Career Pathways Research Portfolio

This analysis of data from 3,719 students in the Pathways for Advancing Careers and Education (PACE) evaluation highlights risk factors that disadvantaged students face in college success. The data indicates a strong relationship between college success and past educational experience; economic status; expected work hours...

This brief provides an overview of Next Steps, the Cankdeska Cikana Community College (CCCC) Tribal HPOG program. The brief also shares key findings to date and stories from students who participated in the program. Findings focus on program structures, program processes, and program outcomes, and are based on qualitative data from interviews with administrative and program implementation staff, focus groups with the CCCC students, and phone....

This brief provides an overview of the College of Menominee Nation (CMN) Tribal HPOG program, key findings to date, and stories from students who have participated in the program. The CMN Tribal HPOG program offers a Nursing Career Ladder to allow students to progress from the Pre-Nursing Assistant level through to the Registered Nurse level. Based on qualitative data from interviews with administrative and program implementation staff, focus groups with students, phone interviews...

Five of the Health Profession Opportunity Grants (HPOG) grantees are Tribal Organizations and Tribal Colleges -- Blackfeet Community College in Browning, MT, Cankdeska Cikana Community College in Fort Totten, ND, College of Menominee Nation in Keshena, WI, Cook Inlet Tribal Council, Inc. in Anchorage, AK, and Turtle Mountain Community College in Belcourt, ND.

This brief summarizes key findings from the Interim Outcome Study Report: National Implementation Evaluation of the Health Profession Opportunity Grants (HPOG) to Serve TANF Recipients and Other Low-Income Individuals report, released in 2014. Findings come from administrative data collected through the HPOG Performance Reporting System one year after program enrollment. Information provided includes characteristics of the typical HPOG participant, types of training courses enrollees...

This brief provides an overview of the Blackfeet Community College (BCC) Tribal HPOG program, key findings to date, and stories from students who have benefitted from the program. Findings focus on program structures, program processes, and program outcomes, and are based on qualitative data from interviews with administrative and program implementation staff, focus groups with the BCC students, and phone interviews with program completers and non-completers, as well as administrative...

This brief provides an overview of the Cook Inlet Tribal Council (CITC) Tribal HPOG program, key findings to date, and stories from students who have benefitted from the program. Findings focus on program structures, program processes, and program outcomes, and is based on qualitative data from interviews with administrative and program implementation staff, focus groups with the CITC students, and phone interviews with program completers and non-completers, as well as administrative data...

This brief provides an overview of the Turtle Mountain Community College (TMCC) Tribal HPOG program, key findings to date, and stories from students who have benefitted from the program. Findings focus on program structures, program processes, and program outcomes, and is based on qualitative data from interviews with administrative and program implementation staff, focus groups with the TMCC students, and phone interviews with program completers and non-completers, as well as...

This brief highlights key points from the report Literature Review: Healthcare Occupational Training and Support Programs under the ACA—Background and Implications for Evaluating HPOG regarding the structure of and employment trends in the healthcare industry, implications of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) for entry-level employment in healthcare, and resulting challenges and opportunities for training and support programs. The brief was developed as part of the...

There is longstanding interest among policy makers and program operators in finding ways to increase the skill levels of low-income individuals, improve their enrollment in and completion of post-secondary education, and improve their economic prospects. The career pathways approach is gaining steady acceptance as a promising strategy to address these challenges and improve post-secondary education and training for low-income and low-skilled adults.

This summary is an easy-to-read...

This brief provides an overview of the strategies that Tribal HPOG grantees have used to implement the HPOG program, challenges encountered during implementation, lessons learned, and ongoing program evolution and adaptation to address unique tribal cultural and programmatic needs.  The brief draws upon qualitative data collected from the first year of evaluation activities with the Tribal HPOG programs.  It is part of a series of briefs being developed by the Tribal HPOG evaluation team...

This practice brief is the first in a series of practice briefs being developed by the Tribal HPOG evaluation team...

The Health Profession Opportunity Grants (HPOG) Program was established by the Affordable Care Act of 2010 (ACA) to...

This practice brief is the first in a series of practice briefs being developed by the Tribal HPOG evaluation…

The Pathways for Advancing Careers and Education (PACE) evaluation is a next-generation test of…

This brief summarizes findings from interviews conducted with leadership and staff from eight programs that participated in the Pathways for Advancing Careers and Education (PACE) Evaluation, a rigorous, multi-site evaluation of “career pathways” programs.

This report summarizes implementation and early impact findings for nine programs employing “career pathways” strategies for low-income and low-skilled adults. These programs were evaluated as part of the Pathways for Advancing Careers and Education (PACE) Evaluation. The paper describes...

The HPOG Impact Study will answer questions about the HPOG program’s overall effectiveness and explore how variations in program services affect program impacts. This analysis plan provides detailed information on...

This paper discusses the experiences of and lessons learned from scaling up the Year Up program, a one-year program for low-income 18-25 year olds with a high school diploma.

This report presents findings from the Systems Change Analysis of the 27 non-tribal HPOG grantees funded in 2010, which operated 49 programs. This study addresses the major research question: What changes to the service delivery system are associated with program implementation?

This report presents key findings from the evaluation of the first round of the Tribal Health Profession Opportunity Grants (HPOG) Program. These findings show that all five of the Tribal HPOG grantees established programs that led to healthcare training completion and employment.

The report includes findings on programs’ structures, processes...

This report presents findings from two components of the National Implementation Evaluation of the Health Profession Opportunity Grants (HPOG)...

This collection of state-level analyses details promising occupations expected to experience growth through 2022 that someone can enter after completing a relatively short-term training...

This guide features a collection of resources for TANF administrators and other practitioners on career exploration and assessment, career pathways and sector strategies, and labor market information. These resources may be helpful for those working with TANF recipients and low-income families in connecting their clients to jobs with wages that support self-sufficiency...

Written specifically for TANF administrators, this guide is an introduction to labor market information, including what it is, who produces the data, uses for the data, and key distinctions among types of data. The goal of the guide is to help TANF administrators identify opportunities for this information to support their work and be useful to TANF clients...

This brief describes the perceived challenges of 84 study participants in career pathways program evaluated in the Pathways for Advancing Careers and Education (PACE) study. In these interviews, respondents discussed in detail what they viewed as the difficulties they currently experience in the program, as well as challenges they foresaw in the future as they moved along a career pathway...

This brief highlights the supports received by respondents in a qualitative study that is part of the Pathways for Advancing Careers and Education (PACE) evaluation, focusing on responses from 84 study participants. Respondents discussed program-provided supports and assessed their usefulness...

This brief describes 84 study participants’ motivations for enrolling in career pathways programs evaluated in the Pathways for Advancing Careers and Education (PACE) study. In these interviews, participants discussed several topics, including...

This report describes how grantees of the Health Profession Opportunity Grants (HPOG) program used the Performance Reporting System and other sources of performance information to manage their programs, identify areas in need of change, and make programmatic improvements.

This report provides detailed information about the planned impact analyses for the Pathways for Advancing Careers and Education (PACE) project. The PACE Impact Study is designed to answer questions about the overall program effectiveness for the nine programs in PACE, each involving a different configuration of career pathways design components...

This brief presents an overview of the Health Profession Opportunity Grants University Partnership Research Grants (HPOGUP) and discusses the contributions these studies are making to the body of knowledge regarding the education and training, employment, and advancement of low-income job seekers. HPOGUP funds studies conducted by university researchers that have partnered with one or more HPOG program grantees to answer specific questions about how to improve HPOG services within local...

This fourth annual report provides a snapshot of Health Profession Opportunity Grants Program grantee activities from its inception through September 2014, its fourth year of operation.

This report documents the structure, study components and data sources of the Pathways for Advancing Careers and Education (PACE) project. In recent years, career pathways have emerged as an innovative framework for improving education, training and skills, and improving economic self-sufficiency. PACE is the first-ever randomized trial of career pathways programs, featuring 9 of the country’s leading and innovative programs...

This report describes the research design of the HPOG Impact Study. The study is designed to answer questions about overall HPOG program effectiveness and explore how variations in program services affect program impacts, including identifying which elements of career pathways programs contribute most to advancing the labor market success of participants...

The Health Profession Opportunity Grants (HPOG) Program funds training programs in high-demand healthcare professions, targeted to Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) recipients and other low-income individuals. This report is part of the HPOG National Implementation Evaluation (NIE) and provides interim results on the key outcomes of HPOG healthcare training completion and employment, as well as on participants’ pre-training activities and receipt of support services and...

A substantial skills gap exists between the education and training of the labor force and the needs of employers in many high growth industries, including healthcare and manufacturing. This gap results in unemployment while good paying jobs go unfilled. At the same time, many low-skilled adults persist in low wage work with little opportunity for advancement.

Career pathways programs, like Year Up, are an approach to fill a vital need for skilled workers in the economy and offer low-wage...

This Annual Report provides a snapshot of the Health Profession Opportunity Grants (HPOG) Program at the end of its third year of operation. The report summarizes program operations and participant activity and outcomes from HPOG’s inception through the third year of grantee activities...

A substantial skills gap exists between the education and training of the labor force and the needs of employers in many high growth industries, including healthcare and manufacturing. This gap results in unemployment while good paying jobs go unfilled. At the same time, many low-skilled adults persist in low wage work with little opportunity for advancement.

Career pathways programs, like the Integrated Basic Education and Skills Training (I-BEST) Program, are an approach to fill a vital...

A substantial skills gap exists between the education and training of the labor force and the needs of employers in many high growth industries, including healthcare and manufacturing. This gap results in unemployment while good paying jobs go unfilled. At the same time, many low-skilled adults persist in low wage work with little opportunity for advancement.

Career pathways programs, like the Workforce Training Academy Connect (WTA Connect) Program, are an approach to fill a vital need for...

This report reviews the literature on the policy context of the Health Profession Opportunity Grants (HPOG) program, and the challenges and opportunities related to developing healthcare occupational training and support programs. It discusses the structure of the healthcare industry and trends in healthcare employment, implications of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) for entry-level employment in healthcare, and resulting challenges and opportunities for training programs...

A substantial skills gap exists between the education and training of the labor force and the needs of employers in many high growth industries, including healthcare and manufacturing. This gap results in unemployment while good paying jobs go unfilled. At the same time, many low-skilled adults persist in low wage work with little opportunity for advancement.

Career pathways programs, like Instituto del Progreso Latino Carreras en Salud, are an approach to fill a vital need for skilled...

A substantial skills gap exists between the education and training of the labor force and the needs of employers in many high growth industries, including healthcare and manufacturing. This gap results in unemployment while good paying jobs go unfilled. At the same time, many low-skilled adults persist in low wage work with little opportunity for advancement.

Career pathways programs, like the Workforce Development Council of Seattle-King County Health Careers for All (HCA) program, are an...

A substantial skills gap exists between the education and training of the labor force and the needs of employers in many high growth industries, including healthcare and manufacturing. This gap results in unemployment while good paying jobs go unfilled. At the same time, many low-skilled adults persist in low wage work with little opportunity for advancement.

Career pathways programs, like the Valley Initiative for Development and Advancement (VIDA), are an approach to fill a vital need...

There is longstanding interest among policy makers and program operators in finding ways to increase the skill levels of low-income individuals, improve their enrollment in and completion of post-secondary education, and improve their economic prospects. The career pathways approach is gaining steady acceptance as a promising strategy to address these challenges and improve post-secondary education and training for low-income and low-skilled adults.

This Interim Report provides an overview of the tribal HPOG grantees’ progress over the first two years of the program with initial evaluation findings organized around program structure, program processes, and education and employment outcomes. The report also summarizes the evaluation questions and methodology. The report was written by the Tribal HPOG evaluation team, comprised of NORC at the University of Chicago, Red Star Innovations and the National Indian Health Board...

This report describes the evaluation design for the HPOG National Implementation Evaluation. The design focuses on the 27 non-tribal HPOG grantees and addresses: how health professions training programs are being implemented; changes to the service delivery system associated with program implementation; individual-level outputs and outcomes; and what key components and factors appear necessary or seem likely to contribute to the success of the programs. The evaluation involves three..

This Annual Report offers a snapshot of the Health Profession Opportunity Grants (HPOG) Program at the end of its second year of operation.  The report provides an overview of HPOG grantees, characteristics of participants, activities in which participants were engaged, training and employment outcomes, and how grantee programs continued to evolve in the second year of the program.  The report was developed as part of the HPOG Implementation, Systems and Outcome Project, which is...

This paper provides a review of formal research reports and published literature on implementation analysis. It defines implementation analysis, summarizing methodological issues and topics addressed by this type of analysis, and describes systems change analysis and its relationship to implementation analysis. The paper concludes with a summary of implications for the Health Profession Opportunity Grants (HPOG) National Implementation Evaluation design. The paper was developed as part...

A substantial skills gap exists between the education and training of the labor force and the needs of employers in many high growth industries, including healthcare and manufacturing. This gap results in unemployment while good paying jobs go unfilled. At the same time, many low-skilled adults persist in low wage work with little opportunity for advancement.

Career pathways programs, like the San Diego Workforce Partnership’s Bridge to Employment in the Healthcare Industry Program...

A substantial skills gap exists between the education and training of the labor force and the needs of employers in many high growth industries, including healthcare and manufacturing. This gap results in unemployment while good paying jobs go unfilled. At the same time, many low-skilled adults persist in low wage work with little opportunity for advancement.

Career pathways programs, like the Pima Community College (PCC) Pathways to Healthcare HPOG programs, are an approach...

There is a substantial skills gap between the education and training of the labor force and the needs of employers...

Career pathways programs have developed over the past decade as a comprehensive framework of adult developmental and...

Career pathways is gaining steady acceptance as an integrative framework for promising approaches to…