Overview

In June 2024, the Georgetown Center on Education and the Workforce (CEW) issued “The Great Misalignment: Addressing the Mismatch between the Supply of Certificates and Associate’s Degrees and the Future Demand for Workers in 565 US Labor Markets.”

The report focuses on middle-skills credentials— defined as postsecondary sub-baccalaureate certificates and associate’s degrees. Middle-skills jobs employ workers with some postsecondary coursework but no degree or certificate. Middle-skills providers play an important role in providing short-term, noncredential opportunities for students who are not enrolled in a credential program (also referred to as “skills builders”). These skills-builder students may enroll in a few courses to strengthen their skills, stay up-to-date on developments in their occupation, pass recurrent industry-based certification exams, or meet new licensing requirements.

The study of credentials-to-jobs misalignment reports that:

• Providers of these credentials number almost 4,800 nationwide (2020–21 school year).
• Providers are spread unevenly across the 565 local labor markets described in the report. (Local labor markets were defined according to commuting zones established by the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Economic Research Service, which has identified 709 commuting zones in the U.S.)
• Some labor markets were served by dozens of providers and others served by only one.
• Providers offer a specific combination of programs, credential types, and industry connections that are determined by the provider’s mission, capacity, and the needs of workers and employers in the local community

When a labor market achieves credentials-to-jobs alignment, local education and training providers are conveying in-demand skills through the programs they offer. When providers fail at this task, skills gaps can manifest or grow. The result of failure is misalignment between credential supply and labor-market demand, specifically at the middle-skills level. The study finds that in half of local labor markets nationwide, at least 50% of all middle-skills credentials would need to be conferred in different fields of study in order for the occupational distribution of credentials to match projected labor demand through 2031.

Drivers of Misalignment

An important driver of misalignment in a local economy is the number of middle-skills providers in the area. Labor markets served by more middle-skills education and training providers tend to experience lower levels of credentials-to-jobs misalignment than those served by fewer providers. Research suggests this is because each provider prioritizes programs that fill different, but complementary, labor-market needs. Given that rural areas often have fewer providers, misalignment is typically higher in rural labor markets than in urban ones.

Another source of middle-skills misalignment is the large percentage of credentials that have little or no direct connection to a specific occupational cluster. For example, 28% of all middle-skills credentials awarded nationwide have no direct occupational match. More than 90% of these credentials are granted in liberal arts, general studies, and humanities programs. While it is very likely that students pursuing credentials in these fields do so for reasons other than workforce preparation, such as anticipated transfer to a four-year higher education institution, only 42% of certificate and associate’s degree completers in liberal arts, general studies, and humanities programs transfer to four-year institutions within 6 years. Given the risk that they will not successfully transfer to a four-year program, graduates in fields with no direct connection to an occupation may experience particularly difficult transitions from school to work.

Credentials-to-jobs misalignment is typically greater in rural areas than in urban areas, although variation exists across both urban and rural labor markets. A key factor contributing to the urban-rural divide is the number of middle-skills providers within a local area. Local labor markets served by more providers generally have higher levels of alignment, and urban areas tend to have more providers than rural areas. The association between the number of providers and the level of credentials-to-jobs alignment captures a broader structural difference between labor markets with low versus high levels of alignment. Even in predominantly urban or predominantly rural areas, labor markets served by more providers generally exhibit higher levels of alignment than those served by fewer providers. Higher levels of alignment appear to arise from complementarity, when institutions of various types offer a variety of different credentials within the same local labor market. In local labor markets with multiple providers, complementarity plays a more significant role than direct competition across all institutions in aligning the production of certificates and associate’s degrees with future occupational demand. In most labor markets, the opportunity for providers to further complement the work of other local education and training providers is considerable.

Recommended Actions for Stakeholders and Policymakers

The report recommends four major actions stakeholders and policymakers can take to enable middle-skills education to become a more reliable way for workers to access good jobs and for employers to staff their businesses:

• Focus on alignment across institutions so investments are amplified and are not at odds or redundant.
• Improve data practices so efforts to align credential production with labor-market needs are well-informed and grounded in reality.
• Invest in counseling and programmatic efforts that maximize students’ use of data and improve pathways to careers.
• Improve career preparation and transfer pathways to bachelor’s degree programs in fields with no direct occupational match, such as those in liberal arts, general studies, and humanities. With coordinated efforts across these areas, middle-skills education can become a more reliable way for workers to access good jobs and for employers to staff their businesses.

Online Searchable Tool

The Georgetown Center on Education and the Workforce developed an online searchable tool to explore alignment metrics for each local area —to assess a local labor market’s credentials-to-jobs alignment and to identify well-aligned labor markets that could serve as models to emulate.

References

Source: Jeff Strohl, Zachary Mabel, and Kathryn Peltier Campbell. The Great Misalignment: Addressing the Mismatch between the Supply of Certificates and Associate’s Degrees and the Future Demand for Workers in 565 US Labor Markets. Washington, DC: Georgetown University Center on Education and the Workforce, 2024.

https://cew.georgetown.edu/cew-reports/greatmisalignment/

Map: https://cew.georgetown.edu/cew-reports/greatmisalignment/https://cew.georgetown.edu/cew-reports/greatmisalignment/#map