Hello,
 
The following thought-provoking message is from Tom Sticht. 


March 10, 2007

Higher Education Credentials, Higher  Skills, and Lost Purchasing Power:
A Dilemma for Workforce Development Policy  and Practice

Tom Sticht
International Consultant in Adult  Education

Not long ago the thinking in the Adult Education and Literacy  System (AELS) 
of the United States was that adults with literacy skills below  the high 
school level and who lacked a high school diploma could enter into ABE  (adult 
basic education), learn enough to work up to ASE (adult secondary  education), 
and then study hard to get a high school diploma or General  Educational 
Development (GED) certificate. That was the end of the education  provision in the 
AELS. In effect, this sequence of ABE to ASE to "graduation"  was meant to 
replicate the K-12 system of the public schools for children. In  ABE the adults 
got primary school and middle school education (completion of the  8th grade) 
then in ASE they got secondary (high) school education (9th to 12th  grades) and 
then they graduated from high school or its "equivalent" in the case  of the 
GED.

In the last few years this view of the AELS has changed. In  many programs it 
is no longer considered sufficient for the AELS to provide a  K-12 
"equivalency" education and provide a high school diploma or GED  certificate. Instead, 
many are calling for the AELS to provide a college  preparatory education so 
that AELS students can get their HS diploma or GED and  then qualify for and 
transition into college, and acquire a two- or four-year  college degree.

The reason generally stated for wanting to shift the goal  of the AELS from 
the terminal GED to the "transitional" GED is because some  labor market 
analysts think it is necessary for adults to have post-secondary  education and a 
higher education degree of some kind to earn enough to be  self-sufficient in 
today's economy. For adults to meet college entry  requirements means that they 
must perform well above the minimal passing scores  for the GED, which have 
typically been set "...so that about
one-third of the  norming sample would not meet the passing threshold" 
(Tyler, 2005, p. 47). In  this case, the "norming sample" refers to high school 
students who took the GED  as part of its development.

The Education/Literacy Skill  Trade-Off

The idea that one needs a higher education degree to be  successful in 
today's labor market economy is complicated by the findings by  Kirsch, Braun, 
Yamamoto, &  Sum (2007) of the Educational Testing  Service. They present data 
showing that the mean weekly earnings of U. S.  full-time employed adults ages 16 
and older vary by both education level and  Prose literacy level as measured 
by the National Adult Literacy Survey (NALS) of  1992.

Interestingly, some adults with two year college degrees were  earning $386 
weekly while some other adults with only 9-12 years of education,  and no high 
school diploma, earned $414 weekly. So in this case adults with less  
education earned more than those with two year degrees. Why? The two year degree  
holders were in NALS literacy level 1, the lowest level of literacy, while those  
with less than a high school education were in NALS literacy level 3, the  
mid-level of literacy for adults in the NALS. Here, then, having a higher level  
of literacy was more important than having completed high school and gone on 
to  post-secondary education and getting a two year college degree. Skill and 
not  education credentials appear to be the factor producing higher income  
here.

On the other hand, some adults at NALS literacy level 4, the next  to the 
highest level of literacy, earned $493 weekly, while some at NALS level 1  earned 
$586 weekly. Why? The level 4 literates had only a high school diploma  while 
the level 1 literates had somehow acquired four year or higher education  
degrees. So a higher education degree for those near the bottom of the literacy  
scale can offset the benefits of having literacy skills near the top of the  
scale for those without a higher education degree. Degrees and not skills seem  
to be in play here.

Real Income and Education Credentials

Barton  (2000) reported that more people have completed high school and 
acquired some  college over the last quarter century yet real hourly wages (i.e., 
adjusted for  inflation)  for both men and women with less than high school, 
high school,  and some college have declined. For men, even college graduate's 
real hourly  wages declined 4 percent, while for women they increased. Only for 
those with  advanced degrees have real hourly wages increased for both men 
and women (p.  34).

Kirsch, Braun, Yamamoto, & Sum (2007) present data showing that  in constant 
2005 dollars ("real income") the mean lifetime earnings of 18 to 64  year old 
males in the United States has declined from 1979 to 2004, except for  those 
with a Master's Degree or higher. For those men without a high school  diploma 
or GED, the drop in lifetime earnings was -39 percent, for those with a  high 
school diploma but no college, the decline was -29 percent, for those with  
1-3 years of college, including an Associate's Degree the decline was -13  
percent and for those with a Bachelor's degree the decline was -1.2 percent. For  
those with a Master's degree, the increase from 1979 to 2004 was +15 percent  
(Table A12 p. 31).

These data suggest that if more and more men attain  higher levels of 
education, then in wages adjusted for annual inflation from  1979, there is likely to 
be an additional drop in the lifetime wages for men  with education up 
through a Bachelor's degree. Following this trend, if more and  more men attain a 
Master's degree, then we should observe a decline in the  inflation adjusted 
wages for those men with Master's degrees in the coming  years. Presumably, as 
Barton's (2000) report suggests, as more and more women  acquire higher 
education degrees this will eventually have some deleterious  effect on women's real 
income at higher education levels, too.

These  kinds of trade-offs among skills and credentials and their effects on 
income  call for caution in our approach to workforce development policies and 
 practices. We need to make certain that our educational efforts lead to both 
 better skills and higher education credentials for maximum returns on  
investments in education. But we also need to be concerned that by enlarging the  
pool of both a better educated and more
highly literate workforce, there are  real increases in the economic 
purchasing power for those who make a  considerable investment of time and effort in 
achieving both higher credentials  and higher skills. Otherwise we run the risk 
of seeing more and more highly  educated and skilled citizens without the 
capacity for self-sufficiency nor the  sustainability of the means of providing 
not just for themselves but
also for  their families.

We are presently in the United Nation's Decade of  Sustainable Development 
and the United Nation's Decade of  Literacy.

References

Barton, P. (2000, January). What Jobs  Require: Literacy, Education, and 
Training, 1940-2006. Princeton, NJ:  Educational Testing Service

Kirsch, I., Braun, H., Yamamoto, K.,  &  Sum, A. (2007, January).
America's Perfect Storm: Three Forces  Changing Our Nation's Future.
Princeton, NJ: Educational Testing  Service.

Tyler, J. (2005). The General Educational Development (GED)  Credential: 
History, Current Research, and Directions for Policy and Practice.  In: Comings, 
J., Garner, B., & Smith, C. (Eds.). Review of Adult Learning  and Literacy: 
Volume 5. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates,  Publishers.

Thomas G. Sticht
International Consultant in Adult  Education
2062 Valley View Blvd.
El Cajon, CA 92109-2059
Tel/fax: (619)  444-9133
Email: tsticht at aznet.net
 
 
 
Rochelle
 
 
 
Rochelle Kenyon
Moderator, LINCS Learning Disabilities Discussion  List
Center for Literacy Studies at the University of Tennessee
_RKenyon721 at aol.com_ (mailto:RKenyon721 at aol.com)  

To  post a message: 
_Learningdisabilities at nifl.gov_ (mailto:Learningdisabilities at nifl.gov)   

To subscribe: 
_http://www.nifl.gov/mailman/listinfo/LearningDisabilities_ 
(http://www.nifl.gov/mailman/listinfo/LearningDisabilities)   

To read archived messages:
_http://www.nifl.gov/linc/discussions/list_archives.html_ 
(http://www.nifl.gov/linc/discussions/list_archives.html) 
<BR><BR><BR>**************************************<BR> AOL now offers free 
email to everyone.  Find out more about what's free from AOL at 
http://www.aol.com.
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://www.nifl.gov/pipermail/learningdisabilities/attachments/20070311/b63fbd40/attachment.html