Federal financial aid for short-term certificate programs, dubbed “Workforce Pell,” is now the law of the land. By making it financially feasible for more students to enroll in these programs, this policy creates an opportunity for higher education institutions to expand existing short-term programs or offer new ones. With public confidence in higher education broadly declining over the last decade and affordability and a focus on practical skills cited as areas where higher education most needs to improve, these shorter and more targeted programs offer options for students who, due to their circumstances, may not be able to enroll in more traditional forms of postsecondary education. As policymakers and institutional leaders implement Workforce Pell, they should strive to identify and elevate those short-term programs that have demonstrated economic value and keep sight of the strong evidence that a liberal arts and sciences education builds career adaptability and potentially longer-term economic returns in an ever-evolving labor market.

There is strong evidence that some certificates deliver real labor market value, but returns vary by field of study, length of program, and context. Previously in my career, I published research on the returns to short-term and long-term certificates using data from various state contexts (Washington, North Carolina, and Virginia), generally finding positive returns to certificates, especially long-term certificates, but with substantial variation by field of study (with allied health and nursing usually associated with the strongest returns). More recent analyses by others, such as this report from Burning Glass, have also found substantial variation in post-completion earnings across certificate programs. The question for policymakers is not, “do certificates have value or not?” but rather, “which certificates have value, in which fields, and for whom?”

The question for policymakers is not, “do certificates have value or not?” but rather, “which certificates have value, in which fields, and for whom?”

Policymakers and students evaluate certificates based on limited information about their perceived value. Yet, a working life is long, and examining only short-term returns can overstate the full value of certificate programs relative to associates or bachelor’s degrees. Most studies track returns over years, not decades, and assume the earnings premium—the boost from attaining the credential—is constant over time. But evidence increasingly shows that the earnings premium for a credential can grow or shrink over a lifetime. Indeed, growth curve modeling, which can account for the changing rate of earnings, reveals that associate and bachelor’s degrees, especially, yield increasing returns over time. A similar study of community college entrants finds that earning an associate degree results in increased positive returns over an 11-year period, while those who earn long-term certificates see their positive early returns quickly plateau.

Even when certain certificate programs do not increase earnings, they sometimes lead to an increased probability of employment or entry into a desired industry. One team of researchers, using international data, found that individuals with vocational training were more likely than those receiving a “general education” to be employed soon after completing their education, but that those with a general education catch up and surpass their peers in employment likelihood around age 50. The authors conclude, “The advantages of vocational training in smoothing entry into the labor market have to be set against disadvantages later in life.”

So where do we go from here? One possibility is to look to the liberal arts and sciences. Despite the recent emphasis on workforce-oriented programs, there is a growing body of evidence that adaptability is an essential skill in the modern labor market, which rewards soft skills that are agnostic to industry or role such as social skills and communication and critical thinking. This is the promise of a liberal arts and sciences education, and our recent study finds just that: exposure to a liberal arts education is associated with greater self-reported career adaptability about a decade later, as measured by the short form of the Career Adapt-Abilities Scale.

Our study also found neither a positive nor negative association between exposure to a liberal education and employment outcomes a little over a decade post-graduation. However, given the findings above, there is reason to think that 10 years may not be enough time to see the additive and long-term benefits of a liberal education take root. In addition to a positive relationship between a liberal education and career adaptability, we also found that graduates with higher exposure to liberal arts features were more likely to earn a graduate degree within the decade. While this trajectory likely reduces short-term earnings due to the opportunity costs of delayed employment, it tends to result in higher lifetime earnings, more reason to think that our estimates underestimate the full value of a liberal education.

Of course, liberal arts education faces its own challenges: despite these findings, many liberal arts graduates report difficulty entering the labor market. One study found employers were less likely to consider hiring graduates with majors in philosophy than those with majors in business and biology, and also valued hard skills like programming and data analysis. Workforce-oriented programs may thus offer some lessons to liberal arts programs about how to smooth graduates’ entry into the labor market by including targeted training. And just as importantly, to set them up for longer-term success, students in workforce-aligned programs ought to have access to an education that includes the features of the liberal arts. As my colleagues explain in a separate blog post, a liberal education consists of strong pedagogy, curriculum, and community, all of which can be and are delivered across a range of fields of study.

The labor market has significantly changed over the last few decades and policymakers must think carefully about how we’re setting today’s students up for future economic success. A recent article in the Wall Street Journal found that the highest-earning millennials took strikingly different paths to achieve financial success than their baby boomer counterparts. While careers in law and medicine were once the most promising paths toward wealth accumulation for the older generation, careers in technology and finance have become the primary routes to substantial wealth among millennials. Now, as the economy has already undergone a major transformation with the rise of automation and is poised to potentially undergo another with the rapidly increasing utilization of generative AI, it seems likely that this will all change once again. As Michael Roth writes in Beyond the University: Why Liberal Education Matters, an overemphasis on workforce-aligned certificates may backfire: he says, “the calls for a more efficient, practical college education are likely to lead to the opposite: men and women who are trained for yesterday’s problems and yesterday’s jobs.”

Taking this research together, there are two primary implications for policymakers and educational leaders to consider. First, as short-term and more technically-focused programs expand, policymakers and educational leaders alike should consider infusing them with liberal arts education features. Ithaka S+R’s research suggests that exposure to a liberal arts education benefits students across a range of outcomes and this is just as true for majors not traditionally associated with the liberal arts as those that are. Second, policymakers evaluating the success of newly created or expanded certificate programs—and who may be considering closing programs more closely associated with the liberal arts to make room for them—should ensure they are considering measures that appropriately capture programs’ full value. This can be difficult or impossible to evaluate over a short timeframe because long-term outcomes may simply be unavailable; the new law requires looking at outcomes three years after graduation. Given this limitation but the preponderance of evidence that some credentials take decades rather than years for their value to fully accrue, caution is warranted before using short-term outcomes to make hasty decisions.