Work-Based Learning at Community Colleges: What Do We Know About What Works?

Paid work-based learning like internships, apprenticeships, and co-ops offer valuable opportunities for students to gain work experience and expand their professional networks. In fact, research indicates that participation in such programs can enhance graduation rates and boost labor market outcomes for students. While traditionally more prevalent in four-year institutions, many community colleges have been expanding their offerings of work-based learning opportunities. But offering work-based learning opportunities to community college students is not enough; we must design them to be accessible.

Over the past two years, our team has carried out research on work-based learning at community colleges with a focus on what it means to make them more accessible to these students. As we reflect, we want to discuss where we started, what we learned, and where we go from here.

What did we already know?

A few key characteristics of community college students and common types of work-based learning formed the context for this current project on work-based learning. First, the very clear majority of community college students work, about 75 percent. Any consideration of work-based learning accessibility and equity at community colleges must take this fact into account.

Next, we know that a common source of money for student jobs, Federal Work-Study, offers private institutions a disproportionate share of resources, leaving community colleges with relatively little to work with. So, we came into this project knowing that community colleges would likely have to get creative to fund work-based learning opportunities.

Third, we came in knowing that many community college programs require some type of work-based learning experience (e.g., clinicals, practica, internships). Some, like student teaching, are very rarely paid. Others, say a final-semester internship in information technology, might be paid if the student is lucky. Knowing this, and knowing that community colleges disproportionately serve low-income students, we kept in mind that this type of work-based learning might pose barriers to students.

What did we learn?

Through interviews with campus leaders directing work-based learning and focus groups with working students, we gained some key takeaways.

First, working students value pay, benefits, and flexibility in their jobs. To be honest, their descriptions of what’s important in a good job sound just like most other workers. It’s crucial for colleges to keep this in mind as they design work-based learning opportunities. These students cared more about the economic security and, often, the supportive work environment, at their current jobs than working in their chosen field as soon as possible through a college work-study or internship opportunity.

Next, colleges have implemented some fascinating initiatives and strategies to make work-based learning more accessible to students. From a slate of apprenticeships at Dallas College in health care and health care operations to a range of on and off-campus positions through a single application portal for Alamo on the Job at Alamo Colleges, institutions are working hard to create a variety of opportunities for work-based learning. El Paso Community College’s Student Technology Services is an institutionally-funded, student-run center, offering part-time positions for students in any program area. Some San Jacinto College student interns with Intuitive Machines at the college’s EDGE Center even contributed to building a lunar landing module, then moved into full-time jobs with the company. Every college does things a little differently, and the more examples of innovation that spring up, the better for the field.

And lastly, it turns out, work-based learning opportunities are not exactly an “If you build it, they will come,” situation for community colleges. As we wrote earlier, we were surprised how many students in our focus groups had very negative opinions of work-study and internship positions. One student described internships as “parasitic,” and another compared college work-study offices to temp agencies. So, in addition to needing to fund and implement these programs, community colleges may have a branding problem for their work-based learning initiatives. .

What do we still want to know?

Sometimes, the more you learn, the more you realize you don’t know. And there is so much research still needed to understand working learners and work-based learning at community colleges. Here are a few topics we hope to understand better:

First and foremost, who are working learners at community colleges? There is some research on this topic, and it would be a great benefit to the field to better understand the demographics, educational goals, work hours/modality, and labor market outcomes of these students. In a similar vein, who are community college students that participate in work-based learning? In what ways are these students similar to and different from peers who work but do not participate in work-based learning opportunities?

Whether a work-based learning position or other job, working community college students may have especially tight schedules while managing classes and work. With scheduling challenges in mind, when and how do working community college students access student services? Academic supports? What about basic needs supports? Very little is known about when and how work intersects with students’ use of such resources and services, yet making these accessible to working learners is of paramount importance at community colleges.

And, crucially, which types of work-based learning work best for community college students, especially older, caregiving, and students with existing jobs? Practitioners need high-quality research and impact evaluations of various work-based learning initiatives to guide their work moving forward. Community college leaders have developed many types of work based learning in a variety of fields of study, part-time and full-time, short-term and longer-term. Which of these characteristics positively impact students’ persistence, graduation, and future employment?

Over the course of this project, we were so encouraged by focus group students’ strong sense of what they needed from work and their tenacity to pursue their education and career goals. We were inspired by community college leaders’ willingness to innovate to make work-based learning more accessible to their students. And now, we hope to see much more research and evaluation in the future to inform policymakers and colleges and to open doors to work-based learning for more community college students.