Evidence First Podcast

Leigh Parise: Policymakers talk about solutions, but which ones really work? Welcome to Evidence First, a podcast from MDRC that explores the best evidence available on what works to improve the lives of people with low incomes. I'm your host, Leigh Parise.

Sectoral training models prepare people for jobs in specific industries where there is strong local demand and the opportunity for career advancement. Several models for technology jobs were found to be effective in improving long-term earnings for workers with low incomes. But for many people, the programs are too expensive and too far from home. With support from the $100 million Google Career Certificates Fund, Social Finance is leading an initiative that will allow training providers to better support 20,000 learners in getting industry-recognized certificates that can lead to better wages. MDRC is designing a rigorous evaluation of the program to assess its effectiveness in supporting economic mobility for learners who have been historically underrepresented in the technology sector.

Today I'm joined by Edith Yang, a senior research associate at MDRC—and the evaluation’s project director—to learn more about the initiative and the research questions the team hopes to answer. Hi, Edith, thanks so much for joining me today.

Edith Yang: Glad to be here.

Leigh Parise: Edith, let's start with how this fund is supporting workforce training providers. What are they going to be able to do as part of this initiative, and then how is it going to benefit learners?

Edith Yang: Leigh, that's a great question. Google is making a really substantial investment into these nonprofit sectoral training providers, and they are taking evidence-based approaches to upskilling workers for today's labor market. These training providers are focused not just on employment, but they're also focused on placing learners into high-growth, high-wage sectors like the technology sector. They're building and maintaining strong relationships with employers in these sectors. And they serve as a bridge into these high-wage careers for learners who have not historically had access to them. Providing training and supports to many learners requires many resources. The Google Career Certificates Fund allows the training providers to expand their program operations, reach more learners, and continue providing important supports for learners nationwide.

Leigh Parise: Edith, thank you; that's really helpful. You said, "Google's making a big investment into nonprofit sectoral training providers." Can you say a little bit more about who those kinds of organizations are and why it feels like those are the right organizations to support people getting industry-recognized certificates?

Edith Yang: So organizations that we're working with—they've been national leaders in running programs that are evidence-based and in forming relationships with employers in the sectors that are looking like they have high demand for these high-wage jobs. They've been running these small-scale models that have shown great success in placing learners into these job sectors. This fund will help them to scale their practices so that they can see if more learners would enjoy the same success.

Leigh Parise: That's really helpful. How does the model address the challenges of access and affordability for learners who are looking to develop these kinds of job-ready skills?

Edith Yang: The program model is supported by three core features. The first is the integration of online Google Career Certificates with these nationally recognized nonprofit sectoral training programs. These certificates are available for IT support, data analytics, project management, cybersecurity, and user experience design. And they're available online, which means that learners can take them from the training provider's site or they can also take them at home.

The second feature is access to supportive services, either directly through the training provider or through service referrals. This model recognizes that some learners looking to upskill might need supports other than skills instruction to successfully complete their training. These might include help with resume writing and interview preparation. It could include career coaching. It could include giving them access to public benefits and supports or helping them to access them, as well as connecting them directly to employers.

The third feature, which really helps with the affordability aspect of this, is an outcomes-based loan for learners. This zero-percent loan is interest free and requires no repayment until learners secure jobs that are above a specified income threshold. The loan's designed to be more accessible and affordable than other financial aid alternatives. This may allow learners to enroll in a training program that otherwise they would not be able to afford.

Leigh Parise: The people that we are going to be able to look at as part of the study—how are they finding their way to these programs?

Edith Yang: That's a good question. We've been talking to staff at these training providers to try to figure out some of their recruitment pipeline. A lot of them have said, “TikTok”—and other types of social media platforms—which I do not use and am not familiar with, so— [laughs]

Leigh Parise: Well, it sounds like—

Edith Yang: I mean—

Leigh Parise:  —there's a lot to learn, then. Okay, that's great. I could imagine, especially for a lot of organizations working in the technology sector, that some of their ways of recruiting people into their programs and helping to make sure that people have information about them probably take a different approach. And saying that they're based in technology makes sense. Thinking about the study itself and some of the things that we might learn, can you talk to us about some of the research questions that you're hoping to answer as part of the evaluation?

Edith Yang: Over the last decade or so, there are a lot of researchers who have built a substantial body of evidence on sector strategies that work, but there's still quite a bit we don't know about it. So we're excited to learn more from this evaluation. We are expecting to generate evidence in a few areas. The first one is, Does this initiative increase training accessibility and, ultimately, accessibility for jobs in the technology sector? Some of the providers in this evaluation are delivering services fully remotely. Some are using some hybrid formats. Some are running programs fully in person. We'll be interested in exploring whether remote training allows more people to receive training. For example: Are learners who had transportation or childcare needs more able to access training that can be done offsite?

Another thing that we're really interested in is whether the model can provide more equitable access to the technology sector. From past evaluations in this field, we know that successful training providers used their strong relationships with employers to make connections between employers and trainees. These relationships and in-person connections may have served to overcome structural barriers to employment like racial and gender discrimination. But it still remains uncertain whether these connections will be as strong as remote training and work becomes more prevalent.

Leigh Parise: Those two issues that you just mentioned—What's the effectiveness of remote training options and how do we make sure that people are equitably getting access to various kinds of training opportunities?—I know that that is something that comes up across MDRC's work. Edith, you're in a lot of those conversations with people; I'm really excited that those are a couple of the places that you're going to be digging in. That's great.

I think there's other questions as well, so let me ask you to continue with those.

Edith Yang: We're also looking at whether this initiative increases training affordability for learners. One feature of this program model is financing through an outcomes-based loan. We all know retraining to enter a new career is costly. Learners might need to pay for tuition, class supplies, transportation. They often also need to reduce their work hours to engage in training activities. And learners in these training programs do not have access to traditional financial aid such as Pell grants and student loans.

These outcomes-based loans are a way to address this problem. They can cover tuition payments or living expenses, and borrowers can defer payments on the loan until they find a job that pays at least $40,000 a year. We'll be looking at whether the loans help learners afford the training, complete their programs, and start careers in technology. A really important aspect of this loan is that it has potential implications on credit scores, since payment activities are reported to the three major credit bureaus. Credit scores could go up or down depending on a learner's repayment activities. And there is a checkered history in this nation of denying credit to people of color. So it'll be really important to assess how learners' credit scores are affected and whether the model can narrow the gap in financial wellness that has persisted across racial and ethnic lines for decades.

Leigh Parise: Thank you. I know at the beginning you talked a little bit about how we're trying to think about what this means for the training providers themselves. Do you have research questions that are going to help us unpack that?

Edith Yang: Our final question is, Does this initiative provide increased sustainability for training providers? Effective workforce training is expensive, and tuition fees may not cover the full cost of providing training. Past evaluations have shown costs ranging from $6,000 to over $30,000 per learner. Now, these higher-cost programs have tended to have work-based learning opportunities associated with them. The initiative gives providers the opportunity to scale their reach much more rapidly. We're interested in exploring whether it also allows providers to sustain and strengthen their programs.

Leigh Parise: Thanks, Edith. Can you say a little bit more about what the tuition is for some of these programs or how much of a loan people might be taking out?

Edith Yang: Sure. For the most part, these loans are between 5,000 and $8,000. The loan amount depends on the provider and the program length. The amount is still lower than most postsecondary options that learners have to upskill. They are already programs that are lower cost and more affordable, but it's still a lot of money for some learners to have to come up with upfront in order to take advantage of these trainings.

Leigh Parise: I know that there are a lot of partners and providers who are working together on this initiative, and it's certainly no small feat. Can you talk about how that's been going and how you all are collaborating together?

Edith Yang: Our partners are doing very important and innovative work in the sector field, and it's been a fruitful experience for us to codevelop learning agendas that can be informative for their own program practices as well as for the broader field. An example: One struggle is that many workforce training providers have trouble collecting consistently reliable data on the short- and long-term employment outcomes of their learners, and they're excited that the evaluation can be a source of additional insight on that. They continue to help us craft questions around those outcomes. What has really impressed me about these training providers is that they're all eager to learn about how their learners are doing in the labor market, and they're focusing their efforts on learning how they can improve those outcomes for their future learners.

Leigh Parise: All right, Edith, tell me about what's next for the study and therefore (I hope) for the field as well.

Edith Yang: Study enrollment right now is currently underway. It'll be underway for a while. But we're excited to start addressing the accessibility question that I talked about earlier: Who is this initiative reaching? What learner profiles are we starting to see? Who's earning Google Career Certificates and graduating from training programs? And how is loan enrollment and repayment going? We'll be releasing a report on this sometime next year. So stay tuned.

Leigh Parise: Well, I hope that gives a lot of their learners and their future learners a lot of comfort. I know that we are really fortunate, at MDRC, to get to partner with a lot of organizations for whom that's true. I'm really glad to hear that you're really feeling that, in the partnership in this initiative, which I know is really complicated. So that's great to hear. Thank you.

Edith, thank you so much for joining me. This is a really exciting project that—as we talked about—has implications for many different aspects of MDRC's work, and many different aspects of people who are thinking about the education and training space. So thank you.

Edith Yang: Thank you, Leigh.

Leigh Parise: To learn more about MDRC's study as part of the initiative made possible by the Google Career Certificates Fund and led by Social Finance visit MDRC.org. Did you enjoy this episode? Subscribe to the Evidence First podcast for more.