Absence of conflict of interest.
Highlights
- The study’s objective was to evaluate the benefits of stackable certificates on education and earnings outcomes for full-time students with no prior post-secondary education.
- The author used a nonexperimental design to compare the effects of participating in stackable short-term certificate programs on outcomes for those in the treatment group versus those in the comparison group.
- The study found that students who attained a single short-term stackable certificate had a sufficiently lower likelihood of earning a two-year degree, whereas attaining two or more short-term, stackable certificates more than doubled a student’s likelihood of earning a degree.
- The quality of causal evidence presented in this study is moderate because it was based on a well-implemented nonexperimental design. This means we are somewhat confident that the estimated effects are attributable to short-term stackable certificates, but other factors might also have contributed.
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Intervention Examined
Features of the Intervention
Short-term certificates are academic awards that require less than one-year of full-time, college-level study and are the quickest job market training solution for professional/technical fields. The concept of stackable short-term certificates breaks down two-year degrees and other longer-to-complete academic awards into smaller, “stepping stone” awards with the idea that it will increase the likelihood of students progressing past the initial short-term certificate toward a two-year degree. To be eligible for the stackable certificates, community college students had to be part of a certificate program in nursing, business IT or management, automotive technology, welding, accounting, early childhood education, computer IT, or autobody collision/repair.
Features of the Study
The study was a nonexperimental design using data from 33 Washington State community and technical colleges. The study included 3,573 professional/technical students from the 2007-08 entry cohort, with no prior higher education and enrolled full-time in a short-term stackable certificate program. Students were categorized by their stackable short-term certificate status and coded as: progression stacking (earned two or more short-term certificates in the same program of study), potential stacking (earned one short-term certificate with the potential to stack but did not stack within the 5-year follow-up period), independent stacking (earned two or more short-term certificates in different programs of study) or no stacking (earned at least 15 credits with at least one in the declared program of study). Students with a no stacking status were used as the comparison group. Outcomes included degree attainment status, total credits earned, post-college inflation-adjusted earnings, and pre-and post-college inflation-adjusted earnings difference. The author used a 5-year follow-up period to recognize students who need to complete remedial studies prior to earning a degree. The author used statistical models with controls for sex, age, ethnicity, financial need status, college campus, and program of study to examine the impact of short-term stackable certificates on student outcomes.
Findings
Education and skills gain
- Progression stacking (students who earned two or more short-term certificates in the initial program area of study) had a significant positive effect on the likelihood of earning a degree and the total number of credits earned when compared to cases where no short-term certificate was earned.
- Progression stacking also significantly increased the likelihood of earning a degree by 30 percentage points compared to the overall average.
- Potential stacking (students who earned just one short-term certificate) was not significantly related to earning a degree or the number of credits earned.
- Independent stacking (students who earned two or more short-term certificates from different fields of study) was not significantly related to earning a degree.
Earnings and wages
- There was no significant relationship between attaining a short-term, stackable certificate (one or more) and earnings.
Considerations for Interpreting the Findings
Although the author used a well-implemented nonexperimental design, treatment group participants self-selected into the short-term stackable certificate programs. Students who self-selected into the programs could differ in observable and unobservable ways, affecting the observed outcomes.
Causal Evidence Rating
Topic Area
Research Guidelines
Review Protocol: Community College Review Protocol
Review Guidelines: Causal Evidence Guidelines