This report was published by the Thomas B. Fordham Institute.

HERE’S HOW THE AUTHORS DESCRIBE THIS REPORT:

Conferred by businesses, industry groups, and state certifying entities, industry-recognized credentials (IRCs) are intended to signal that students have mastered specific workplace knowledge and skills.

This first-of-its-kind study examines how IRCs completed in high school affect students’ later education and employment outcomes. It uses individual-level data on more than one million students who graduated from public high schools in Texas from 2017 to 2019 to examine the relationship between earning IRCs and college enrollment and workforce outcomes.

The central questions of the study are as follows:

1. What is the relationship between students’ acquisition of IRCs and their postsecondary educational and employment outcomes, and does this relationship vary across demographic groups?
2. What student, school, and geographic factors are most strongly related to students’ likelihood of earning an IRC?
3. How many students earn IRCs across Texas, and what kinds of IRCs do they earn?
4. How do students understand and perceive the value of IRCs?

The findings can help education leaders and policymakers improve career and technical education and IRC opportunities in order to boost student success in the labor market.