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The Certificates That Pay—And The Many More That Don’t

This article is more than 4 years old.

Lately, there is a push to get people to pursue short-term programs and certificates rather than a traditional higher education path, like an associate’s or bachelor’s degree. Just this week, the Ad Council announced a campaign—along with the White House, Apple, and IBM—to promote alternatives to a four-year degree. The CEOs of Apple and IBM are engaged in this as part of a workforce policy task force led by President Trump’s daughter and Senior Adviser, Ivanka Trump. And they aren’t the only ones. Legislation on Capitol Hill would allow Pell Grants to go to extremely short-term programs. Short-term programs and certificates are not new, but the push towards them and away from two- and four-year degrees seems newer.

What we know about these programs and their outcomes is mixed at best. Recent reporting looked at the outcomes of the coding boot camp Lambda School and found that while they were claiming an 86% placement rate, it was closer to 50%. We know less about these newer programs because they don’t usually receive federal aid. However, data from varying sources gives us a look at earnings of graduates of all kinds of them, including the ones already eligible for federal aid.

Data from Georgetown University’s Center on Education and the Workforce found that outcomes differed by the field of study and also if the certificate holder was working in-field. Another analysis looked at different states and their programs. In Kentucky, all certificate holders from in-state institutions earned less than $23,000—three years after graduation. In Georgia, outcomes varied by field with median salaries ranging from $18,997 to $23,716 for communications technologies and business certificate holders, respectively.

Last year, the Department of Education released new data including the debt and earnings of graduates of all programs that received federal student aid. Of the short-term programs (classified as undergraduate certificates or diplomas), salaries of graduates range greatly. The programs also differ themselves. They include cosmetology, nursing, business, economics and more. Some are stand-alone programs; others are certificates that a four-year student might add to their bachelor’s degree.

There are nearly 7,000 programs with median earnings reported from the Department of Education. (Many programs are suppressed due to privacy concerns for small cohorts.) There are a few outliers making six-figure salaries, but it appears these are health profession certificates that graduates receive along with another credential. The vast majority however earn far, far less. In fact, there are only 480 programs—just about 7%—where the median graduate earns $40,000 or more.

The average program has a median salary of less than $25,000—hardly a family-sustaining wage in most parts of the country. The Department of Education estimates the average high school graduate earns approximately $28,000 and this shows that more than 4,900 programs leave the median graduate earning below that. Eight hundred of them had median salaries below the federal minimum wage, and many of them are in states with higher minimum wages. (Many of the lowest programs are cosmetology programs and some say those graduates under report their tips and that pushes salaries down.) And this doesn’t even factor in the debt students take for these programs, many with median debt numbers over $10,000 for a poverty-level wage.

Certificate and other short-term programs have varying lengths and that can make a difference. Obviously, it takes more time to gain some skills than others. That’s why it is also hard to discern the difference in many of these programs in this data. Currently, Pell Grants can be used at higher education programs as short as 600 clock hours or 16 semester credit hours over a minimum of 15 weeks of instructional time, or less than two-thirds of an academic year. But it’s hard to compare a program of 15 weeks compared to a year. Legislative proposals would allow programs as short as 8 weeks to receive the Pell Grant, significantly shorter than current programs.

As some push these types of programs as “alternatives” to a four-year—or even a two-year degree—they need to consider several things. We already know there are differential returns in education and the length of the degree increases wages, especially as students progress from a high school diploma to a certificate to an associate’s degree and to a bachelor’s degree. Pushing short-term programs for the sake of being short might be, well, short-sighted if graduates don’t leave with the needed skills.

While the CEO of Apple might push these alternatives, the context of the labor force matters. It’s hard to extrapolate the workforce trends of companies like Apple in Silicon Valley to regions or states like Appalachia, Alaska, or Montana. Or many other places. Businesses’ needs look very different across the country, and even across regions and states. There is little evidence of these massive tech companies that like these programs for their employees are hiring in these other regions.

When it comes to career or workforce training, we aren’t always best at predicting the future or truly identifying the needs in different places or even broadly. The federal government—especially the Department of Education—is hardly equipped to identify these needs and if programs are meeting the needs. These programs often don’t end up “stacking” into higher-level credentials, especially when they are non-credit—though many students are told that and seek that.

The last thing we need is to push more people into things like nursing assistant programs—as presidential candidate and Senator Amy Klobuchar continually pushes in her plans and debates—when a student wants to be a nurse. Those programs rarely lead to a person going on to becoming a registered nurse where they make a good living and have a good job. Instead, they are stuck in a low-paying, low-quality job. There are good programs that build in paid apprenticeships, are for credit, and tuition is paid by the employer, but they are the exception.

Low-income students might be lured in by the prospects of a short program offering high wages, but we have to guarantee that it will happen. We already have too few guardrails in higher education, as this data illustrates. If we push these programs and the legislation to help fund more of them, there can be some serious unintended consequences. We have to ensure programs can articulate into higher-level credentials when students want them, they lead to a high-quality job, and they pay a good wage. Otherwise, we risk tracking low-income people into programs that won’t lead to a return in the federal investment and continue a cycle of poverty.


To explore this data further, visit the College Scorecard data page and click on “Most Recent Data by Field of Study.” Here you will see earnings and debt for all higher education program, including beyond certificates..

Wesley Whistle is a policy expert and is currently a senior advisor for policy and strategy at New America. Follow him on Twitter and connect with him on LinkedIn.

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