How Do We Expand Postsecondary Credit for Work-Based Learning in High School?

Education and workforce leaders and policymakers must grapple with the implications of these data—and quickly. 

As states and communities seek ways to best connect their young people to local workforce opportunities, ESG has worked alongside them to build models that accelerate students toward credentials with value in the labor market. We believe that work-based learning is an underutilized strategy with great promise.

Building work-based learning (WBL) into a structured pathway allows students to immerse themselves within an occupation of interest, helps them gain experience, and builds networks that can assist them in navigating their long term career journey. Research has shown that students who participate in work-based learning experiences have greater academic success and stronger employment outcomes than those who do not.  And we know students are interested in gaining these experiences – a survey conducted by American Student Assistance found that 79 percent of high school students expressed interest in participating in WBL experiences. 

Yet, many schools and districts have not been able to offer work-based learning at scale, and far fewer have been able to award postsecondary credit for those experiences. 

We set out to understand how states, colleges, districts, and schools, are thinking creatively about how to award postsecondary credit for high school work-based learning experiences, as a way of understanding opportunities to continue to accelerate students’ journeys toward credentials of value. 

Unpacking the Challenges of Scaling Work-based Learning 

With all these upsides, why hasn’t there been even greater growth in “capstone” work-based learning (i.e. high quality and intensive experience) across the K-12 education system? And why are so few connected with these postsecondary education experiences? We wanted to find out.

We looked for leading examples of systems or institutions that assess quality work-based learning while in high school and award postsecondary credit for those experiences. We sought to understand which policy & strategy levers led to more industry-aligned WBL experiences for high school students that actually accelerated them toward a postsecondary credential. 

Ultimately, our landscape review found that: 

1. Most states do not have policies to support postsecondary credit for high school WBL experiences. Decisions to offer postsecondary credit are primarily made at the local level and approaches vary across institutions.
2. There are few institutions throughout the country that are providing postsecondary credit for secondary work-based learning experiences, beyond registered apprenticeship—though there is increasing interest in doing so. 
3. Institutions that are offering postsecondary credit for secondary work-based learning are doing so through dual enrollment or credit for prior learning policies. Our scan reviewed some exemplars as building blocks to advance this work. 
4. Requirements and definitions for work-based learning vary significantly across states and institutions. Work-based learning data collection is limited, both at the state and institutional levels.

Moving Toward a Model Where Postsecondary Credit is Awarded for WBL

What would it take ​​for states to lay the groundwork necessary for schools to begin to offer postsecondary credit for WBL? Here are three key areas we identified:

Define and Maintain Quality

State Leaders should:

• Establish education and competency guidelines for each type of experience; 
• Define quality measures that span from K-12 through postsecondary; and 
• Ensure the governance and incentives behind these programs provide clear guidance and direction on achieving and maintaining quality standards, and improving opportunities.

Encourage Data Structures and Interoperability

State Leaders should:

• Establish a robust data structure and interoperability framework that identifies key work-based learning data points and standardized data formats that facilitate data collection and analysis to evaluate measures of quality, inform continuous improvement, and publicly report on opportunities and progress.

Prioritize Access and Navigational Supports

State Leaders should:

• Establish and articulate clear roles and expectations for student, school/district, and postsecondary partners to support a student to enter and successfully complete a work-based learning experience for postsecondary credit; and
• Provide the tools, training, and resources needed to ensure access and success.

Currently, high-quality WBL experiences for today’s high school students are the exception, not the norm. Typically, programs are implemented at a relatively small scale, with schools and districts focused on one or two modalities. But to dramatically increase access to opportunities—at the scale needed to prepare all students to confidently make informed decisions regarding their futures—states must expand their vision beyond these one-off initiatives; and instead, adopt a more holistic approach that offers an array of experiences, like internships, youth apprenticeship, summer youth employment, and employer designed projects. The more students and families encounter WBL, the greater demand we will likely see for these experiences. 

It will take work, but the fact that there is high student demand, a willingness among educators to employ more relevant learning strategies, and political engagement from policymakers will, hopefully, sow these ideas more rapidly. Work-based learning opportunities increase students’ satisfaction with their careers, including the ability to earn higher incomes, which in turn provides more tax dollars back to states—making WBL a true win-win.