Absence of conflict of interest.
Citation
Bridges, K., Bishop, C., & Giani, M. (2015). Third-party evaluation of the outcomes and impact of the National Information, Security & Geospatial Technologies Consortium (NISGTC). Champaign, IL: Office of Community College Research and Leadership, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
Highlights
- The study’s objective was to assess the impact of TAACCCT-funded programming offered at National Information Security & Geospatial Technology Consortium (NISGTC) colleges on educational and employment outcomes.
- Using student-level data collected by the colleges’ Institutional Research offices and states’ Unemployment Insurance data systems, the study used a nonexperimental design to compare the outcomes of students enrolled in NISGTC programs with students enrolled in similar programs of study prior to the grant.
- The study found that students in the NISGTC-affected programs were significantly more likely to attain credentials and have higher average quarterly earnings than students in the comparison group.
- The quality of causal evidence presented in this report is low because the authors did not use sufficient controls in their analysis for the education outcomes. This means we are not confident that the estimated effects are attributable to the NISGTC-affected programs; other factors are likely to have contributed.
Intervention Examined
National Information Security & Geospatial Technology Consortium (NISGTC) Programs
Features of the Intervention
The U.S. Department of Labor's (DOL) Trade Adjustment Assistance Community College and Career Training (TAACCCT) program provided $1.9 billion in grants to community colleges to improve skills and support employment in high-demand industries, notably manufacturing, health care, information technology, energy, and transportation. Through four rounds of funding, DOL awarded 256 TAACCCT grants to approximately 800 educational institutions across the United States and its territories.
The National Information Security & Geospatial Technology Consortium (NISGTC) was awarded a TAACCCT grant in 2011 to improve its colleges’ programs to better assist trade-impacted and low-skilled workers in completing post-secondary education and obtaining employment in the IT industry. NISGTC is comprised of seven community colleges and their affiliates located across the U.S. Federal funding from the TAACCCT grant was distributed across these sites to facilitate the implementation of enhanced education and training strategies to help prepare students for high-wage IT jobs. The objectives of the grant included working with national businesses to identify competencies to help students gain employment, align curriculum to cover these knowledge areas, provide virtual IT laboratory access and equipment to students, offer curriculum through online modules, and provide tailored tutoring, career coaching, mentoring, and placement services.
Features of the Study
The authors used a nonexperimental design to compare the outcomes of students who participated in NISGTC-affected programs of study with students enrolled in earlier cohorts of similar programs prior to NISGTC implementation. Student demographic and educational outcomes data was provided by staff at the colleges’ Institutional Research offices and employment-based data was provided by states’ unemployment insurance (UI) data systems. Of the seven NISGTC co-grantee colleges, only Moraine Valley Community College in Palos Hills, Illinois and Collin College in Frisco, Texas were able to provide student-level data for a comparison cohort to use in the impact analysis. For Moraine Valley Community College, the treatment group was comprised of students enrolled in any Local Area Networking (LAN) course during the fall 2012 semester. For Collin College, the treatment group included students enrolled in its Cisco Certified Network Associate (CCNA) certificate program during the fall 2012 semester. The comparison groups for these two co-grantee colleges represented the same type of students, at each college respectively, but were enrolled in these programs during the fall 2009 semester (prior to NISGTC full implementation). The authors used several statistical models to assess NISGTC-affected programs’ impact on the following outcomes: credential attainment, employment retention, and average quarterly wages. For the first outcome, data from both community colleges were combined and analyzed and the total analytical sample included 244 students in the comparison group (i.e., retrospective students) and 377 in the treatment group (i.e., NISGTC students). For the earnings and employment outcomes, only data from Moraine Valley Community College was available, and its final analytical sample included 72 retrospective students and 210 NISGTC students.
Findings
Education and skills gain
- The study found a statistically significant relationship between NISGTC participation and credential attainment, where NISGTC students were more likely to attain a credential than those in the comparison cohort (33 percentage point difference).
Earnings and wages
- The study found a statistically significant relationship between average quarterly wage and program participation in which NISGTC students were estimated to earn $1,772.09 more than students in the comparison cohort on average.
Employment
- The study did not find a statistically significant relationship between program participation and employment.
Considerations for Interpreting the Findings
Across all outcomes, the authors used a cohort from previous enrollment years as the comparison group. Because the outcome data on the two groups were collected from participants at different times, differences in outcomes could be due to time-varying factors (such as overall changes in the economy) and not the intervention. The authors used statistical methods to ensure students in the research groups were similar in terms of baseline demographic characteristics; however, for the education outcomes, they did not include a pre-intervention measure of education/training in their education models. These preexisting differences between the groups—and not the NISGTC program—could explain the observed differences in education outcomes. Therefore, the study is not eligible for a moderate causal evidence rating, the highest rating available for nonexperimental designs.
Causal Evidence Rating
The quality of causal evidence presented in this report is low because the authors did not use sufficient controls in their analysis for the education outcomes. This means we are not confident that the estimated effects are attributable to the NISGTC-affected programs; other factors are likely to have contributed.