Community College Skills Builders: Prevalence, Characteristics, Behaviors, and Outcomes of Successful Non-Completing Students Across Four States

Peter Riley Bahr, Yiran Chen and Rooney Columbus

The Journal of Higher Education, 2023, vol. 94, issue 1, 96-131

Abstract: This study investigates community college skills builders—students who enroll for a short time, take courses concentrated in career and technical education (CTE), are highly successful in their coursework, but typically leave college without a postsecondary credential. Drawing on administrative data from Colorado, Ohio, Michigan, and California, we use k-means cluster analysis to identify a distinct group of skills builders in each state. We analyze their prevalence, characteristics, course-taking, and educational and labor market outcomes. We then develop criteria that state systems or individual institutions can use to identify skills builders in their student populations. Skills builders comprised similar proportions of students in each state, between 11 and 14 percent, and were qualitatively similar across states. Their average earnings were flat or trending downward prior to college but reversed after college, rising at a statistically significant rate. Fields of study and certificate completion rates among skills builders varied across states. Identifying skills builders will strengthen state and institutional efforts to communicate student successes that cannot be measured with credential completions, while also equipping institutions with the information needed to better serve skills builders.

Date: 2023
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DOI: 10.1080/00221546.2022.2082782

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