprenticeship programs and officially registering programs that met those standards. Today, federal responsibility for overseeing the apprenticeship system lies with the U.S. Labor Department's Bureau of Apprenticeship and Training (BAT). The BAT's primary responsibilities include promoting apprenticeships, providing technical assistance to potential sponsors, ensuring compliance with equal employment regulations, and registering programs that meet official federal standards. It does not provide direct financial support either to apprentices or to their employers. From 1978 to 1990, BAT's funding (in constant 1982 dollars) and staff size were cut in half (U.S. Office of Technology Assessment, 1990:241).

Twenty-seven states currently operate their own state apprenticeship councils. In addition to supporting apprenticeship programs, the councils are also authorized to register apprenticeship programs that meet federal standards and to bestow certificates of completion to apprentices. Evidence indicates that state certification of apprentices has decreased the portability of apprentice certificates, since certification standards may vary from state to state (U.S. Office of Technology Assessment, 1990:239).

States play a more important role than the federal government in promoting apprenticeships. According to the GAO (1992a:19), states spent close to three times as much as the BAT on apprenticeships in 1990. While

Suggested Citation:"2 OVERVIEW OF POSTSECONDARY TRAINING INSTITUTIONS AND PROGRAMS." National Research Council. 1994. Preparing for the Workplace: Charting A Course for Federal Postsecondary Training Policy. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/2123.
×

the GAO does point out that, in many states, resources for apprenticeships will probably be cut within the next few years, under existing funding patterns the federal government has only limited leverage if it wishes to increase its control over the apprenticeship system (U.S. Office of Technology Assessment, 1990:239).

In spite of funding constraints, the federal government attempted to increase employer interest in the apprenticeship system through a project known as the Apprenticeship 2000 initiative, begun in 1987. The initiative focused on two areas: improving traditional apprenticeships and expanding apprenticeships to less traditional sectors. As noted above, traditional apprenticeships could be improved by making certificates more portable across state boundaries. The initiative also hoped to expand apprenticeship into new industries, initially by funding demonstration projects through the U.S. Department of Labor's recently created Office of Work-Based Learning (U.S. Office of Technology Assessment, 1990:55).

In addition to these extensions of traditional apprenticeship, federal, state, and local governments are experimenting with youth apprenticeships modeled after systems operating in Germany, Austria, Switzerland, and Denmark. The new programs begin as early as the eleventh grade; encompass a 3-year program combining worksite training, high school, and possibly community college; require a contract between employer and student laying out the obligations of each; and lead to a certified competency in an occupational area. Existing demonstration programs are small. According to Jobs for the Future, a sponsor of several youth apprenticeship demonstrations, there were fewer than 2,000 youth apprentices in 1992 (Clark, 1992:922).

Employer-Sponsored Training

Employer-sponsored training is a sizable enterprise, although, as a decentralized and largely private activity, reliable estimates about it are hard to obtain. An OTA (1990:128-130) summary of various studies estimates the costs of formal, employer-provided training to be $30 billion to $45 billion annually; the costs of formal and informal, on-the-job training range from $105 billion to $210 billion annually. For a variety of reasons, however, OTA and others put little faith in the accuracy of these numbers.3 Nevertheless, it is clear that absolute expenditures are large. On a per worker basis or as a percentage of gross national product (GNP) or payroll, however, the size of these expenditures appears less impressive. For example, the estimate of $44 billion for expenditures on formal training amounted in 1988 to $385 per worker, less than 1 percent of GNP and 1.8 percent of the total compensation that workers received.

According to training surveys sponsored by the Bureau of Labor Statistics (1985, 1992), the importance of formal company training programs has

Suggested Citation:"2 OVERVIEW OF POSTSECONDARY TRAINING INSTITUTIONS AND PROGRAMS." National Research Council. 1994. Preparing for the Workplace: Charting A Course for Federal Postsecondary Training Policy. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/2123.
×

grown noticeably for workers seeking to improve their skills in their current jobs. In 1983, 11 percent of workers reported having received skills improvement training through formal company programs at some point in their current job. By 1991, 16 percent of workers (nearly 18 million people) reported such training. (Fourteen and 15 percent of workers in the 2 respective years reported receiving informal, on-the-job training.) Moreover, of the 13 percent of workers in 1991 who reported having received school-based training to improve their skills, 42 percent said that their employers sponsored the training. This represented very little change from 1983. Only 3 percent of the 1991 respondents with school-based skills improvement training reported that their training was sponsored by government programs.

The BLS surveys also indicated that two-thirds of 1991 workers who upgraded their skills through formal company programs received training for fewer than 25 weeks. Company training appears to be lengthening, however. In 1983, 72 percent of workers reported that their training had lasted less than 12 weeks; the comparable percentage in 1991 was 33 percent.

Employer-sponsored training is less important but not negligible as a source of qualifying training. Ten percent of workers in 1983 and 12 percent in 1991 reported that company programs provided them with the training they needed to qualify for their current jobs.

Employers provide some of the formal training themselves and arrange with outside providers for the rest. Carnevale et al. (1990:3) suggest that employers provide 69 percent of the formal training they offer and use outside providers for 31 percent. This appears to be a rather rough estimate, but is not far from more precise figures reported by the OTA (1990:137) for federal expenditures on the training of its civilian work force. OTA reports that the federal government spent $1.03 billion on training its employees in fiscal year 1988; 60 percent was for internal training by agencies, and 40 percent covered the cost of training provided by outsiders.

A variety of providers help employers meet their training needs, including equipment vendors; private training consultants; schools; professional, trade, and labor organizations; community organizations; and private tutors and instructors.

Employer-sponsored training is largely a private activity, with little direct assistance from government. Direct aid that is provided is more likely to come from the states than from the federal government. An OTA survey found that, in 1989, 44 states operated one or more customized training programs (U.S. Office of Technology Assessment, 1990:144). Those states had spent about $375 million on customized training projects in their most recently completed fiscal year. These expenditures did not include one-time training subsidies offered as part of the effort to recruit firms to a state; nor did they include indirect state support for customized training provided by public community and technical colleges at the request of firms.

Suggested Citation:"2 OVERVIEW OF POSTSECONDARY TRAINING INSTITUTIONS AND PROGRAMS." National Research Council. 1994. Preparing for the Workplace: Charting A Course for Federal Postsecondary Training Policy. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/2123.
×

The federal government has not provided significant direct support for employer-sponsored training. It has been involved on a small scale through such efforts as support for training and technology transfer programs from the U.S. Department of Commerce's National Institute of Standards and Technology and from the U.S. Department of Education, through activities encouraging the spread of apprenticeship (see above), and quite recently through demonstration projects aimed at improving basic literacy in the workplace. Federal support for employer-sponsored training is largely indirect through the tax code. Companies incur direct training costs in various ways: through reimbursements to employees for the costs of external education and training programs, for example, and through expenditures on the purchase of materials, support for formal in-house training, and compensation paid to workers during on-the-job training. For the purposes of calculating tax liability, firms may fully and immediately deduct these training costs from revenue (Quigley and Smolensky, 1989:828-829). They are considered part of the costs of doing business. The federal government has also from time to time provided a tax subsidy to training by allowing workers to exclude employer-paid reimbursements for training costs from their taxable income.

Military Training

Like many large, private firms, the U.S. military trains its own personnel. Unlike many private employers, however, the military does not focus predominantly on management-level workers; it provides extensive training to all new recruits (U.S. Office of Technology Assessment, 1990:259).

In fiscal 1992, the four military services expected to provide 217,000 person-years of training for the military's active and reserve personnel at a cost (including indirect expenses such as wages) of more than $19 billion. The military is currently spending 10 percent less on training than it did in fiscal 1986 (U.S. Department of Defense, 1991). Cuts in the number of enlisted personnel entering training and reductions in the procurement of new weapons for which further training would be required suggest that the amount of training the military provides will continue to decline in the future.

The military has been an important contributor to the middle-level training that is the subject of this report. More than 55 percent of the person-years spent in military training is devoted to "specialized skill training": occupational instruction and on-the-job training in such areas as electronics and health care provided primarily to enlisted personnel (almost all of whom have a high school diploma and very few of whom have a baccalaureate degree) (U.S. Department of Defense, 1991). With its large training budget of some $3,500 per person (as compared to a few hundred dollars per em

Suggested Citation:"2 OVERVIEW OF POSTSECONDARY TRAINING INSTITUTIONS AND PROGRAMS." National Research Council. 1994. Preparing for the Workplace: Charting A Course for Federal Postsecondary Training Policy. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/2123.
×

ployee in the private sector), the U.S. Department of Defense can provide the most sophisticated training technology available. Military services train some personnel directly but also contract with local service providers. Civilian contractors may provide training in areas ranging from basic skills to uses of the latest technology (U.S. Office of Technology Assessment, 1990).

The military is also an important source of innovation in the training field. The military uses job analysis to establish specific performance standards for its trainees. Also, military trainers receive constant feedback and opportunities to rotate back into the field (U.S. Office of Technology Assessment, 1990:259).

There has been some debate about the transferability of specialized military training to the civilian sector. However, Mangum and Ball (1987:438) examined data from the youth cohort of the National Longitudinal Surveys of Labor Market Experience and found "significant amounts of skill transfer between military-provided training and civilian employment." They also found that over 30 percent of males enlisting in the military did so primarily to receive training that would be useful after they left military service.

Summary

From this review of the institutions that provide postsecondary training in the United States, several crucial conclusions emerge. At least to the uninitiated, there appears to be a bewildering array of institutional providers, with overlapping responsibilities that vary significantly from place to place. Some of these providers concentrate on one or two kinds of training (e.g., firms concentrate on qualifying and skills improvement training for their own employees; CBOs on second-chance training for the disadvantaged). But other central providers, such as community colleges, are key actors in all four training arenas identified in Chapter 1.

Except for CBOs, the military, and many (although not all) proprietary schools, most of these institutions do not exist primarily to carry out training programs funded by the federal government. Even the institutions that are heavily dependent on revenues from federal programs, such as CBOs that are affiliates of national organizations like the Urban League or La Raza, pursue institutional objectives in addition to the objectives of the public policies they are implementing. Community colleges are even more independent. They are more likely to be responsive to the state and regional objectives of the state systems of which they are a part and the local boards that govern them than to distant federal policy makers whose programs represent only a small part of their activities. Employers train their employees if and when they perceive a business reason to do so; they are not likely to invest their own capital in people or types or training that do not have a clear economic payoff for the firm.

Suggested Citation:"2 OVERVIEW OF POSTSECONDARY TRAINING INSTITUTIONS AND PROGRAMS." National Research Council. 1994. Preparing for the Workplace: Charting A Course for Federal Postsecondary Training Policy. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/2123.
×

We return to the implications of this institutional structure in Chapter 3 when, after having reviewed the existing array of federal postsecondary training programs, we will bring together the institutional and programmatic perspectives to diagnose the health of the postsecondary training system.

FEDERAL POSTSECONDARY TRAINING PROGRAMS

Intersecting with the institutions described above is a set of federal programs designed to train individuals for work and facilitate their entry into the workplace.

Federal employment policy is often traced to the early 1960s, especially to the passage of the Manpower Development and Training Act of 1962. Government interest in employment and training issues can be found much earlier in the nation's history, however. Cohen and Stevens (1989) found the first public support for labor exchange activities through state and local sources in 1830. In 1917, spurred by the First World War, the U.S. Department of Labor secured funding for a system of local offices that could meet war manpower needs. In the same year, Congress passed the Smith-Hughes Act, which authorized federal aid to states for vocational education in the nation's secondary schools. The Depression years spawned a host of employment-related activities. The Wagner-Peyser Act of 1933 provided federal matching funds to state employment security agencies and created the U.S. Employment Service. Two years later, Congress created the unemployment insurance system as part of the Social Security Act. The Public Works Administration and the Works Progress Administration created jobs through federally funded projects and provided wages to student workers, first through the Federal Emergency Relief Administration and later through the National Youth Administration. After the Second World War, the Serviceman's Readjustment Act (the so-called G.I. Bill) provided funds for education and training to over 2 million returning veterans (Olson, 1974:27,43). So, the federal government indicated a sporadic interest in employment and training policy, even before the rediscovery of poverty in the 1960s spurred the creation of new employment and training programs for the nation's disadvantaged citizens.

Given this brief history, it is no surprise that a major distinguishing characteristic of federally supported training is that it is carried out through many programs that were created over time, when varying perspectives on employment and education and training policy were in vogue. Like the institutions we have already examined, the programs are not part of a coherent structure or a tidy division of labor. Both the institutions and the programs have grown and diversified over the past several decades.

Starting with a list provided by the U.S. Department of Labor, the

Suggested Citation:"2 OVERVIEW OF POSTSECONDARY TRAINING INSTITUTIONS AND PROGRAMS." National Research Council. 1994. Preparing for the Workplace: Charting A Course for Federal Postsecondary Training Policy. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/2123.
×

committee identified several dozen current federal programs concerned with postsecondary training as we have defined it.4 These programs are divided among seven executive branch departments and accounted for about $20 billion in federal support (see Table 2.1). Most of the federal funds for training civilians, however, are allocated to programs sponsored by the U.S. Departments of Labor and Education and the welfare-related JOBS Training Program in the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. (This report does not examine further the military's training programs for its own employees; the focus is on policies affecting the nonfederal work force.) Key federal postsecondary training programs have quite distinct goals, support different types of training (although there is some overlap among them), and share funding and administrative responsibilities with states and training providers in different ways.

Student Financial Assistance

Grants and loans provided to students attending proprietary schools and community colleges represent the single largest source of federal support for postsecondary training. The irony is that student aid is perhaps the least often mentioned source of such support. This misperception is directly related to the history of student aid programs: first authorized in 1965, the student aid programs in Title IV of the Higher Education Act were largely aimed at students pursuing baccalaureate degrees in 4-year colleges and universities.

Federal student assistance was created to help equalize educational opportunities and to foster access to postsecondary education for those with limited financial means. As reauthorized in 1992, the Higher Education Act includes, in Title IV, five sets of programs:

Grants to students in attendance at institutions of higher education, which include Pell grants, Supplemental Educational Opportunity Grants (SEOG), State Student Incentive Grants (SSIG), and several smaller programs.

Federal Family Education Loans (FFEL), which include the Stafford Loan Program (Stafford) for students, the Parents Loans for Undergraduate Students Program (PLUS), and the Supplemental Loan for Students Program (SLS). These are federally guaranteed loans financed with private capital.

Federal work study programs.

Federal direct loans, which provide for a direct loan program beginning in 1994 under which some student loans will be made directly by the federal government rather than through the FFEL guaranteed loan program.

Federal Perkins loans, a direct-lending program under which the fed

Suggested Citation:"2 OVERVIEW OF POSTSECONDARY TRAINING INSTITUTIONS AND PROGRAMS." National Research Council. 1994. Preparing for the Workplace: Charting A Course for Federal Postsecondary Training Policy. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/2123.
×

TABLE 2.1 Federal Support of Postsecondary Training Programs, Fiscal 1991

Program

Budget Authority ($ million)

U.S. Department of Labor

 

 

 

Apprenticeship training

 

16

 

Veterans employment and training

 

148

 

Disabled Veterans Outreach Program

77

 

 

Local veterans employment representative

71

 

 

Trade adjustment assistance

 

270

 

Job Training Partnership Act

 

4,039

 

JTPA Title II-A

1,780

 

 

JTPA Title II-B

683

 

 

JTPA Title III: EDWAA

527

 

 

JTPA Title IV: Job Corps

867

 

 

JTPA Title IV: Migrant farm workers

70

 

 

JTPA Title IV: Native American education and training

60

 

 

JTPA Title IV: Pilots and demonstrations

36

 

 

JTPA Title IV: Veterans employment program

9

 

 

JTPA Other

7

 

 

McKinney Homelessness Assistance Act

 

12

 

Job training for the homeless demonstration

10

 

 

Homeless veterans reintegration

2

 

 

Targeted jobs tax credit

 

80

 

Tax expenditures (revenue loss)

60

 

 

Administration

20

 

 

Subtotal U.S. Department of Labor

 

 

4,565

U.S. Department of Education

 

 

 

Adult Education Act

 

242

 

Basic grant program

201

 

 

Workplace literacy partnerships

19

 

 

Literacy training for homeless adults

10

 

 

Other adult education programs

12

 

 

Student financial assistance

 

5,946

 

Pell grants

2,419a

 

 

Students and parent guaranteed loans (Stafford, PLUS, SLS)

3,339a,b

 

 

Campus-based aid

188a

 

 

Cooperative education

 

14

 

Perkins Vocational Education Act

 

417c

 

Basic grants to states

320c

 

 

Tech-prep

63

 

 

CBO grants

12

 

 

Other Perkins

22c

 

 

Vocational rehabilitation

 

1,633

 

Subtotal U.S. Department of Education

 

 

8,252

Suggested Citation:"2 OVERVIEW OF POSTSECONDARY TRAINING INSTITUTIONS AND PROGRAMS." National Research Council. 1994. Preparing for the Workplace: Charting A Course for Federal Postsecondary Training Policy. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/2123.
×

Program

Budget Authority ($ million)

U.S. Department of Health and Human Services

 

 

 

JOBS

 

1,000

 

Refugee and entrant assistance

 

121

 

Education and training assistance

83

 

 

Targeted assistance

38

 

 

Vocational rehabilitation

 

61

 

Subtotal U.S. Department of Health and Human Services

 

 

1,182

U.S. Department of Agriculture

 

 

 

Food stamp education and training

 

153

 

Subtotal U.S. Department of Agriculture

 

 

153

U.S. Department of Interior

 

 

 

Indian education programs

 

35

 

Indian training and related programs

 

22

 

Subtotal U.S. Department of Interior

 

 

57

U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs

 

 

 

Montgomery G.I. Bill

 

289

 

Vocational rehabilitation

 

132

 

Survivors and dependents education assistance

 

104

 

Post-Vietnam era vets education benefits

 

92

 

Benefits for reservists

 

79

 

Subtotal U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs

 

 

696d

U.S. Department of Defense

 

 

 

Navy specialized skill training

 

1,974

 

Army specialized skill training

 

1,494

 

Air Force specialized skill training

 

694

 

Marine specialized skill training

 

564

 

Subtotal U.S. Department of Defense

 

 

4,726

TOTAL FEDERAL SUPPORT

 

 

19,631

a This figure represents an estimate of program share directed toward students at community colleges and proprietary schools. It overstates somewhat the amount devoted to job training, since a fraction of students at community colleges are in academic programs.

b This figure represents the proportion directed toward community college and proprietary school students of total aid awarded through the guaranteed loan programs. Actual federal expenditures are lower than the total aid awarded, since the government does not provide the loan money, but rather pays to subsidize some low-interest loans and repays defaulted loans. Data on the percentage of federal expenditures, rather than the percentage of total aid awarded, for community college and proprietary school students were not available.

c This figure represents an estimate of Perkins program money provided to postsecondary (rather than secondary) institutions.

d Dollar amounts for veterans programs represent funds going to students in all sectors of postsecondary education, including 4-year schools.

SOURCES: Complied by staff using materials provided to the committee by the U.S. Department of Labor and the U.S. General Accounting Office, as well as the fiscal 1992 budget of the U.S. government, the U.S. Department of Defense Military Manpower Training Report for fiscal 1992, and College Board (1993).

Suggested Citation:"2 OVERVIEW OF POSTSECONDARY TRAINING INSTITUTIONS AND PROGRAMS." National Research Council. 1994. Preparing for the Workplace: Charting A Course for Federal Postsecondary Training Policy. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/2123.
×

eral government provides money to college and universities to lend to students.

SEOG, Perkins loans, and work study are known as the campus-based programs because federal appropriations are distributed to campuses, where administrators select recipients on the basis of federal guidelines. Federal student assistance from the Title IV programs represents about two-thirds of all the aid awarded to students from federal, state, institutional, and other sources (College Board, 1993).

Title IV programs provided $22 billion in federal aid to students at all levels in the academic year 1991-1992.5 Of this amount, we estimate that community college and proprietary school students received roughly $6 billion. As Table 2.2 indicates, proprietary school students received more than one and one-half times as much overall aid as community college students and over three times as much in student loans. (Since most federal aid is based on the financial need of the student, taking into account both educational costs and family ability to pay, students at proprietary schools qualify for more assistance—other things being equal—than do students at comparatively low-priced, state-subsidized community colleges.) Federal

TABLE 2.2 Federal Student Aid Awarded to Community College and Proprietary School Students, Academic Year 1991-1992

 

Proprietary School Students

Community College Students

All Postsecondary Studentsa

Program

Aid Awarded ($ mil)

% of Program Total

Aid Awarded ($ mil)

% of Program Total

Aid Awarded ($ mil)

Pell

1,196

20.7

1,404

24.3

5,777

Campus-based

117

5.5

198

9.3

2,126

Guaranteed loans

2,621

18.7

814

5.8

13,993

Total

3,934

18.0

2,416

11.0

21,896

NOTE: Total aid awarded, reported here, is greater than federal expenditures, since the federal government guarantees loans and may provide interest subsidies, but loan capital comes primarily from private lending institutions as well as some schools and state agencies. In addition, this table includes matching funds provided by schools participating in the campus-based programs. Totals in the table refer to academic year 1991-1992 and are therefore not directly comparable to the fiscal year totals reported in Table 2.1.

a This column includes aid for all students at all undergraduate and graduate institutions of postsecondary education.

SOURCE: College Board (1993:Tables 1 and 6).

Suggested Citation:"2 OVERVIEW OF POSTSECONDARY TRAINING INSTITUTIONS AND PROGRAMS." National Research Council. 1994. Preparing for the Workplace: Charting A Course for Federal Postsecondary Training Policy. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/2123.
×

student aid has, until recently, been limited to individuals enrolled in school on at least a half-time basis; very short programs of study (under roughly 3 months for student loans and 6 months for Pell grants) do not qualify. Aid recipients must be making satisfactory academic progress (consistent with the graduation requirements of the institutions they attend) in order to remain eligible for federal assistance.

Over 80 percent of Title IV federal student aid is awarded through the Pell grants, Stafford loan, and SLS programs. We therefore focus on these programs.

The Higher Education Act was first passed in 1965, authorizing grants, loans, and work study assistance through the campus-based programs and creating the Guaranteed Student Loan (GSL) Program, the forerunner of today's Stafford and SLS programs. Initially, only public and private nonprofit institutions of higher education were eligible for these programs. For proprietary schools, Congress created the Vocational Student Loan Insurance Act of 1965, closely paralleling the GSL program in content and administration. The House Education and Labor Committee hearing records indicate that the primary reason for creating separate programs was abuses by proprietary schools under the G.I. Bill during the late 1940s and early 1950s. However, in 1968 Congress merged the vocational loan program into GSL, citing duplication of effort and equity of funds availability as primary factors (Fraas, 1990).

GSL was originally aimed primarily at middle-income families who were clamoring for help with college costs and whose appeals had almost resulted in the passage of a tuition tax credit bill in the U.S. Senate in 1964. It grew slowly in the early years, but then, as Table 2.3 indicates, exploded in the late 1970s and 1980s due to a variety of factors, including removal of income restrictions for interest-subsidized loans in 1978 (they were reimposed in 1981); interest rates in the general economy that made student loans quite attractive; and growing use by proprietary school students (Hansen,

TABLE 2.3 Stafford Loan Growth Since 1966

Year

# Loans (thousands)

$ Loaned (million)

1966

89

73

1970

498

457

1975

486

637

1980

2,078

4,335

1985

3,641

8,401

1990

3,609

9,708

 

SOURCE: U.S. Department of Education (1990a:13).

Suggested Citation:"2 OVERVIEW OF POSTSECONDARY TRAINING INSTITUTIONS AND PROGRAMS." National Research Council. 1994. Preparing for the Workplace: Charting A Course for Federal Postsecondary Training Policy. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/2123.
×

1991). By the end of the 1980s, the now-renamed Stafford program had become the major student aid program, making over $10 billion available annually. Additional student loans could be obtained through the SLS program, created in 1981 along with a parent loan program.

Today's Stafford loan program allows students in their first 2 years of postsecondary education to borrow $2,625 in the first year and $3,500 in the second.6 Loans up to $4,000 annually are authorized for students in programs lasting at least 1 academic year under the SLS program (SLS loans are federally guaranteed, but the interest rates are not subsidized as are need-based Stafford loans). Community college students, despite their numbers, accounted for only about 6 percent of Stafford loan volume and 4 percent of SLS volume in fiscal 1991. Proprietary school students, on the other hand, accounted for 17 percent and 29 percent of volume, respectively, in the two programs (College Board, 1993).

Student loans became controversial in the 1980s as costs to the federal government of paying off defaulted loans rose rapidly. (In a guaranteed loan program, the federal government insures lenders against the risk that a borrower will default on his or her loan. The government may or may not subsidize interest rates as well.) Default costs grew because of rising loan volume as well as an increase in borrowing among groups more likely to default. Default costs drew attention as they became a multibillion-dollar item in the federal budget (an estimated $2.7 billion in fiscal 1992, for example) and because of high default rates, particularly in the proprietary school sector. 7

Congress created what is now the second largest student aid program, Pell grants (originally called Basic Educational Opportunity Grants), in 1972, intending them to serve as the foundation of a student's financial aid package. From the program's inception, students from all sectors of postsecondary education have been eligible for Pell grants. However, because Pell grant recipients must be enrolled in a program of at least 600 clock hours (6 months), many proprietary school students do not qualify.

Although the original authorizing legislation spoke of Pell grants as an entitlement, awards, in fact, depend on annual appropriations from Congress. (Student loans are, by contrast, true entitlements; Congress must appropriate whatever funds are necessary to cover the costs of all who decide to borrow.) Although Pell funding grew throughout the 1980s, it did not keep up with demand or rising college costs. To keep federal expenditures down, federal policy makers have refused to let maximum grant levels grow much. Maximum grants were $2,100 in 1985-1986 and had grown to only $2,400 by 1992-1993. For 1993-1994, the maximum will actually fall to $2,300. This has the effect of increasingly concentrating the available grants on lower-income students.

Student grants and loans are by far the most significant source of fed-

Suggested Citation:"2 OVERVIEW OF POSTSECONDARY TRAINING INSTITUTIONS AND PROGRAMS." National Research Council. 1994. Preparing for the Workplace: Charting A Course for Federal Postsecondary Training Policy. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/2123.
×

eral assistance to those pursuing training to qualify for employment. Workers who can enroll on at least a half-time basis and can qualify on the basis of income can also use these programs for skills improvement training or retraining. As educational vouchers that provide funds directly to students, this aid affords recipients an almost unrestricted choice of school and program of study. Until recently, the federal government exercised a relatively hands-off approach to certifying the eligibility of institutions to enroll federal aid recipients, relying mostly on state licensing and voluntary accreditation. Later chapters will discuss the subject of institutional and program eligibility.

The Carl D. Perkins Vocational and Applied Technology Education Act of 1990

Today's Perkins Act is the lineal descendant of the Smith-Hughes Act of 1917 that established a program of federal grants to the states for support of vocational education. Originally focused on secondary schools, the act was amended in 1963 to allow states to use federal funds for occupation-oriented programs at the postsecondary level as well. Despite its small size ($941 million to secondary and postsecondary institutions in fiscal 1991) compared to federal student aid, the Perkins Act is usually considered the centerpiece of the U.S. Department of Education's activity in vocational education and training.

The Perkins Act provides funds to state vocational education agencies, which in turn distribute the money to schools and school districts. The act aims at improving the quality of vocational training and ensuring the full participation of individuals who are members of special populations (people with handicaps, disadvantaged individuals, people with limited English proficiency, foster children, and people in correctional institutions). The preponderance of Perkins Act funds are awarded through Title II basic grants to the states. Basic grants, which states must match, can be used for a variety of purposes, including upgrading of curricula, purchase of equipment, inservice training of instructors, guidance and counseling, and remedial courses. The Title III Tech-Prep program, the other part of Perkins of special interest because of its involvement in postsecondary training, was added to the act during its most recent reauthorization in 1990.8

States allocate their basic grant funds between secondary and postsecondary education in vastly different ways. A major assessment of the Perkins Act that was completed in 1989 indicated that, in 1986-1987, the share of total funds directed to postsecondary institutions varied among the states from 8 to 100 percent. Overall, 38 percent of basic grants went to institutions at the postsecondary level (National Assessment of Vocational Education, 1989a:8-10). While federal vocational education funds have historically exerted a

Suggested Citation:"2 OVERVIEW OF POSTSECONDARY TRAINING INSTITUTIONS AND PROGRAMS." National Research Council. 1994. Preparing for the Workplace: Charting A Course for Federal Postsecondary Training Policy. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/2123.
×

strong influence over the development of secondary vocational education programs, postsecondary institutions have been far less affected because the federal dollars represent such a small part of their revenues. For example, the current fund revenues of 2-year public colleges in academic year 1989 were $15.5 billion (National Center for Education Statistics, 1992d:16). At the postsecondary level, federal funds were spent mostly on equipment purchases, not on broader program improvement efforts (National Assessment of Vocational Education, 1989b:35).

The 1990 legislation envisioned expansion of so-called Tech-Prep initiatives that emerged around the country in the 1980s. The law defines a Tech-Prep program as one that combines secondary and postsecondary education and leads to a 2-year associate degree or certificate; provides technical preparation in fields such as engineering technology, health, and business; builds student competence in math, science, and communications; and leads to employment (Irwin and Apling, 1991:14). The title Tech-Prep was itself adopted to remove the stigma of the term vocational education and to mirror the respected college prep track in high schools. In a well-developed tech-prep program, students pursue coursework in the final 2 years of high school that provides a basic mastery of necessary skills. They then move on to 2 years of coursework at a community college, during which they achieve advanced mastery in a technical subject area. The federal government committed $64 million to the support of state and local tech-prep initiatives in fiscal 1990.

The 1990 reauthorization of the Perkins Act requires states to develop and implement performance standards and measures. Each state's performance standard system must include measures of learning and competency gains in basic and advanced skills; include at least one measure of outcomes of vocational programs (e.g., job placement or school completion rates); provide incentives to encourage serving members of special populations; and capitalize on existing resources for performance assessment, such as those developed under JTPA (Irwin and Apling, 1991:8-9). The legislation does not call for sanctions against program recipients who do not meet performance standards. Recipients who do not make substantial progress must only develop program improvement plans that will indicate how they will improve performance.

Finally, the 1990 Perkins legislation calls for a major new assessment of vocational education, with a final report due in 1994.

Adult Education Programs

Since the mid-1960s, the federal government, through the Adult Education Act, has assisted states in providing educational opportunities for adults who lack basic skills. The core Basic Grant portion of the act supports

Suggested Citation:"2 OVERVIEW OF POSTSECONDARY TRAINING INSTITUTIONS AND PROGRAMS." National Research Council. 1994. Preparing for the Workplace: Charting A Course for Federal Postsecondary Training Policy. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/2123.
×

Adult Basic Education (ABE: programs designed for adults functioning at or below the eighth-grade level); Adult Secondary Education (ASE: instruction for adults functioning at the high school level); and ESL. In 1988 the act was amended to supplement Basic Grants with programs designed to improve the literacy skills of people in the workplace and to serve adults with limited proficiency in English. The National Literacy Act of 1991 further amended the Adult Education Act. The highest priority set out in the National Literacy Act is the improvement of programs to ensure the quality of educational services supported by federal funds. This act called for the Secretary of Education to develop indicators of program quality that could be used by state and local programs as models for judging service effectiveness. In addition, the act established a national institute for literacy, state literacy resource centers, work force literacy grants, and optional state literacy councils.

Basic State Grants accounted for over 80 percent of the $220 million in federal funds appropriated for adult education in fiscal 1991. Basic Grants are allocated to states by formula based on the number of adults who have not completed high school in each state. States distribute funds to local education agencies and other public and private nonprofit agencies.

States and localities supplement the funds they receive from the federal government and, in fact, spend significantly more than the federal government. The U.S. Department of Education estimated that, in fiscal 1992, 3.6 million people would be served through a combination of approximately $240 million in Adult Education Act funds and $560 million in state and local funds (Office of Vocational and Adult Education, 1991:2).

In September 1990, the U.S. Department of Education launched a national evaluation of federally supported adult education programs supported by Basic Grants, with a final report due in 1994. In the fall of 1990, a survey of all federally supported providers of adult education instructional service was conducted. This survey presents the best available data on these providers. There were 2,819 in the program year ending June 30, 1990, serving 3.7 million clients during the 1989-1990 program year. Since many individuals participated in the program for less than a year, fewer were enrolled at any one time: about 1.7 million in October 1990, according to the survey. Local programs were diverse in sponsorship and size. They served a median of 168 clients in October 1990, with 12 percent of programs serving over 1,000 clients each and 37 percent serving less than 100 clients each at that time. Sixty-eight percent of the programs were administered by local education agencies and 17 percent by community colleges. Volunteer organizations and community service groups (6 percent), technical institutes (6 percent), and regional educational service agencies or consortia of public school districts (2 percent) accounted for the rest. Sixty-three percent of the students were served by school system programs

Suggested Citation:"2 OVERVIEW OF POSTSECONDARY TRAINING INSTITUTIONS AND PROGRAMS." National Research Council. 1994. Preparing for the Workplace: Charting A Course for Federal Postsecondary Training Policy. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/2123.
×

and 28 percent by programs administered by community colleges (U.S. Department of Education, 1992).

Vocational Rehabilitation

The other major U.S. Department of Education effort with a vocational focus is authorized by the Rehabilitation Act of 1973, as amended. In fiscal 1991, federal vocational-rehabilitation expenditures exceeded $1.5 billion. Rehabilitation is provided to enable individuals with disabilities to prepare for and engage in gainful employment to the greatest extent possible. Individuals of all ages are eligible for services that include evaluation, counseling, physical and mental restoration, training, supportive services, and placement. Supportive services are varied, including, for example, interpreter services for the deaf; reader services for the blind; and tools, licenses, equipment, supplies, and management services for vending stands or other small businesses for individuals with severe disabilities (U.S. Department of Education, 1990b). The Rehabilitation Act authorizes federal allocations to state rehabilitation agencies on a formula basis with a matching requirement.

In fiscal 1991, state rehabilitation agencies funded through the act served over 940,000 individuals and ''rehabilitated'' over 200,000 individuals. Rehabilitated persons are those who applied for vocational-rehabilitation services, were found eligible to participate, received services, completed their programs, and were found to be eligible for employment upon completion. Sixty percent of the persons rehabilitated were classified as "severely disabled" (e.g., blind, deaf, severe respiratory disorders, etc.) (U.S. Department of Education, 1991).

While vocational-rehabilitation is one of the larger programs in the U.S. Department of Education, its postsecondary training component is comparatively small. The training portion of vocational-rehabilitation may include on-the-job training; occupational training at a vocational-rehabilitation center; adjustment training (e.g., interviewing skills, job search assistance, etc.); as well as classroom training in a community college, area vocational school, proprietary school, or 4-year college or university. There are no reliable national estimates for the utilization of these services. However, conversations with state and national vocational-rehabilitation officials indicate that 10 to 15 percent of vocational-rehabilitation participants receive training through a 2- or 4-year college or proprietary school. When participants do receive training through one of these institutions, they must first use Pell grant funds before vocational-rehabilitation funds will be committed.

The Job Training Partnership Act

The Job Training Partnership Act (JTPA), first enacted in 1982 and administered by the U.S. Department of Labor, is the latest in a series of

Suggested Citation:"2 OVERVIEW OF POSTSECONDARY TRAINING INSTITUTIONS AND PROGRAMS." National Research Council. 1994. Preparing for the Workplace: Charting A Course for Federal Postsecondary Training Policy. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/2123.
×

federal programs dating back to the 1960s that were designed to provide training and employment assistance to disadvantaged individuals and dislocated workers. It is the major federal program specifically aimed at improving the training and employability of those without jobs.

JTPA serves disadvantaged adults and youth through activities authorized under Title II, dislocated workers under a program authorized under Title III (see the following section), and special populations (veterans, Native Americans, and seasonal and migrant farm workers) under Title IV provisions.9 The Job Corps, a largely residential education and training program for youth, is also authorized under Title IV. States have primary responsibility for programs under Titles II and III; the federal government directly administers Title IV programs.

Funding for JTPA was $4.1 billion in fiscal 1993, about 10 percent higher (in current dollars) than when the program was created. Funding declined somewhat in current dollars throughout the 1980s for the Title II programs, but Title III and the Job Corps under Title IV grew from $233 million and $640 million, respectively, in program year 1984 to $567 million and $966 million in fiscal 1993.

Nonetheless, JTPA funding is significantly lower than federal spending on the Comprehensive Employment and Training Act (CETA), which JTPA replaced. This is true even after excluding CETA expenditures on public service employment (Levitan and Gallo, 1988:19).10 Title II is the centerpiece of JTPA, accounting for about three-fifths of JTPA spending. It and the Job Corps together account for over 80 percent of JTPA funds.

In program year 1991 (July 1, 1991–June 30, 1992), 533,100 persons were newly enrolled in Title II, and 526,000 were terminated. Title II services for unemployed adults and out-of-school, unemployed youth included classroom training, on-the-job training, job search assistance, work experience, and other services. Table 2-4 indicates the relative incidence of these services. In reaction to criticisms that CETA funds were spent too heavily on nontraining activities, JTPA originally restricted nontraining expenditures on administration, allowances or stipends, and supportive services to 30 percent of program costs. (The 1992 amendments to JTPA raised this level to 50 percent.) Unlike CETA, which assumed that the poor would need income support while they pursued training, JTPA in practice almost eliminated such assistance in many areas (Levitan and Gallo, 1988:62-63).

Several features distinguish JTPA from most other federal training activities. Most important, Title II is similar to a block grant to the states, with important administrative responsibility vested in the states and discretion about whom to serve left to local officials. Worried that too few beneficiaries were seriously disadvantaged, Congress amended JTPA in 1992 to require that, besides being economically disadvantaged, at least 65 percent of the adults and youth served by Title II had to have at least one

Suggested Citation:"2 OVERVIEW OF POSTSECONDARY TRAINING INSTITUTIONS AND PROGRAMS." National Research Council. 1994. Preparing for the Workplace: Charting A Course for Federal Postsecondary Training Policy. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/2123.
×

TABLE 2.4 Principal Program Activities of JTPA IIA Terminees, 1991

Type of Training

Percentage of Terminees Receiving Training

On-the-job

15

Classroom/occupational

29

Classroom/basic education

15

Work experience

6

Job-search assistance

15

Othera

20

a Refers to participants who received services that could not be considered as one of the above activities, or participants who received significant amounts of more than one type of activity.

SOURCES: U.S. Department of Labor (1993:8), supplemented by information provided to the committee by the U.S. Department of Labor.

barrier to employment (such as basic skills deficiencies, receipt of cash welfare payments, disabilities, homelessness, or criminal records).11

Nevertheless, JTPA retains a strong emphasis on state, local, and private sector involvement and responsibility. Title II funds are allocated to the states on the basis of the number of people in poverty and concentrations of unemployed individuals. States pass on about four-fifths of these funds to more than 640 service delivery areas across the nation, based on the same federally determined factors. Each area is overseen by a Private Industry Council, a majority of whose members, appointed by the chief elected officials of the service delivery areas, must represent business. Private Industry Councils and local officials together select an administrative agency to run the program; this can be the council itself, a government agency, or a nonprofit organization. The administering agency can provide services directly but typically contracts them out to schools, community-based organizations, and private vendors.

JTPA is a voluntary program; participants hear about it through word of mouth or advertising or are referred by state welfare and employment agencies. After completing applications to establish financial eligibility and assessments to measure academic preparation and job readiness, individuals are assigned to one of the various program services noted above. Youth assigned to classroom training usually utilize services provided by area vocational and high schools; adults tend to get their classroom training from community colleges and, to a much lesser extent, proprietary schools. Some youth and adults receive classroom training from community-based organi

Suggested Citation:"2 OVERVIEW OF POSTSECONDARY TRAINING INSTITUTIONS AND PROGRAMS." National Research Council. 1994. Preparing for the Workplace: Charting A Course for Federal Postsecondary Training Policy. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/2123.
×

zations. When JTPA participants are referred to community colleges and proprietary schools, they may be placed in regular classes alongside the schools' regular students, or the service delivery area may contract for special classes limited to JTPA enrollees.

Another distinguishing feature of JTPA is the use of performance standards in Title II. In its early years, JTPA was directed from the federal level with some restraint. Congress instructed the U.S. Department of Labor to develop performance standards to measure the results of local service delivery area activity. The development of performance standards actually began in the mid-1970s under CETA and has characterized JTPA since the outset. The standards used in the first years of the program specified desired outcome levels for the proportion of adult participants entering employment; the proportion of adult welfare recipients entering employment; average hourly wages; and costs per placement; all measured at the point when participants left (or terminated from) the program. Standards for youth included the proportion entering employment, the positive termination rate, and the costs per positive termination. (A positive termination is one with a positive outcome, such as the participant returned to school or attained specific competencies upon termination from the program.) These standards have been modified over time to emphasize longer-term rather than immediate post-program results and to eliminate the cost standards. Cost standards were widely viewed as encouraging service delivery areas to "cream"; that is, to serve the most job-ready and easiest-to-place applicants to minimize costs rather than to select individuals who would be harder and more expensive to serve. Governors can modify federally determined standards by using optional adjustment models that allow for differences in expected performance based on participant characteristics and local labor market conditions. Service delivery areas that fail to meet the performance standards are given technical assistance by the state but may ultimately be removed from the JTPA program. Service delivery areas that succeed are given financial awards based on the extent to which they exceeded standards.

The performance standard system is further advanced in JTPA than in other federal training programs, although the approach is spreading. Follow-up standards since 1989 have replaced termination-based standards for adults and welfare recipients. Youth standards have also shifted to emphasize competency more strongly (see Chapters 3 and 6).

In 1992 Congress passed JTPA amendments that made the first major changes to Title II since the program was enacted in 1982. The legislation emphasized targeting services, enhancing program quality, moving toward a comprehensive human service delivery system, and increasing fiscal integrity. Some of the changes in eligibility requirements have been described above. The amendments also require individualized assessments of education, skills, and service needs of each participant so that service strategies

Suggested Citation:"2 OVERVIEW OF POSTSECONDARY TRAINING INSTITUTIONS AND PROGRAMS." National Research Council. 1994. Preparing for the Workplace: Charting A Course for Federal Postsecondary Training Policy. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/2123.
×

can be tailored and managed individually and provide more intense and comprehensive services to each client. Performance standards were changed to emphasize actual acquisition of skills in addition to job placements. The amendments require better documentation and reporting of costs and stronger procurement and contracting procedures. They promote a greater level of coordination among human resource programs through support for state human resource investment councils (see Chapter 3).

The Job Opportunities and Basic Skills Training Program

The Job Opportunities and Basic Skills (JOBS) Training Program was created in 1988 as part of the Family Support Act, a major reform of the nation's leading welfare program. That reform, while continuing unchanged cash benefits for poor adults and their dependent children under the Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC) program, "sought to shift the balance between permanent income maintenance and temporary support toward the latter" (Gueron and Pauly, 1991:1). JOBS was created to provide adults receiving AFDC with the education, training, and employment that would help them avoid long-term dependence on welfare. To accomplish this, the JOBS program not only required that AFDC recipients undertake education and training in preparation for stable employment, but also provided the necessary supportive services, such as child care, transportation, and medical assistance, to facilitate the goal.

JOBS operates as a capped entitlement, with $1 billion authorized for 1991, rising to $1.3 billion in 1995. In September 1991, approximately 560,000 individuals were participating in JOBS (Greenberg, 1992:3). Over the years, states are supposed to include an increasing proportion of the welfare caseload in their JOBS programs, with the percentage rising from 7 percent in 1991 to 20 percent in 1995.

Unlike JTPA and other education and training programs, JOBS is at the same time a service and a welfare reform program, in that it seeks to condition welfare receipt on participation in employment-directed services. This mandatory element distinguishes the program from other related activities, although, in reality, limited funding has substantially restricted the mandatory nature of the program. JOBS and JTPA overlap in important ways. Welfare administrators frequently refer JOBS participants to the local JTPA program for training, and JTPA also frequently uses JOBS to pay for supportive services such as child care and transportation. JTPA legislation requires that welfare recipients be served on an equitable basis relative to their incidence in the population.

JOBS operates as a significant partnership between states and the federal government. The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services provides broad guidelines to states about the makeup of state JOBS pro

Suggested Citation:"2 OVERVIEW OF POSTSECONDARY TRAINING INSTITUTIONS AND PROGRAMS." National Research Council. 1994. Preparing for the Workplace: Charting A Course for Federal Postsecondary Training Policy. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/2123.
×

grams. All state JOBS programs must include four basic services: educational activities below the postsecondary level, job skills training, job readiness activities, and job development or job placement activities. State JOBS programs must also include two of the following four components: group and individual job search, on-the-job training, work supplementation, and community work experience. Postsecondary education is one optional activity among many that states may offer. Within these guidelines, states have much flexibility in developing programs. In particular, the law provides that states must meet program requirements "to the extent that resources permit." Thus, there are significant state-to-state differences in the character of JOBS programs (Gueron and Pauly, 1991:56). Overall, however, states have opted for greater emphasis on investment in human capital than on work attachment strategies.

The responsibility for financing JOBS is also shared among federal and state governments. Whereas JTPA is fully funded by the U.S. Department of Labor, states must provide matching funds to be able to draw down their portion of the JOBS-capped entitlement. The federal matching rate is 90 percent up to each state's Work Incentive (WIN) Program allocation for 1987. Above that amount, the federal government matches JOBS expenditures at the Medicaid rate or 60 percent, whichever is higher. Thus, the $1 billion allocated to JOBS for 1991 represents funds available for state matching. Due to state budget constraints, states have not been able to draw down their entire allocation. Of the federal funds available in 1991, states spent only $591 million. State allocations in that year ranged from $1.2 million in North Dakota to $160 million in California. Expenditures as a percent of available funds ranged from 11 percent in Mississippi to 100 percent in several states (Greenberg, 1992:Appendix D).

Of particular interest to the committee is the extent to which JOBS participants are offered postsecondary training opportunities in community colleges, proprietary schools, or area vocational schools. While much of the education and training in JOBS takes place below the postsecondary level (because there are substantial numbers of young high school dropouts on AFDC), a JOBS participant can enroll in postsecondary training in two ways. First, if an individual is deemed eligible for, but is not already attending, a postsecondary institution prior to JOBS participation, the state may assign that individual to a postsecondary activity. Second, if an individual is already attending a postsecondary institution prior to participating in JOBS, the state may approve the activity as self-initiated education and training, thereby making the participant eligible for support services. In either case, attendance at a postsecondary institution is at the discretion of the state.

One important difference between these two modes of entry into a postsecondary institution is the mix of services and activities for which the

Suggested Citation:"2 OVERVIEW OF POSTSECONDARY TRAINING INSTITUTIONS AND PROGRAMS." National Research Council. 1994. Preparing for the Workplace: Charting A Course for Federal Postsecondary Training Policy. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/2123.
×

state either can or must pay. Whether the postsecondary activity is self-initiated or referred, the state must pay for necessary child care and transportation costs. If the state refers the participant to the postsecondary activity, the state may pay the cost of the activity (i.e., tuition and fees). If the state approves the postsecondary activity as self-initiated education and training, JOBS regulations do not allow the state to pay for the cost of the activity. Greenberg (1992:i) found that approximately 25 percent of JOBS participants were attending a postsecondary institution, whether referred or self-initiated.

In many states, basic education is the largest JOBS component activity. In September 1991, 32 percent of all participants were assigned to this category. Basic education includes high school or GED completion for adults, high school completion for teen parents, and ESL (Greenberg, 1992:7-8).

While states have operated under requirements relating to program participation rates since JOBS' inception, the program does not yet use performance standards of the type found in JTPA. The Family Support Act requires the Secretary of Health and Human Services to make recommendations to Congress on performance standards for the JOBS program by October 1, 1993.

Dislocated Worker Programs

The federal government provides assistance to dislocated workers through a number of mechanisms, including those targeted at dislocated workers as well as those provided to all individuals in need. The two major federal programs aimed specifically at dislocated workers are Trade Adjustment Assistance (TAA) and the Economic Dislocation and Worker Adjustment Assistance Act (EDWAA), both of which are administered through the U.S. Department of Labor (National Commission for Employment Policy, 1991a). A variety of smaller discretionary grant programs have been created in recent years under programs such as Defense Conversion Adjustment (1990), Clean Air Employment Transition Assistance (1990), and Defense Diversification (1992). The National Governors' Association (private communication) has estimated that there are at least 18 different federal dislocated worker programs, each with different eligible grantees, administrative structures, eligible participants, allowable services, and performance goals. Not all of these programs provide training, however. We concentrate here on the two main dislocated worker programs that have a training focus, TAA and EDWAA.

TAA was established in 1962 and has been amended several times, most recently by the Omnibus Trade and Competitiveness Act of 1988. TAA provides two types of services. First, TAA funds trade readjustment allowances, which extend unemployment insurance benefits up to 52 addi

Suggested Citation:"2 OVERVIEW OF POSTSECONDARY TRAINING INSTITUTIONS AND PROGRAMS." National Research Council. 1994. Preparing for the Workplace: Charting A Course for Federal Postsecondary Training Policy. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/2123.
×

tional weeks for workers certified by the U.S. Department of Labor as having become unemployed or underemployed as a result of increased imports. Under the 1988 amendments, workers must participate in an approved job training program in order to receive readjustment cash benefits, unless they receive a waiver that job training is either inappropriate or unavailable. In fiscal 1990, the federal government provided close to $100 million in cash benefits to 19,545 displaced workers. One recent study (Corson et al., 1993) found that over 85 percent of readjustment recipients came from the manufacturing sector.

In addition to cash benefits, TAA also funds job training services for certified dislocated workers. As part of its job training program, TAA offers occupational information and counseling, on-the-job training, vocational-technical training, remedial education, job search assistance, and relocation allowances. In fiscal 1990, 19,867 displaced workers received some form of job services, the bulk of them in the form of direct training, rather than job search or relocation assistance. 12 While the state employment agencies usually offer the job search assistance and relocation allowances directly, they usually contract for the training services from both public and private vendors. Although TAA training is an entitlement program, training costs are subject to an annual $80 million cap.

Currently, TAA is considerably smaller than it was at its height in 1980, when it provided some 500,000 people with trade readjustment allowances totaling over $1.6 billion (Levitan and Gallo, 1988:107). Only a handful of these received any readjustment training. The next year, however, the elimination of payments that increased weekly unemployment insurance benefits and the limitation of trade readjustment allowances to an extension of unemployment insurance benefits—passed as part of the Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act of 1981—significantly reduced the number and cost of trade readjustment allowances.

EDWAA became operational in 1989 and replaced the original Title III of JTPA through legislation in the Omnibus Trade and Competitiveness Act. EDWAA changed Title III significantly by emphasizing rapid response capabilities to assist workers before a plant closure or major layoff occurs, including labor-management cooperation to prepare for layoffs; a mandated role for the substate areas that deliver EDWAA services—at least 60 percent of the state's funds are to be passed down to substate areas; intensive retraining services to dislocated workers; and improved linkages with the unemployment insurance system, the Employment Services, and TAA. With federal appropriations of $527 million in program year 1991, EDWAA served about 330,000 people.

EDWAA provides for such services as job search assistance, on-the-job training, occupational skills training, entrepreneurial training, and basic skills training. The substate grantee may provide all or some of the services

Suggested Citation:"2 OVERVIEW OF POSTSECONDARY TRAINING INSTITUTIONS AND PROGRAMS." National Research Council. 1994. Preparing for the Workplace: Charting A Course for Federal Postsecondary Training Policy. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/2123.
×

directly or may contract out for them to a variety of public and private organizations.

Community colleges and vocational-technical schools are the most frequent providers of occupational classroom training. Most substate areas supplement public service providers with proprietary schools, which offer shorter, more intensive training with more flexible scheduling. CBOs and unions also provide classroom training, although far less frequently than community colleges, vocational-technical schools, and proprietary schools (Corson et al., 1993).

TAA and EDWAA both address the needs of similar populations, offer similar services, and are administered by the U.S. Department of Labor. Yet, the two programs have developed distinctly different characters. EDWAA strongly resembles JTPA Title II and is characterized by training programs of comparatively short duration. TAA, on the other hand, emphasizes longer-term training and provides cash benefits so that workers have the flexibility to undertake longer-term training.

Summary

The federal government, through these and other programs, is an active partner in postsecondary training. As these program descriptions indicate, though, the federal approach is piecemeal. Goals, services, and financing and administrative arrangements are quite variable. Federal oversight and administration is divided among numerous executive departments; congressional responsibility is equally decentralized among many committees and subcommittees. There is no one place in the federal structure where postsecondary training as a whole is considered. Instead, this array of programs intersects with the assortment of providers described earlier in the chapter to compose a complex matrix of postsecondary training opportunities. We will now turn to the question of how well or badly this matrix of activities meets the training needs of the nation.

NOTES

1.  

Enrollment estimates from the National Center for Education Statistics, while the best available, probably understate proprietary school enrollments. The Center's enrollment survey is sent to just a sample of less-than-2-year proprietary institutions and the results are "weighted up" statistically to determine enrollments for the universe of such schools. Since proprietary schools open and close at a rapid rate, it has been difficult to keep the sampling frame up to date so that it yields reliable estimates.

2.  

These data were tabulated by the committee using data from the National Postsecondary Student Aid Study, 1989-1990, sponsored by the U.S. Department of Education.

3.  

Some of the reasons for this include poor response to surveys from firms, unreliable memories and perceptions of training on the part of individuals queried in employee surveys, and the difficulty of distinguishing between "training time" and "work time" when employees

Suggested Citation:"2 OVERVIEW OF POSTSECONDARY TRAINING INSTITUTIONS AND PROGRAMS." National Research Council. 1994. Preparing for the Workplace: Charting A Course for Federal Postsecondary Training Policy. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/2123.
×

   

are trained informally on the job (U.S. Office of Technology Assessment, 1990:128). In addition, many firms do not know what they spend on training, and data that are available are usually not comparable from firm to firm (Kochan and Osterman, 1991:22).

4.  

The exact number of programs depends on how one defines the term program. The JTPA, for example, includes a number of different programs for disadvantaged youth and adults. Likewise, student financial assistance includes several grant and loan programs and a program that provides work-study support for students. We have not attempted to develop the definitive list of activities that can be distinctly identified as separate programs. The activities that we identify in Table 2.1 as supporting postsecondary training are part of a broader set of federal activities that provide training and other employment-related services to adults and youth. In a July 24, 1992, letter to Senator Edward M. Kennedy, Chair of the Senate Labor and Human Resources Committee, the General Accounting Office (GAO) listed 125 programs (not counting the U.S. Defense Department's training of active-duty personnel, which we include in our calculations) with funding of $16.4 billion in fiscal 1991. Most programs were quite small--under $50 million each.

5.  

See footnote 1, Chapter 1, on why the amount of federal assistance available to students exceeds the costs of that assistance to the federal government.

6.  

Students enrolled in short programs of study have lower loan limits.

7.  

For example, 23 percent of all Stafford borrowers attended proprietary schools, but 42 percent of Stafford defaulters came from the proprietary sector (U.S. General Accounting Office, 1988:7). In another study, the GAO found that of 1.1 million students from accredited proprietary schools who were in loan repayment status in 1989, nearly 300,000 individuals owed over $712 million in defaulted loans (U.S. General Accounting Office, 1990a).

8.  

The act's name was also changed, adding "applied technology" to the historical emphasis on vocational education.

9.  

Until the 1992 JTPA amendments, Title II-A combined year-round programs for adults and young people, and Title II-B authorized a summer employment and training program for youth during the school vacation period. The reauthorization restricted Title II-A to adults and created a new Title II-C authorizing year-round programs for both in-school and out-of-school youth. Not less than 50 percent of those served under Title II-C are to be out-of-school youth. Title II-B continues as a summer youth program.

10.  

Public Service Employment, a job creation program, began in the mid-1970s as a response to rising unemployment rates. It became quite controversial, however, and was eliminated when JTPA was created. Amendments to JTPA in 1992 added permanent authority for up to $15 million annually to be used for a small program of public service employment for disaster relief.

11.  

While Title II primarily serves economically disadvantaged youth and adults, Congress has created a special 10 percent window that allows up to 10 percent of participants within a given service delivery area to be people who are not economically disadvantaged, but who face a serious barrier to employment.

12.  

Since workers receiving cash benefits are also required to participate in job training unless they receive a waiver, there is clearly a significant amount of overlap between individuals receiving cash benefits and those receiving job training. Corson et al. (1993:xviii) found that 47 percent of readjustment recipients received training through TAA. This means that just over 30,000 people received at least one kind of service (either cash benefits through trade readjustment allowance, or training through TAA, or both) in fiscal 1990. More workers received job services than trade readjustment allowances because such services were provided to dislocated workers who were still receiving regular unemployment insurance benefits and were thus not eligible for trade readjustment allowances.

Suggested Citation:"2 OVERVIEW OF POSTSECONDARY TRAINING INSTITUTIONS AND PROGRAMS." National Research Council. 1994. Preparing for the Workplace: Charting A Course for Federal Postsecondary Training Policy. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/2123.
×
Page 30
Suggested Citation:"2 OVERVIEW OF POSTSECONDARY TRAINING INSTITUTIONS AND PROGRAMS." National Research Council. 1994. Preparing for the Workplace: Charting A Course for Federal Postsecondary Training Policy. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/2123.
×
Page 31
Suggested Citation:"2 OVERVIEW OF POSTSECONDARY TRAINING INSTITUTIONS AND PROGRAMS." National Research Council. 1994. Preparing for the Workplace: Charting A Course for Federal Postsecondary Training Policy. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/2123.
×
Page 32
Suggested Citation:"2 OVERVIEW OF POSTSECONDARY TRAINING INSTITUTIONS AND PROGRAMS." National Research Council. 1994. Preparing for the Workplace: Charting A Course for Federal Postsecondary Training Policy. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/2123.
×
Page 33
Suggested Citation:"2 OVERVIEW OF POSTSECONDARY TRAINING INSTITUTIONS AND PROGRAMS." National Research Council. 1994. Preparing for the Workplace: Charting A Course for Federal Postsecondary Training Policy. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/2123.
×
Page 34
Suggested Citation:"2 OVERVIEW OF POSTSECONDARY TRAINING INSTITUTIONS AND PROGRAMS." National Research Council. 1994. Preparing for the Workplace: Charting A Course for Federal Postsecondary Training Policy. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/2123.
×
Page 35
Suggested Citation:"2 OVERVIEW OF POSTSECONDARY TRAINING INSTITUTIONS AND PROGRAMS." National Research Council. 1994. Preparing for the Workplace: Charting A Course for Federal Postsecondary Training Policy. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/2123.
×
Page 36
Suggested Citation:"2 OVERVIEW OF POSTSECONDARY TRAINING INSTITUTIONS AND PROGRAMS." National Research Council. 1994. Preparing for the Workplace: Charting A Course for Federal Postsecondary Training Policy. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/2123.
×
Page 37
Suggested Citation:"2 OVERVIEW OF POSTSECONDARY TRAINING INSTITUTIONS AND PROGRAMS." National Research Council. 1994. Preparing for the Workplace: Charting A Course for Federal Postsecondary Training Policy. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/2123.
×
Page 38
Suggested Citation:"2 OVERVIEW OF POSTSECONDARY TRAINING INSTITUTIONS AND PROGRAMS." National Research Council. 1994. Preparing for the Workplace: Charting A Course for Federal Postsecondary Training Policy. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/2123.
×
Page 39
Suggested Citation:"2 OVERVIEW OF POSTSECONDARY TRAINING INSTITUTIONS AND PROGRAMS." National Research Council. 1994. Preparing for the Workplace: Charting A Course for Federal Postsecondary Training Policy. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/2123.
×
Page 40
Suggested Citation:"2 OVERVIEW OF POSTSECONDARY TRAINING INSTITUTIONS AND PROGRAMS." National Research Council. 1994. Preparing for the Workplace: Charting A Course for Federal Postsecondary Training Policy. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/2123.
×
Page 41
Suggested Citation:"2 OVERVIEW OF POSTSECONDARY TRAINING INSTITUTIONS AND PROGRAMS." National Research Council. 1994. Preparing for the Workplace: Charting A Course for Federal Postsecondary Training Policy. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/2123.
×
Page 42
Suggested Citation:"2 OVERVIEW OF POSTSECONDARY TRAINING INSTITUTIONS AND PROGRAMS." National Research Council. 1994. Preparing for the Workplace: Charting A Course for Federal Postsecondary Training Policy. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/2123.
×
Page 43
Suggested Citation:"2 OVERVIEW OF POSTSECONDARY TRAINING INSTITUTIONS AND PROGRAMS." National Research Council. 1994. Preparing for the Workplace: Charting A Course for Federal Postsecondary Training Policy. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/2123.
×
Page 44
Suggested Citation:"2 OVERVIEW OF POSTSECONDARY TRAINING INSTITUTIONS AND PROGRAMS." National Research Council. 1994. Preparing for the Workplace: Charting A Course for Federal Postsecondary Training Policy. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/2123.
×
Page 45
Suggested Citation:"2 OVERVIEW OF POSTSECONDARY TRAINING INSTITUTIONS AND PROGRAMS." National Research Council. 1994. Preparing for the Workplace: Charting A Course for Federal Postsecondary Training Policy. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/2123.
×
Page 46
Suggested Citation:"2 OVERVIEW OF POSTSECONDARY TRAINING INSTITUTIONS AND PROGRAMS." National Research Council. 1994. Preparing for the Workplace: Charting A Course for Federal Postsecondary Training Policy. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/2123.
×
Page 47
Suggested Citation:"2 OVERVIEW OF POSTSECONDARY TRAINING INSTITUTIONS AND PROGRAMS." National Research Council. 1994. Preparing for the Workplace: Charting A Course for Federal Postsecondary Training Policy. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/2123.
×
Page 48
Suggested Citation:"2 OVERVIEW OF POSTSECONDARY TRAINING INSTITUTIONS AND PROGRAMS." National Research Council. 1994. Preparing for the Workplace: Charting A Course for Federal Postsecondary Training Policy. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/2123.
×
Page 49
Suggested Citation:"2 OVERVIEW OF POSTSECONDARY TRAINING INSTITUTIONS AND PROGRAMS." National Research Council. 1994. Preparing for the Workplace: Charting A Course for Federal Postsecondary Training Policy. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/2123.
×
Page 50
Suggested Citation:"2 OVERVIEW OF POSTSECONDARY TRAINING INSTITUTIONS AND PROGRAMS." National Research Council. 1994. Preparing for the Workplace: Charting A Course for Federal Postsecondary Training Policy. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/2123.
×
Page 51
Suggested Citation:"2 OVERVIEW OF POSTSECONDARY TRAINING INSTITUTIONS AND PROGRAMS." National Research Council. 1994. Preparing for the Workplace: Charting A Course for Federal Postsecondary Training Policy. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/2123.
×
Page 52
Suggested Citation:"2 OVERVIEW OF POSTSECONDARY TRAINING INSTITUTIONS AND PROGRAMS." National Research Council. 1994. Preparing for the Workplace: Charting A Course for Federal Postsecondary Training Policy. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/2123.
×
Page 53
Suggested Citation:"2 OVERVIEW OF POSTSECONDARY TRAINING INSTITUTIONS AND PROGRAMS." National Research Council. 1994. Preparing for the Workplace: Charting A Course for Federal Postsecondary Training Policy. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/2123.
×
Page 54
Suggested Citation:"2 OVERVIEW OF POSTSECONDARY TRAINING INSTITUTIONS AND PROGRAMS." National Research Council. 1994. Preparing for the Workplace: Charting A Course for Federal Postsecondary Training Policy. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/2123.
×
Page 55
Suggested Citation:"2 OVERVIEW OF POSTSECONDARY TRAINING INSTITUTIONS AND PROGRAMS." National Research Council. 1994. Preparing for the Workplace: Charting A Course for Federal Postsecondary Training Policy. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/2123.
×
Page 56
Suggested Citation:"2 OVERVIEW OF POSTSECONDARY TRAINING INSTITUTIONS AND PROGRAMS." National Research Council. 1994. Preparing for the Workplace: Charting A Course for Federal Postsecondary Training Policy. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/2123.
×
Page 57
Suggested Citation:"2 OVERVIEW OF POSTSECONDARY TRAINING INSTITUTIONS AND PROGRAMS." National Research Council. 1994. Preparing for the Workplace: Charting A Course for Federal Postsecondary Training Policy. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/2123.
×
Page 58
Suggested Citation:"2 OVERVIEW OF POSTSECONDARY TRAINING INSTITUTIONS AND PROGRAMS." National Research Council. 1994. Preparing for the Workplace: Charting A Course for Federal Postsecondary Training Policy. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/2123.
×
Page 59
Suggested Citation:"2 OVERVIEW OF POSTSECONDARY TRAINING INSTITUTIONS AND PROGRAMS." National Research Council. 1994. Preparing for the Workplace: Charting A Course for Federal Postsecondary Training Policy. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/2123.
×
Page 60
Suggested Citation:"2 OVERVIEW OF POSTSECONDARY TRAINING INSTITUTIONS AND PROGRAMS." National Research Council. 1994. Preparing for the Workplace: Charting A Course for Federal Postsecondary Training Policy. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/2123.
×
Page 61
Suggested Citation:"2 OVERVIEW OF POSTSECONDARY TRAINING INSTITUTIONS AND PROGRAMS." National Research Council. 1994. Preparing for the Workplace: Charting A Course for Federal Postsecondary Training Policy. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/2123.
×
Page 62
Suggested Citation:"2 OVERVIEW OF POSTSECONDARY TRAINING INSTITUTIONS AND PROGRAMS." National Research Council. 1994. Preparing for the Workplace: Charting A Course for Federal Postsecondary Training Policy. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/2123.
×
Page 63
Next: 3 DIAGNOSING THE HEALTH OF POSTSECONDARY TRAINING »
Preparing for the Workplace: Charting A Course for Federal Postsecondary Training Policy Get This Book
×
Buy Hardback | $53.00
MyNAP members save 10% online.
Login or Register to save!
Download Free PDF

Job training has taken a central place among strategies to boost U.S. competitiveness in the world and ensure a high standard of living. Decision making in this area has a major impact on American workers who do not earn 4-year college degrees—fully three-quarters of the workforce.

This timely volume reviews the state of postsecondary training for work in the United States; it addresses controversies about federal job policies and programs and outlines a national approach to improved quality and accessibility in workplace preparation.

The committee focuses on the various types of training individuals need during their working lives. Leading experts explore the uneven nature of postsecondary training in the United States and contrast our programs with more comprehensive systems found in other major industrial countries.

The authors propose what the federal government can—and cannot—do in improving postsecondary training, exploring appropriate roles and responsibilites for federal, state, and private interests. The volume highlights opportunities for improvement in the development of skills standards, student financial aid, worker retraining, second-change education, and the provision of better information to program managers, public officials, and trainees.

With a wealth of insightful commentary and examples, this readable volume will be valuable to federal and state policymakers, leaders in the field of training, educators, employers, labor unions, and interested individuals.

  1. ×

    Welcome to OpenBook!

    You're looking at OpenBook, NAP.edu's online reading room since 1999. Based on feedback from you, our users, we've made some improvements that make it easier than ever to read thousands of publications on our website.

    Do you want to take a quick tour of the OpenBook's features?

    No Thanks Take a Tour »
  2. ×

    Show this book's table of contents, where you can jump to any chapter by name.

    « Back Next »
  3. ×

    ...or use these buttons to go back to the previous chapter or skip to the next one.

    « Back Next »
  4. ×

    Jump up to the previous page or down to the next one. Also, you can type in a page number and press Enter to go directly to that page in the book.

    « Back Next »
  5. ×

    Switch between the Original Pages, where you can read the report as it appeared in print, and Text Pages for the web version, where you can highlight and search the text.

    « Back Next »
  6. ×

    To search the entire text of this book, type in your search term here and press Enter.

    « Back Next »
  7. ×

    Share a link to this book page on your preferred social network or via email.

    « Back Next »
  8. ×

    View our suggested citation for this chapter.

    « Back Next »
  9. ×

    Ready to take your reading offline? Click here to buy this book in print or download it as a free PDF, if available.

    « Back Next »
Stay Connected!