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College as a job advancement strategy: Final report on the New Visions Self-Sufficiency and Lifelong Learning Project (Fein & Beecroft 2006)

Review Guidelines

Citation

Fein, D., & Beecroft, E. (2006). College as a job advancement strategy: Final report on the New Visions Self-Sufficiency and Lifelong Learning Project. Washington, DC: Office of Planning, Research and Evaluation, Administration for Children and Families, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.

Highlights

    • The study’s objective was to examine the impact of the Riverside Community College’s New Visions Self-Sufficiency and Lifelong Learning Project on welfare recipients’ employment, earnings, welfare receipt, and educational achievement.
    • The study was based on a randomized controlled trial and estimated the effect of offering welfare recipients the New Visions Project services compared with encouraging recipients to participate in other employment services. The authors used California public benefits and community college administrative data to compare average outcomes among those offered access to New Visions with the average outcomes of those excluded, after adjusting for differences in demographic and pre-intervention characteristics between the groups.
    • The study found that participants in the New Visions program received $456 more in Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) payments than control group participants in the third year after random assignment.
    • The quality of causal evidence presented in this report is high because it was based on a well-implemented randomized controlled trial. This means we are confident that the estimated effects are attributable to the New Visions Project, and not to other factors.

Intervention Examined

The New Visions Self-Sufficiency and Lifelong Learning Project

Features of the Intervention

New Visions was a special college program for welfare recipients offered at RCC in Riverside, California. Its goals were to prepare welfare recipients for community college-based occupational training programs, foster life-long learning, and promote job advancement. The program consisted of a one-week orientation session followed by 24 weeks of academic instruction geared to preparation for college and/or occupational training; it included courses in mathematics, English, reading, and office-related computer software. In addition, during the 24 weeks, participants took a guidance class designed to prepare them with critical thinking, problem-solving, communication, job search, interpersonal relationship, and study skills. After the 24-week program, participants were placed in occupational training, but the training was organized into modules of courses with breaks in between so that participants could more readily combine training sessions with work and family demands.

During the core 24 weeks, students took remedial courses in mathematics, English, reading, computer skills, and career planning. In 2002, the fourth year of the demonstration, the community college added a capstone workshop during the last 6 weeks of the 24-week core program, intended to smooth the transition to less-supportive work and study environments. After completing the core program, participants moved into occupational mini-programs, sequences of courses targeted at entry-level jobs in chosen occupations.

Features of the Study

This study was based on a randomized controlled experiment run from September 1998 to May 2002. RCC and the Riverside County Department of Public Social Services randomly assigned 1,043 volunteers to a treatment group that was allowed to participate in New Visions or to a control group that was not. Control group members were encouraged to take part in other vocational programs offered through the county’s welfare program, including courses at the same community college. All members of the sample were welfare clients who were parents. The authors used California public benefits and community college administrative data to compare average outcomes among those offered access to New Visions with the average outcomes of those excluded, after adjusting for differences in demographic and pre-intervention characteristics between the groups.

Findings

    • The study found that participants in the New Visions program received $456 more in TANF payments than control group participants in the third year after random assignment. This difference was statistically significant at the 5 percent level.

Considerations for Interpreting the Findings

The authors estimated multiple related impacts on outcomes related to employment, earnings, and public benefit receipt. Performing multiple statistical tests on related outcomes makes it more likely that some impacts will be found statistically significant purely by chance and not because they reflect program effectiveness. The authors did not perform statistical adjustments to account for the multiple tests, so the number of statistically significant findings in these domains is likely to be overstated.

Causal Evidence Rating

The quality of causal evidence presented in this report is high because it was based on a well-implemented randomized controlled trial. This means we are confident that the estimated effects are attributable to the New Visions Project, and not to other factors.

Reviewed by CLEAR

January 2016

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