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For almost as long as there has been welfare, there have been
efforts at reform — but none so dramatic as the Personal
Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act (PRWORA),
passed by Congress in 1996. PRWORA replaced the nation’s
primary cash assistance program, Aid to Families with Dependent
Children (AFDC), with Temporary Assistance for Needy Families
(TANF). As a result, welfare recipients can no longer collect
benefits indefinitely, and are under strong pressure to find
work. Community colleges — which have long been players
in helping welfare recipients and other low income people
acquire skills and gain entry or advance in the labor force
— face new opportunities and challenges in delivering
education, training, and other services to the welfare population.
For more than 25 years, the Manpower Demonstration
Research Corporation (MDRC), a nonprofit, nonpartisan research
organization, has studied the implementation and effects of
programs that have attempted to increase self-sufficiency
and improve life circumstances of people on welfare. In this
chapter, we review some major findings and consider their
implications for community colleges. We focus in particular
on recent findings from the National Evaluation of Welfare-to-Work
Strategies (NEWWS), a federally-initiated study that answers
two key questions asked by those who run welfare-to-work programs:
what works best, and for whom? We also draw upon the early
findings from Opening Doors to Earning Credentials, a foundation-sponsored
initiative that is looking at ways to eliminate barriers and
expand opportunities for welfare recipients and low-wage workers
in postsecondary education.
The Policy Context:
Welfare-to-Work under PRWORA[1]
The welfare-to-work provisions of PRWORA
are embedded within a complex framework that affects every
aspect of how cash assistance and welfare-to-work programs
are funded and operated. Arguably, the most important feature
of the law is the time limit it places on cash assistance.
Prior to 1996, poor families were guaranteed an AFDC check
if they completed an application and met state and federal
eligibility requirements. Now, under PRWORA, there is no such
entitlement. Poor families may receive federally funded cash
assistance for up to five years. States may exempt up to 20
percent of the caseload from the time limit or, if they wish,
use state funds to extend cash assistance beyond five years.
States also have the option of imposing a time limit before
five years, and many have done so. While time limits do not
address welfare-to-work programs directly, they presumably
place pressure on welfare recipients to look for work, and
on welfare agencies to help them find employment quickly.
The law requires states to enroll 50 percent
of all TANF recipients in work activities by 2000, and defines
which activities are allowable. Unsubsidized employment —
that is, any job that does not require the welfare department
or other government agency to underwrite the wages —
is clearly permitted. So are subsidized employment, on-the-job
training, and unpaid work experience (commonly known as “workfare.”)
Job search and job readiness assistance are permitted for
a maximum of six weeks (or 12 weeks, under certain employment
conditions). The law restricts classroom-based education and
training in two ways: first, only teenagers who have dropped
out of high school may attend education classes; and second,
no more than 30 percent of the TANF caseload may be credited
with participation in vocational training or other education.
To be counted as a welfare-to-work program
participant, TANF recipients must be engaged in one or more
activities for an average of 30 hours per week, including
at least 20 hours in actual work or job search. In practical
terms, this means that people engaged in education or training
must combine these activities with paid or unpaid work or
job search. The law also contains a “work trigger”
provision, which states that all TANF recipients should be
working after two years on cash assistance.
States are supposed to sanction families
that do not participate in required activities by removing
the head of household from the grant. A more severe penalty,
such as terminating the entire family’s grant, is permitted
at state option.
PRWORA’s strong employment emphasis
may be communicated not only via mandates and sanctions, but
through financial incentives as well. Though not required
by federal law, many states have adopted new rules to increase
the amount of earned income TANF recipients may keep before
losing their cash grant (a policy known as an earnings disregard).
This policy, combined with the federal Earned Income Credit,
makes it worthwhile for welfare recipients to take even a
low-wage job, in that they will have more money each month
if they work than if they rely on TANF alone.
The Research
Context: Evidence from the
National Evaluation of Welfare-to-Work Strategies[2]
The “work first” emphasis of PRWORA
raises an important question for welfare policymakers, administrators,
and service providers: what is the best way to move people
into employment? In the 1980s, many states opted to run mandatory
job search programs, in which welfare recipients were taught
how to look for work and provided with job leads (U.S. General
Accounting Office, 1987). Rigorous research on these programs
found that they sped up the entry of welfare recipients into
the labor market, but did not lead to jobs that were long-lasting
or high-paying. Furthermore, the programs generally did not
benefit the most disadvantaged welfare recipients (Gueron
and Pauly, 1991; Friedlander and Burtless, 1995). Many policymakers
and program operators wondered whether an upfront investment
in basic education and skill development would lead to better
results than the labor force attachment (LFA), or job search,
approach. Proponents of this alternative approach argued that
human capital development (HCD) programs would help people
— especially those who lacked a high school diploma or
faced other barriers to labor market entry — get better
and more stable jobs and reduce returns to welfare rolls.
NEWWS was launched in 1989 to settle this
debate and answer other questions about the implementation,
effects, and costs of welfare-to-work programs. Conceived
and funded by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services,
with support from the U.S. Department of Education, the evaluation
was conducted in seven locations across the United States:
Atlanta, Georgia; Grand Rapids, Michigan; Riverside, California;
Columbus, Ohio; Detroit, Michigan; Oklahoma City, Oklahoma;
and Portland, Oregon. In each of these locations, or “sites,”
employment- or education-focused programs were operated over
a several-year period. Researchers conducted random assignment
experiments to determine the effect of these programs on employment,
earnings, welfare receipt, and other outcomes. (For a complete
discussion of the NEWWS design and final results, see Hamilton
et al., 2001).[3]
The experiments were conducted as follows.
Individuals who were mandated to participate in welfare-to-work
programs — predominantly single mothers with children
ages 3 and above (or, in some sites, ages 1 and above) (Committee
on Ways and Means, U.S. House of Representatives, 1993) —
were randomly assigned to program or control groups. Program
group members were required to participate in welfare-to-work
activities or risk a financial sanction, usually resulting
in the removal of the adult from the cash grant. Control group
members were neither required nor allowed to participate in
welfare-to-work programs, and could not be sanctioned; they
could, however, enroll in other services available in the
community if they wished. The strength of this design is that
it ensures that the characteristics of program and control
group members at the time of entering the study — including
their education levels, work histories, family circumstances,
motivation, and so forth — are statistically the same.
Consequently, any subsequent differences in the two groups’
outcomes can be confidently attributed to the welfare-to-work
programs.
As part of a largely unprecedented effort
to determine which of the two different welfare-to-work strategies
was more effective, three of the sites in the NEWWS evaluation
— Atlanta, Grand Rapids, and Riverside — agreed
to operate two distinct welfare-to-work programs simultaneously:
an LFA program and an HCD program. Each communicated a different
message to welfare recipients about the best route to employment,
and differed from the other in the way services were emphasized
and sequenced. Random assignment was used to assign welfare
recipients to the LFA or HCD programs or to a control group.
[4]
This three-group design provides the strongest possible test
of the LFA and HCD approaches by allowing a direct comparison
of the LFA and HCD groups to the control group, or the LFA
and HCD groups to each other.
Table 1
provides an overview of the programs and research designs
for the seven sites. Atlanta, Grand Rapids, and Riverside
were the only sites that ran LFA and HCD programs side-by-side.
Columbus, Detroit, and Oklahoma City ran education-focused
programs; Portland adopted a mixed approach. [5]
Although the seven sites are not representative in a statistical
sense of the entire U.S., they reflect a range of conditions
in which welfare-to-work programs operate. All included big
or medium-sized cities; in addition, the Riverside, Oklahoma
City, and Portland sites encompassed smaller towns and rural
areas. All experienced population growth over the study period,
though in Detroit, the growth was negligible. As was true
nationally during the 1990s, the sites also experienced employment
growth and a falling unemployment rate between 1991 and 1999.
Finally, all of the sites also experienced large declines
in their welfare caseloads during the study period. (See Table
1.)
Sample Characteristics. Across the
7 sites, sample intake took place from mid-1991 through the
end of 1994, and resulted in over 40,000 welfare recipients
randomly assigned to program and control groups. Their demographic
characteristics are summarized in
Table 2. The “typical”
sample member was female, about 30 years old, and either never
married or separated, divorced, or widowed. In contrast to
some stereotypes, the majority of sample members in five of
the seven sites had at least 6 months of work experience with
the same employer. Most, however, had not worked in the 12
months prior to random assignment. With regard to past welfare
receipt, the majority in all sites but Oklahoma City had already
received welfare for at least two years. [6]
Between 48 and 56 percent of sample members had a high school
diploma or GED when they entered the program, and some enrollees
in all sites had some college or post-secondary schooling.
On average, however, sample members had completed only 11
years of schooling prior to random assignment. There was wide
variation in the percentage of sample members who had enrolled
in any education or training program in the 12 months before
entering the study, ranging from a high of almost 40 percent
in Grand Rapids (where community colleges, adult schools,
and vocational training providers aggressively recruited welfare
recipients) to just under 10 percent in Columbus. Most often,
sample members who had enrolled in an activity chose a vocational
education or skills training program. (See Table
2.)
Findings on Program Implementation and
Participation. The LFA programs in Atlanta, Grand Rapids,
and Riverside emphasized rapid employment and required job
search as the first activity. Clients were instructed on how
to look for work, complete a job application, and conduct
an interview. In supervised “phone rooms,” clients
were asked to call prospective employers, inquire about openings,
and arrange interviews. Programs also hired job developers
to find job leads and assist participants with placement.
Clients were generally instructed to take any job offer —
including minimum wage jobs — on the theory that they
could best advance up the career ladder by building skills
at the workplace. If clients did not succeed in finding employment
through job search, they were assigned to education, vocational
training, or work experience activities to improve their employability.
LFA programs emphasized short-term assignments so that clients
could return quickly to job search.
In contrast to the LFA approach, the HCD
programs in Atlanta, Grand Rapids, and Riverside emphasized
increasing skills through formal education and training before
entering the labor market. (The programs in Columbus, Detroit,
and Oklahoma City shared this emphasis.) Clients received
an upfront assessment to determine their work history, educational
skills, and employment interests, followed by an assignment
to an appropriate activity. Because of the generally low educational
attainment of most welfare recipients, basic education (that
is, Adult Basic Education, GED, or English as a Second Language)
was a common first step. College and vocational training programs,
however, were encouraged for those who qualified. Job search
was assigned after education or training was completed. By
increasing clients’ basic skills, HCD programs hoped
to place clients in jobs that offered good pay, benefits,
and stability.
Portland was unique in that its program
blended LFA and HCD elements. Like the LFA programs, Portland
staff emphasized that employment was the goal of program participation.
Clients who were considered “job ready” were assigned
to job search for their first activity, but clients who were
more disadvantaged — including those with low basic skills
and little work history — were enrolled in education
or training first, followed by job search. Portland employed
full-time job developers to work with participants once they
began actively looking for a job. In contrast to the “pure”
LFA programs in the evaluation, Portland staff advised clients
to be selective in their job search, accepting only positions
that paid above minimum wage and provided benefits.
All of the evaluation sites used a “brokered”
model of service delivery. Welfare department staff usually
provided assessment and case management services, and —
in most sites — managed the job search and work experience
components. Community colleges, adult schools, and vocational
training centers provided basic education and occupational
skills training courses (Hamilton and Brock, 1994). Portland
was unusual in that the welfare department contracted with
the community colleges to provide all of the key services
(though case management responsibilities were shared with
welfare staff). In no other site did community colleges play
such a central role.
As shown in
Figure 1, all of the NEWWS
sites produced significant increases in employment-related
activities (including job search, education or training) among
program group members. (Recall that control group members
could voluntarily participate in services other than those
provided by the welfare-to-work programs.) The bars in Figure
1 reflect participation impacts, or the difference
between the participation levels of program and control group
members. Most of the programs achieved a participation impact
of 21 percentage points or more in the two years following
individuals’ entry into the study. The impacts ranged
from 9 percentage points in Detroit to 40 percent points in
the Riverside HCD group. Among people who participated, involvement
in employment-related activities usually lasted for at least
several months (Freedman et al., 2000). (See Figure
1.)
As displayed in
Figure 2, the programs
generally succeeded in increasing participation in the specific
activities they tried to promote. For example, the LFA programs
in Atlanta, Grand Rapids, and Riverside — along with
Portland — achieved significant impacts in job search
activities. Likewise, the HCD programs in Atlanta, Grand Rapids
and Riverside — together with the education-focused programs
in Columbus — achieved significant impacts in education
or training. In Oklahoma City and Detroit, the differences
between program and control group participation rates in education
and training were much smaller (and, in Detroit, not statistically
significant). The small participation impacts in Oklahoma
City and Detroit were attributed to low enforcement of participation
requirements for the program group (ibid.). (See Figure
2.)
Longer-term data on participation are available
for the LFA and HCD programs in Atlanta, Grand Rapids and
Riverside, and for Portland. Even at five years after random
assignment, the programs in these sites maintained statistically
significant differences between program and control group
members in employment activity participation levels, ranging
from 9 percentage points in Portland to 27 percentage points
in the Riverside HCD program. All of the programs had a substantial
effect on job search participation. In addition, significant
education or training impacts were found in the Atlanta LFA
and HCD programs, Grand Rapids HCD program, Riverside HCD
program, and Portland.
Individuals who entered the Atlanta, Grand
Rapids, and Riverside HCD programs without a high school diploma
or GED were more likely than control group members to obtain
such a degree at some point during the follow-up period, a
result consistent with program goals and not found in the
LFA programs. In Portland, such “nongraduates” were
more likely to obtain a trade license or certificate, or to
obtain a GED and then a second education or training credential.
For those who entered the study with a high school
diploma or GED, only the Atlanta programs — both LFA
and HCD — led to significant positive effects on receiving
any type of education or training credential.
Program Effects on Employment, Earnings,
Welfare, and Income. Most control group members found
employment on their own at some point during the follow-up
period. Nevertheless, as shown in
Figure 3, program group
members in the majority of sites “beat” the control
group employment rates. For example, in the Riverside LFA
program, 74.5 percent of the program group was employed over
five years, compared to 66.1 percent of the control group,
for a difference (or impact) of 8.4 percentage points. Across
the sites, significant employment impacts ranged from 1.9
to 8.4 percentage points. Most of the programs also increased
enrollees’ earnings over control group earnings during
the follow-up period, as shown in Figure
4. Of the programs that produced significant earnings
gains, the average increases ranged from $1,361 in the Riverside
HCD program to $5,150 in Portland. (See Figures
3
and 4.)
As with employment, most control group members
succeeded in getting off welfare on their own during the follow-up
period, but in the sites for which we have data, program group
members got off welfare sooner. (Oklahoma City welfare records
were not available for the full follow-up period.) The impacts
ranged from an average reduction of 1.6 months on welfare
in Detroit to an average reduction of 5.6 months in Portland.
In dollar terms, program group members received between $710
and $2,949 less in welfare over five years than their control
group counterparts, as shown in
Figure 5. The largest
welfare savings occurred in the Riverside programs, due in
part to California’s relatively large welfare grant (resulting
in bigger savings when people go off welfare than in states
where grants are smaller). (See Figure
5.)
Across all sites, the programs had little
effect on income — that is, the combination of earnings,
tax payments and credits, and public assistance benefits.
Over five years, welfare recipients in most of the program
groups received more in earnings and the Earned Income Credit
than those in the control groups, but also paid higher payroll
taxes and received less in welfare and Food Stamps. (Again,
five-year data for Oklahoma City were not available.)
Comparing the LFA and HCD programs in Atlanta,
Grand Rapids, and Riverside, we found that HCD programs did
not produce greater earnings gains or improvements in participants’
overall financial well-being relative to LFA programs. Moreover,
the LFA approach got welfare recipients into jobs more quickly
than did the HCD approach, a clear advantage when welfare
benefits are time-limited. Finally, the LFA approach was much
less costly to run than the HCD approach. These findings held
true for program enrollees who lacked a high school diploma
or GED as of study entry as well as for those who possessed
these educational credentials. The education-focused programs
in Columbus, Detroit, and Oklahoma City also fit this general
pattern. Given the large number of programs examined, and
the variety of served populations and labor markets, these
results provide support for choosing employment-focused programs
over education-focused programs that mandate education or
training for everyone.
Notably, one program — the one in Portland
— by far out-performed the others in terms of employment
and earnings gains and saving government money. As indicated
above, Portland was distinguished from the other sites operating
pure LFA or HCD programs in that it initially assigned some
enrollees to very short-term education or training and others
(the majority) to job search. Portland staff also counseled
participants to wait for a good job, as opposed to taking
the first job offered. This result, along with other past
research, suggests that a “mixed” approach —
one that blends both employment search and education or training
— might be the most effective (see also Gueron and Pauly,
1991; Friedlander and Burtless, 1995).
The NEWWS results should not be interpreted
as an indictment of the benefits of education and training
in general. Additional analyses performed as part of this
evaluation have suggested that obtaining a GED and, especially,
obtaining a GED and then receiving some type of vocational
training can result in employment and earnings gains for those
who achieve these milestones. Using non-experimental techniques,
researchers estimated that those who received a GED earned
$797 more, on average, than those who did not receive a GED
over a three-year period. More impressively, those who earned
a GED and received post-secondary services earned $1,542
more, on average, than those who did not (Bos et al., 2001,
forthcoming). Unfortunately, few NEWWS sample members made
it this far. While the Atlanta, Grand Rapids, and Riverside
HCD programs increased GED certificate attainment by 7 to
11 percentage points for those who entered the study without
a high school diploma or GED, all in all, only 10 to 23 percent
of all HCD sample members who lacked these credentials at
study entry had obtained one by the end of the five-year follow-up
period. The reasons for these low percentages are many, including:
people drop out of education and training classes, either
because they leave welfare (and, thus, welfare-to-work programs)
or other personal circumstances change; adults supporting
families cannot afford an upfront deferment of employment
and earnings to attend school; and only a small minority of
welfare recipients report that, if given a choice, they prefer
to go to school to study basic reading and math over going
to school to learn a job skill or going to a program to get
help looking for a job (Hamilton and Brock, 1994). This suggests
the need to identify other types of programs or initiatives
that can achieve the originally hoped-for HCD goals of providing
welfare recipients with better and more stable jobs and increasing
their income.
Programmatic
Implications for Community Colleges
In many ways, the analyses of PRWORA and
the NEWWS data point to the same conclusion: that welfare-to-work
programs should have a strong employment emphasis. As evidenced
in Portland, however, an employment-focused program can include
education and training for people who need these services
— and can help clients obtain good paying, stable jobs.
Moreover, an employment-focused program can continue serving
clients after they begin working, to help them acquire skills
and earn credentials that will move them up the career ladder.
In this section, we consider the variety of steps community
colleges can take to accomplish these goals.
The first consideration for community colleges
or any other organization designing a welfare-to-work program
is to coordinate with local welfare agencies. Some colleges
and welfare agencies enter into formal relationships, with
a contract or memorandum of understanding that spells out
the services that each institution will provide, the number
of clients to be served, and the funding. Other colleges operate
programs independently of the welfare system, with no explicit
agreement to accept referrals or resources from the welfare
department. In either case, they need to be aware of the local
welfare agency’s policies concerning education, training,
and work activities. Otherwise, welfare recipients who enroll
in community college programs may be at risk of being pulled
out by welfare department case managers and placed in other
activities or, worse, sanctioned because their activities
do not count toward the welfare agency’s participation
requirement.
Running an employment-focused program does
not mean that community colleges need to limit their offerings
to job search or other work activities. As Portland demonstrated,
job search can be used for “job ready” clients,
while short-term education and training can be used for clients
in need of skills. Another approach is to combine education
and training activities with work. Many welfare agencies currently
allow welfare recipients to participate in 10 or more hours
of education or training per week provided that they work
at least 20 hours. Some community colleges have developed
work-study options to help welfare recipients meet their work
obligations while going to school. Ideally, work/study positions
can be structured to reinforce clients’ career goals
through placements in the college’s administrative offices,
student services, library, other facilities, or even off-campus
with local public or non-profit employers. At least two states,
California and Kentucky, have created special work/study programs
for TANF recipients that allow placements in off-campus for-profit
employers, to provide participants with relevant career experience.
While welfare-to-work programs will likely
be relatively short-term compared to a college's degree or
certificate programs, it may be possible to condense programs
into shorter time frames without sacrificing quality, by increasing
their intensity or combining different elements. For example,
basic skills remediation and job training can be integrated,
rather than addressed separately (Grubb et al., 1999). Another
option is to pair employment services with longer education
and training programs that have been broken down into smaller
modules that build on one another. In this way, recipients
can earn credits or build skills in shorter, more manageable
“chunks.” Participants who leave early do not need
to repeat entire semester-long courses, but can complete only
the remaining modules at a later date (Golonka and Matus-Grossman,
2001). Still another option, often combined with “modularizing”
programs, is to run programs in an open entry/open exit format,
so that participants can move at their own pace and have the
option of re-enrolling if employment or other circumstances
cause them to leave the program.
The above strategies suggest that welfare-to-work
programs may be only the first step in a longer-term process
of career development. Given the pressures and incentives
for welfare recipients to find work, it may not be realistic
to expect them to earn degrees or certificates in the short-term.
The challenge for community colleges is to leave open the
door so that former welfare recipients return to gain such
credentials in the future.
The Opening Doors Initiative.[7]
In 2001, MDRC launched the Opening Doors to Earning Credentials
project (Opening Doors for short) to explore the issues of
community college access and retention for current and former
welfare recipients and low-wage workers. The project is examining
the full range of programs that community colleges can offer
and how welfare recipients and low-wage workers might take
better advantage of them. Encouragingly, early findings suggest
that much can be done under existing state or federal welfare
policies.
Balancing Work and School. In the
past, community colleges and other welfare-to-work service
providers could assume that most welfare recipients who enrolled
in their programs were unemployed. Now, because of PRWORA’s
work requirements and the earned income disregards adopted
by many states, many welfare recipients are working, at least
part-time. This suggests that community college programs should
be designed to allow work and academic or training activities
to be combined easily.
There is huge variation across states and
even localities in terms of what sorts of activities are allowed
to count towards the federal work requirement. Some states
and localities insist on 20 or 30 hours of work per week,
either in paid employment or unpaid work experience. Other
states have allowed welfare recipients to count some postsecondary
participation towards the work requirement, while still requiring
some limited work hours. A growing number of states allow
welfare recipients to engage in postsecondary or vocational
education activities for one, two, or even four years without
requiring additional work hours (Greenberg, Strawn, and Plimpton,
2000). Illinois has gone so far as to “stop the clock”
for welfare recipients enrolled in full-time postsecondary
degree-granting programs, meaning that welfare recipients
do not lose months under the time limit while they are in
college.
Welfare recipients who are working and attending
college often experience conflicts between employer and classroom
demands because of dynamic or inflexible schedules, the need
to put in overtime, or other issues. As noted earlier, colleges
in some states provide on- or off-site work/study or internship
positions to help participants fulfill their work requirement.
Other colleges have hired job developers or placement staff
to help welfare recipients find part-time private sector employment
that will easily accommodate their school schedules. Ideally,
such positions can provide entrée into organizations or occupational
fields that correspond to participants’ career interests.
Family Demands, Responsibilities.
By definition, all welfare recipients are also parents, and
will likely have competing family responsibilities in addition
to any program or employer commitments. In a study of young
mothers on welfare, Quint, Musick, and Ladner (1994) found
that juggling family, school, and sometimes work, as well
as pregnancy, were all barriers to finishing college degree
or certificate programs. The more a community college program
can take into account this delicate balancing act, the greater
the likelihood that working parents will be able to participate.
Programs may wish to consider including children or other
family members in program activities — either with their
parents, or in separate enrichment programs — to ease
child care problems and encourage greater levels of participation.
Programs can also schedule activities on a flexible basis,
as Riverside Community College’s New Visions program
has done, by offering multiple sessions of a single activity
so that parents with changing work schedules or child care
arrangements can switch back and forth from an evening class
to a daytime or weekend offering when necessary (Fein et al.,
2000).
While some colleges offer onsite child care,
many of these programs have insufficient capacity or are reserved
for full-time degree seeking students, and thus not a viable
option for welfare-to-work participants. Lack of access to
child care in general during program hours may also be a barrier
to program participation, especially if programs are held
during evening or weekend hours when child care is less likely
to be available. Programs may wish to build referral relationships
with community-based child care providers in order to retain
program participants, or work with the welfare agency to create
new child care slots. For example, Washington's State Board
of Community and Technical Colleges is administering a TANF-funded
program to provide evening and some weekend child care to
TANF and other low-income families on most college campuses.
Academic Barriers.The target population
for welfare-to-work programs is relatively heterogeneous,
with a variety of basic skill levels. As Table 2 showed, in
all but one NEWWS site, at least 40 percent of welfare-to-work
program enrollees did not have a high school diploma or GED.
The flip side is that many NEWWS enrollees had completed
high school or a GED program before entering the study, and
a small number had received some college or training. Another
study estimated that welfare recipients fell almost evenly
across three skill levels: 31% of recipients had “minimal”
skills (the equivalent of having dropped out of high school);
37% had “basic” skills (the equivalent of having
earned a high school diploma with below average school performance);
and 32% had “competent, advanced or superior” skills
(the equivalent of some postsecondary education, a bachelor’s
degree, or beyond) (Carnevale and Desrochers, 1999).
For program designers, these data suggest
the importance of upfront screening or assessment to determine
whether welfare recipients are ready for postsecondary-level
coursework or will require remediation, and of an individualized
service delivery approach. Among individuals requiring remediation,
for example, some may need only a short period of study to
acquire a high school diploma or GED, while others may require
longer-term or more intensive services to address extremely
low basic skills, limited English proficiency, or learning
disabilities. Many community colleges are equipped to provide
a full range of educational services; if not, they should
be prepared to refer clients to other services in the community.
Personal Barriers. Participants may
exhibit a variety of personal participation barriers, including
poor physical health, depression, mental illness, substance
abuse, or domestic violence. Some participants may have legal
barriers to employment, such as past criminal records, or
unresolved immigration issues. In order to address such barriers,
colleges may need to develop or provide referrals to counseling
services that go beyond traditional academic counseling. This
is another area where it makes sense for community college
and welfare staff to coordinate, since welfare agencies often
have contracts or linkages with programs that can help individuals
with severe problems.
To help welfare recipients cope with more
common concerns — such as the stress associated with
re-entering school or balancing home, school, and work commitments
— some colleges have encouraged the formation of peer
support networks. Welfare recipients come together on a regular
basis, sometimes with college staff present, to discuss problems,
seek advice, and gain emotional support. Sacramento City College
in California, for example, has trained current TANF students
to provide referrals to college and community resources as
well as emotional support to students in need, through the
“Student Ambassador” program. The students involved
in the program are paid for providing counseling and support
as part of their work/study assignment.
Financial Cost. Welfare recipients
who are interested in enrolling in Associate’s degree
programs or other community college courses may be deterred
by the registration fees and other expenses related to school.
Despite the availability of grants and loans, many welfare
recipients may not be aware of how to apply for financial
aid or feel intimidated by the process. At many colleges,
financial aid staff have little time to meet with students
individually, and written materials on how to apply for grants
and loans tend not to be user-friendly. Quint, Musick, and
Ladner (1994) identified lack of understanding of financial
aid or other college rules as a reason some young mothers
on welfare dropped out of college. Moreover, due to past defaults
on student loans or grants in the past, some welfare recipients
may not be eligible for some federally funded financial aid
programs.
Colleges might consider designating a staff
person to help students on welfare navigate the financial
aid system, or develop written financial aid materials expressly
for welfare recipients. In addition to basic information on
scholarships and loans, welfare recipients need to know what
the welfare office will provide — and how to obtain welfare
office assistance. For approved education and employment activities,
welfare agencies will typically provide financial help with
child care expenses, transportation, books, and uniforms.
Some agencies will also cover registration or course fees.
Unless welfare recipients are aware of these options, however,
they may not think to ask. Likewise, welfare agency staff
do not always make known that support services are available,
especially when individuals enroll in college activities on
their own rather than through welfare agency referral.
Access to Program Information. Finally,
simply not knowing about programs or their benefits can be
a barrier to participation. Programs will need to build strong
relationships with their local welfare agency in order to
ensure that welfare recipients are informed of community college
options by their caseworkers. Colleges will likely also want
to build strong referral relationships with workforce development
and other public agencies, as well as local community based
organizations that are likely to serve the target population.
Colleges might create marketing materials for their programs,
such as posters, brochures or videos that can be distributed
at welfare offices and in the community. Partner agencies
may also include these materials in their planned mailings
to clients, as welfare agencies in Maine and Kentucky have
done.
Another way to strengthen existing referral
relationships is for colleges to conduct training sessions
for welfare or other agency staff about their welfare-to-work
programs, so that caseworkers, receptionists, and others have
more information to share with potential participants. College
programs might even consider placing staff onsite at welfare
agencies to conduct orientations and answer potential participants'
questions about available programs and services. Likewise,
colleges can work with welfare agencies to hold some activities
at the college, such as job search, job club, or special events
like job fairs, in order to familiarize welfare staff and
recipients with the college campus and its resources.
Since not all welfare recipients are in
frequent contact with their caseworkers, colleges will likely
want to conduct outreach and marketing to potential participants
in the community at-large. Ideally, such outreach efforts
will involve the college’s central admissions office
as well as specialized welfare-to-work program offices. Colleges
can also use current program participants as recruiters, even
offering work/study slots as Riverside Community College’s
New Visions program has done (Fein et al., 2000).
Seeking Out New Funding Opportunities.
It appears at first glance a daunting task to broaden community
college programs to take into account welfare time limits
and work requirements imposed by PRWORA and the many other
barriers faced by participants. Fortunately, there are a number
of financial resources available to support such efforts.
Some individual states, such as Washington, are applying TANF
dollars to support program or curriculum development to create
shorter-term programs that take time limits into account,
or to tailor programs to job opportunities in high growth
industries. Others, such as California and Kentucky, are using
state TANF funds to create college-based case manager positions
to assist welfare recipients with college-specific and personal
support needs. TANF funds can also be used to support additional
benefits and services including tuition assistance, child
care, transportation assistance, and state-level work/study
programs.
Rather than rely on TANF funds alone, college
welfare-to-work programs are in a unique position to merge
these sources with additional federal, state, and local funding
streams, leveraging additional resources. The U.S. Department
of Labor Welfare-to-Work Grants program is not likely to be
reauthorized, but there are a number of other federal funding
sources for college-based welfare-to-work programs. College-based
welfare-to-work programs may be able to tap into workforce
development funding under the Workforce Investment Act. In
states where TANF agencies are partners in workforce development
“One Stop” centers, college welfare-to-work programs
may be able to become eligible providers for training or employment
services.
Some programs with an occupational training
focus may be able to draw down funding from the Perkins Vocational
and Technical Education Program. Colleges which provide vocational
education are often eligible to receive Perkins grants through
their state boards of vocational education, and can use the
funding to cover a variety of expenses including equipment
costs, curriculum design, career counseling, integrating academic
and vocational education, staff, special services, and even
remediation. One new source of federal funding, for example,
is the H1-B Technical Skills Training Grant awarded by the
Department of Labor to local Workforce Investment Boards (WIBs)
to support development of local training programs in high-skill
technology areas that face labor shortages. Colleges can apply
through their local WIB's for support; grants have been awarded
up to $2.5 million. Some states have used other federal sources
of funding to support training or other welfare-to-work efforts,
including the Adult Education and Literacy funds from the
Workforce Investment Act and Community Development Block Grants.
By offering education and training components of a program
on the credit-granting side, colleges can often secure federal
financial aid for eligible participants as well.
There are also private resources available
to support welfare-to-work program efforts. Private foundations
or other philanthropies may be willing to support program
development or operations costs. Colleges can also work with
the employers of working students to secure tuition reimbursement.
For participants who are unemployed or seeking career advancement
opportunities, colleges can partner with local employers to
hire program graduates, fund and collaborate on program design
and operations, donate equipment, and lend staff to serve
as instructors or mentors. While colleges are unlikely to
find a single funding stream to support services and programming
for welfare-to-work participants, there are clearly a host
of new funding sources available which can be merged to create
a diverse and stable funding base for their efforts.
Community Colleges
and Welfare Recipients:
A Good Fit
Colleges designing welfare-to-work programs
are faced with two seemingly conflicting goals: helping welfare
recipients move into employment quickly, and helping welfare
recipients find and retain good jobs that have the potential
for stability and living wages. As the Portland NEWWS site
demonstrated, these goals are not necessarily incompatible,
but can be achieved by developing individualized programs
that combine job search with education and training, and maintain
a clear focus on employment. As described in the previous
section, there are many other ways community colleges can
make their programs more flexible and attempt to build long-term
relationships with clients so that they continue to work toward
postsecondary educational goals after leaving welfare.
Compared to other institutions, community
colleges offer several advantages as operators of welfare-to-work
programs. They are accustomed to serving a wide range of students,
from traditional college-aged students to older working students,
and from various socio-economic, racial, ethnic and cultural
backgrounds. They typically offer a wide menu of credit and
non-credit academic, remedial, vocational, and continuing
education courses, as well as some campus-based support services.
They can help participants acquire marketable credentials,
including vocational certificates and Associate’s degrees,
and make the transition to four-year colleges and universities.
Finally, they frequently have relationships with local employers,
which they can use to provide job placement opportunities
for welfare-to-work participants. Given these features, community
colleges have the potential to set TANF recipients on a path
toward reduced welfare dependence, increased employment opportunity,
and economic gains.
 Endnotes:
[1]
Unless otherwise noted, the information in this section is
adapted from Brock, Nelson and Reiter, 2002. For a detailed
description of PRWORA, see Committee on Ways and Means, U.S.
House of Representatives, 2000.
[2]
Unless otherwise noted, the information in this section is
adapted from Hamilton et al., 2001.
[3]
NEWWS reports can be downloaded from either of the following
websites: http://www.mdrc.org/WelfareReform/NEWWS.htm and
http://aspe.hhs.gov/hsp/NEWWS/index.htm.
[4]
In Atlanta and Grand Rapids, welfare recipients had an
equal chance of being randomly assigned to the LFA, HCD, or
control groups, regardless of educational status. In Riverside,
an educational test was administered prior to random assignment.
Welfare recipients who were determined to be in need of basic
education services could be randomly assigned to the LFA,
HCD, or control groups; welfare recipients who were not
in need could be randomly assigned only to the LFA or
control groups.
[5]
In Columbus, an experiment similar in design to the LFA-HCD
test was conducted to compare two alternative approaches to
case management: a traditional approach, in which separate
staff performed income maintenance and welfare-to-work case
management roles; and an integrated approach, in which income
maintenance and welfare-to-work case management were consolidated.
For more information on this test, see Brock and Harknett,
1998, and Scrivener and Walter, 2001.
[6]
The differences between sample members in Oklahoma City
and those of other sites on public assistance and labor force
status are attributable to a decision to include only welfare
applicants in the sample. In the other sites, samples included
both applicants and ongoing recipients.
[7]
Unless otherwise noted, much of this section draws on information
presented in Golonka and Matus-Grossman, 2001.
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