School-Work Linkages and College Persistence

This project concerns connections between postsecondary fields of study and occupations, and the effects of these linkages on student persistence and institutional retention in two-year and four-year colleges. It first uses the National Research Center for Career and Technical Education (NRCCTE) crosswalk, the Beginning Postsecondary Study (BPS) and the National Survey of College Graduates (NSCG) to develop three improved measures of linkage between field of study and the labor market. It then examines the extent to which uncertainty in post-education outcomes as measured by the strength of linkages is related to persistence in degree and certificate programs. The project also analyzes the extent to which post-secondary institutions differ in the quality of matches between their graduates and jobs, controlling for their fields of study and other important variables. It explores whether this variation is partly explainable by the quality of guidance counseling, teacher contact, and curriculum, and will assess whether institutions that are relatively successful in placing students in jobs well matched to their fields of study also have higher rates of persistence to degree and certificate by their students.,