What Enrollment Numbers Can (and Cannot) Tell Us About Access to Postsecondary Training Programs

While there has been some debate over the value of college, workers and employers still perceive credentials as important for employability. 1 Postsecondary education, or "formal learning opportunities beyond high school,"2 is linked to greater labor force participation, higher employment rates, and increased individual economic success.3 Access to postsecondary training, however, remains an issue. To better understand postsecondary access, in this Workforce Currents we analyze available enrollment data from the National Center for Education Statistics' (NCES) Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System (IPEDS). Enrollment data is one way to examine learners' access to various institutions. We review enrollment demographics of US postsecondary institutions of varying types, including two-year public (or community college) and not-for-profit private and public four-year, to better understand enrollment demographics.4 These institutional types represent roughly half of IPEDS' undergraduate enrollments. We also analyzed novel data from SkillUp Coalition, a nonprofit that serves as a career navigation platform for job training and career opportunities, that provides an illustration of specific learner subsets interested in or enrolled in non-degree postsecondary programs.