Increasing Transitions from Adult to Postsecondary Education

A Forum — October 17, 2005

Adult education programs as funded by the Workforce Investment Act (WIA) serve approximately three million people each year.  Students aged 24 years and younger represent approximately 40% of those served by adult education.  All adult education students are disadvantaged economically and/or educationally, and all would benefit greatly from postsecondary education.  The pool of unserved adults with inadequate basic skills – levels that would prevent them from entering or succeeding in college credit programs – is estimated to be at least 50 million. 

To Ensure America’s Future: Building a National Opportunity System for Adults, a new report from the Council for the Advancement of Adult Literacy (CAAL), focuses on strategies to improve the transition of adult education students to postsecondary education.  Forrest Chisman, Vice President, CAAL, said that adult education students are the current and future students at community colleges.  One third of adult education students (approximately 1 million) are already served by community colleges.  Chisman cited research that approximately 80 percent of those who obtain a GED say they want to attend postsecondary education, but fewer than 20 percent actually transfer to college.  However, Chisman noted that there are a number of strategies that have been proven successful in helping needy adults transition to postsecondary education, including improving guidance and counseling; recruiting students from on-campus and external adult education programs; creating “brush-up,” short-term intensive remediation programs for students who fall just short of college readiness; and creating clear curricular alignments between the exit criteria of adult education programs and entry-level requirements for college.  Chisman believes a small investment of $50,000 - $100,000 would allow adult education programs and community colleges could put many of these strategies in place.  Chisman also advocates for a small federal grant program to states through either WIA or the Higher Education Act to support plans and programs to increase transitions to postsecondary education for adult education students.

Bob Bickerton, Senior Associate Commissioner of Education, Center for Lifelong Learning and Teaching, Commonwealth of Massachusetts, also spoke about the desire of adult education students who want to attend postsecondary education, but stated that in Massachusetts, only four to five percent of those who want to attend postsecondary education actually receive a degree, which again highlights the disconnect between the two systems.  Bickerton emphasized that adult education should be a right for all adults; they should not  be placed on waiting lists.  More importantly, it is an economic imperative that adults get the training and skills they need to access living-wage jobs.  As postsecondary education is required in order to get the necessary skills, Bickerton suggested that the adult education system should no longer be content with simply getting people a GED, but must actively help them transition to postsecondary education. 

In Massachusetts, a partnership between the public schools, community colleges, and other adult education providers was formed over 12 years ago.  From these partnerships, state policymakers have identified a number of strategies that help adults successfully transition to and succeed in postsecondary education, including: 

• aligning curriculum so that students do not have to take remedial classes
• using Pell grants to pay for non-credit classes
• helping struggling learners learn study and time management skills
• creating high expectations on the part of the teacher and the learner
• creating a culture of confidence in the student; providing counseling and support
• creating cohort groups of peer learners that support each other.

Bickerton also said that some additional resources are needed to help the systems fit together, but large amounts of funds should not be required.

Gail Mellow, President, LaGuardia Community College, said that of the 41,000 students at her college, approximately 29,000 – 32,000 students are non-credit students, predominately adult education and English as a Second Language learners.  In any year, 12-21 percent of the students at LaGuardia who came from the adult education system are now taking developmental classes as community college students.  Mellow said that adult education students leave developmental education classes at a higher rate than high school students in the same classes, further illustrating the need to help the adult education  students.  However, the number of adult students that complete developmental courses and go onto receive a degree is higher than the number of high school graduates who do the same, which indicates their ability to do the work, given the right supports.  According to Mellow, ancillary services that can support these students are the most difficult to fund. 

Mellow said she believes that community colleges have the “power of place” to help students succeed.  Because many students failed in the public education system, putting them back in a high school as part of adult education can perpetuate their sense of failure.  Mellow’s bias is that by placing students on a college campus, they begin to see themselves as potential college students and raise their educational sights to more than earning a GED. 

Mellow described a number of systemic problems that keep the adult education and community college systems apart. Whereas adult education systems use the Test of Adult Basic Education (TABE) to measure competencies, community colleges generally use home-grown or commercially produced placement tests such as Accuplacer, to determine a student’s ability to succeed in college-level courses.  These tests are not  aligned or calibrated to each other, and there is no process for teachers to understand how they relate to each other.  Another problem is the lack of software that allows community colleges to track credit and non-credit students in the same system, so it is impossible to determine if non-credit students become credit students and what their outcomes might be.  Lastly, teachers in adult education and in colleges tend to have different goals and strategies (adult education teachers are often very focused on teaching specific skills and knowledge, whereas college faculty tend toward academic discourse and abstract skills).  Mellow suggested that colleges use technology to address these barriers of data, placement, and assessment.  LaGuardia Community College has also been successful in creating on-line student interest groups for adult education students to help them learn more about careers, the college-going process, and to create stronger links to teachers.

During the discussion period, Chisman suggested that the strategies that are being pursued to bring high schools and postsecondary education institutions closer together to help more high school students succeed are very similar to the strategies being promoted to build collaboration between the adult education system and postsecondary education.  However, he surmised that because high schools are so resistant to change, there might be a greater payoff by making the changes to the adult education system and that change to the adult education system might result in serving just as many, and possibly more, needy students.

Bickerton with the support from Chisman suggested that perhaps the current emphasis on obtaining an associate’s degree is hindering the conversation of collaboration between the two systems.  Adult education students can be well served by being able to take advanced technical coursework or training at community colleges, which lead to technical certificates or appropriate coursework to receive industry certificates.   

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