As the Short-Term Pell Grant program kicks off, policymakers, colleges and workforce partners can work collaboratively to ensure workforce programs are designed to meet learners’ needs.
The Short-Term Pell Program expanded Federal Pell Grant eligibility to cover credential programs that are between 8 weeks and 15 weeks, 150-600 clock hours, or the equivalent in credit hours. This new funding stream means that learners who stand to benefit the most from short-term upskilling will be more likely to have the means to pay for it, but higher education institutions, their workforce partners, and policymakers should continue to work together to ensure that short-term programs have long-term gains.
While these changes to the Pell program are new, partnerships between higher education and workforce programs are not. As these sorts of programs and partnerships grow and evolve, it’s important to understand how they are structured and how those structures impact learners, including who pays, who benefits, and who carries risk. In Unpacking Workforce Partnerships: Improving Structures for Learners, CHEPP outlines the different kinds of workforce partnerships that exist in higher education. It also provides a set of recommendations to ensure these arrangements benefit the students who enroll in them.
Workforce programs come in many forms.
- Embedded into employers’ on-the-job-training
- Tuition offered as an optional employee benefit
- Regional training programs provided through a community college or training center
- Career pathway programs, such as apprenticeships
These arrangements offer learners various benefits.
- Finding secure employment
- Advancing in their current role
- Setting them up for a future career pivot
- Offering opportunities to earn credentials while also gaining work experience
- Reducing the costs of obtaining a credential
By having new federal investment through Short-Term Pell, institutions of higher education, employer partners, and state and regional workforce entities have a greater incentive to collaborate to build on-ramps to economic security both regionally and across the country. When designing these programs, they should consider.
- Who pays: Is the program fully covered by the Pell Grant, or do students have to take on debt?
- Who benefits and who carries risk: Is the program structured to fill workforce shortage areas with job openings that employers need to fill? If so, will employees have advancement opportunities, and will the credential align with their higher education goals? Does it stack into credits that can count towards a higher-level degree?
Recognizing that short-term credentials may carry risk for learners, Congress put in place an accountability framework requiring Pell-eligible programs maintain 70% program completion and 70% job placement. Congress also requires credentials to be stackable and portable, or to prepare students for an occupation with a single recognized credential. Beyond these guardrails, institutions, employers, and other workforce partners should design programs with students’ long-term goals in mind.
- Institutions should design short-term credentials to seamlessly transfer and stack into multiple degree pathways, leading to both AA and BA programs, at more than one institution. Students should be aware of these pathways prior to enrolling.
- Employers should pay learners while they are enrolled so they don’t have to miss out on wages to upskill.
- Workforce partners should provide technical expertise and guidance that informs curriculum and experiential learning, and build hiring on-ramps for program completers.
Short-Term Pell provides an opportunity to leverage workforce training as an on-ramp and pathway to long-term economic safety. It is incumbent on states, higher education entities, and workforce partners to maximize short-term program outcomes for learners.
Read CHEPP’s brief for more detailed recommendations for practitioners and policymakers.