Overview

Published in September 2026, How States Align Postsecondary and Workforce Strategies: Examples and Trends from WIOA Plans is a 2026 RAND Corporation study examining how U.S. states and territories use Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act state plans to align postsecondary education and workforce development systems. RAND describes the study as the first systematic analysis of Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act (WIOA) plans across all 50 states, the District of Columbia, and six U.S. territories over Program Years 2016–2027. The research was funded by Strada Education Foundation and conducted by RAND Education, Employment, and Infrastructure.

WIOA requires states and territories to submit four-year Unified or Combined State Plans describing their workforce development strategies and to modify those plans after two years. The plans address how states coordinate workforce, education, training, employment, and related services for job seekers and employers.

RAND examined these plans to determine which strategies states emphasize, how approaches have changed over time, and where state planning extends beyond federal requirements. The study organizes state approaches into five interconnected domains:

• governance
• information provision
• connections between postsecondary education and workforce development
• access to training and learner supports
• employer engagement.

RAND also released a longitudinal state-level dataset and annex, enabling researchers and policymakers to examine individual states, compare peer states, and analyze trends beyond those featured in the report.

Methodology

RAND analyzed all available WIOA plans covering Program Years 2016–2027. This included the 2016–2019, 2020–2023, and 2024–2027 base plans, as well as the 2018–2019 and 2022–2023 biennial modifications. The analysis covers 50 states, the District of Columbia, and six U.S. territories.

The researchers used a large language model-assisted content-analysis methodology. They first developed and refined a qualitative coding framework, then used semantic-similarity techniques and multiple language-model agents to apply that framework across the large collection of state plans. Human researchers reviewed samples of the coding and refined the final categories. RAND provides extensive methodological documentation in the report appendix.

The methodology is notable because it combines AI-assisted analysis with human review to examine a document collection that would be difficult to analyze consistently by traditional manual coding alone. RAND also reports methodological limitations. Some automatically generated codes performed better than others during human review, so the researchers interpret findings involving lower-precision categories more cautiously.

A second important limitation is that WIOA plans primarily document intended strategies and priorities. They do not necessarily provide evidence that a strategy has been fully implemented or that it has produced specific outcomes. RAND clarifies that state plans often contain broad descriptions of governance, partnerships, and strategy rather than operational details about program design, eligibility, implementation, or funding.

Key Findings

• Federal requirements create substantial consistency across states
  • Nearly all the plans discuss federally emphasized approaches such as governance and administration, regional workforce coordination, registered apprenticeships, on-the-job training, one-stop services, and career pathways.
  • Registered apprenticeships and on-the-job training appeared in approximately 99% of the plans analyzed.
  • Career pathways appeared in approximately 96%.
  • RAND concludes that federal planning requirements strongly influence what states address.
• States are using multiple approaches to connect education and work
  • Approximately 90% of plans mentioned short-term training.
  • 83% mention
  • 81% mention curricular reforms.
  • About two-thirds discussed stackable credentials, and some plans referenced microcredentials as components of stackable pathways.
• Some approaches to education-to-workforce alignment are changing
  • Between the earlier and later planning periods, references to articulation agreements and dual enrollment declined/
  • Attention increased to Eligible Training Provider Lists, older-worker programming, rapid-response services, and financial aid.
  • RAND suggests states may be experimenting with a broader, more flexible set of mechanisms for connecting education, training, and labor-market needs.
• Access and learner supports receive uneven attention
  • Financial aid and subsidies appeared in approximately 86% of plans.
  • Services targeted to older adults appeared in about 75% of plans.
  • Childcare and housing supports appeared in roughly 60% and 58%, respectively.
  • Adult basic education was mentioned much less frequently—about 21% on average—although attention to adult basic education increased substantially over the period studied.
• Employer engagement is widespread but frequently centered on financial incentives
  • Broad employer outreach and business services appear in approximately 91% of plans.
  • Employer or training subsidies appear in 95–96% of plans.
  • Only about 31% of plans describe coordinated employer services.
  • About 30% describe incentives for intermediary organizations that connect employers, education providers, and workforce agencies.
  • RAND notes this pattern raises questions about how states can move from primarily transactional employer relationships toward longer-term workforce partnerships.
• Intermediaries may be an underused component of state alignment strategies
  • RAND highlights organizations that can coordinate relationships among employers, education and training providers, workforce agencies, and other partners.
  • Only about 30% of plans described incentives for such intermediaries, even though these organizations may provide capacity that individual agencies or employers cannot sustain independently.
• State plans often describe broad strategies rather than implementation
  • Across the five domains, states more commonly describe structures, partnerships, and intentions than specific program designs, responsibilities, eligibility rules, financing mechanisms, or measurable implementation steps.
  • RAND notes this partly reflects federal planning guidance, which emphasizes strategy rather than detailed operations.
• The report identifies potentially important gaps between federal requirements and state-plan emphasis
  • Stackable credentials appeared in approximately 64% of plans and Eligible Training Provider approaches in approximately 78%, despite their connection to WIOA requirements or guidance.
  • RAND identifies these areas as opportunities for stronger planning guidance and state attention.

Recommendations

RAND directs its recommendations primarily to federal agencies, state workforce agencies, higher education agencies, and others involved in WIOA reporting.  The report recommends that policymakers:

• Treat WIOA planning as a strategic exercise rather than primarily a compliance activity, including better alignment of workforce planning with state economic and postsecondary strategies.
• Strengthen cross-agency governance, using mechanisms such as joint planning, advisory bodies, data-sharing agreements, and shared accountability structures.
• Reassess credit articulation strategies as learner populations and pathways change, including the relationship among traditional articulation, credit for prior learning, competency-based approaches, and other mechanisms.
• Move beyond broad references to career pathways by identifying priority sectors, specific credentials within pathways, and evidence of their labor-market value.
• Document how nonacademic barriers will be addressed, including childcare, housing, transportation, adult basic education, and other supports that can affect participation and completion.
• More explicitly connect financial aid and workforce strategies, particularly as short-term and non-credit credentials become more important.
• Diversify employer engagement and strengthen intermediary capacity, including specifying who is responsible for sustaining employer, education, and workforce partnerships and how progress will be measured.

 Related RAND Research

The September 2026 report builds on another RAND study released earlier in the year: Gaps in State Workforce Priorities, Needs, and Training Programs: Findings from a National Scan of WIOA Plans and Eligible Training Provider Lists (April 30, 2026). The April study examined the 2024–2027 WIOA plans and state Eligible Training Provider Lists to assess how well workforce-funded training aligns with projected labor-market demand. Like the September study, the research was funded by Strada Education Foundation and conducted within RAND Education, Employment, and Infrastructure.

Among the April report's findings:

• Only 15 states and territories used and defined "credentials of value" in their WIOA plans, and only 8  incorporated measurable wage benchmarks into those definitions.
• Only about one-third of occupations targeted in state plans met RAND's criteria for being both in demand and high quality.
• On average, 47% of Eligible Training Provider Programs trained participants for at least one in-demand, high-quality occupation, while 38 percent trained exclusively for such occupations.
• Training-program completers represented an estimated 14% of openings in in-demand, high-quality occupations, on average, and training supply fell below projected openings for approximately 90% of those occupations.
• RAND found several occupations in which training programs appeared to produce more completers than projected job openings, illustrating that workforce shortages and training oversupply can coexist within the same state system.

RAND recommends greater agreement on how to define and measure credentials of value, more intentional identification of priority occupations, stronger review of eligible training providers, closer coordination between workforce and postsecondary agencies, and improved data about training enrollment and outcomes.

The April study asks whether state workforce priorities and training offerings align with labor-market demand. The September study asks how states organize their broader postsecondary and workforce strategies and how those strategies have changed over time. Future work is planned to examine whether particular state strategies or combinations of strategies are associated with stronger postsecondary and workforce alignment outcomes.

Funding / Partners

• Strada Education Foundation funded both the April and September 2026 studies.
• RAND Education, Employment, and Infrastructure conducted the research.
• For the September study, RAND acknowledges collaboration with the University of Michigan and contributions from University of Michigan research assistants during data collection, in addition to RAND researchers and peer reviewers.

Resources

Leigh, E. W., Gable, A., & Haroon Sualehi, S. (2026, April 30). Gaps in state workforce priorities, needs, and training programs: Findings from a national scan of WIOA plans and eligible training provider lists. RAND Corporation. RAND report and download page

Leigh, E. W., Wright-Kim, J., Rodriguez Lora, L., & Trital, G. (2026, September 9). How states align postsecondary and workforce strategies: Examples and trends from WIOA plans. RAND Corporation. RAND report and download page

RAND Corporation. (2026). Annex of postsecondary and workforce strategies in WIOA state plans [Longitudinal dataset]. Available with How States Align Postsecondary and Workforce Strategies. Report page and annex download

U.S. Department of Labor. (n.d.). Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act State Plan Portal. WIOA State Plan Portal