Review of the Evidence on Noncredit Education

Noncredit programs and courses are increasingly important in advancing the skills needed in today’s labor market, but there has been very little data on this type of education compared to credit programs. This review takes a look the target audiences, quality, costs and benefits, and outcomes of noncredit programs compared to credit programs using recent ECMC Foundation-funded data and other data collected over the past 5 years. It leads to an overall assessment of the education and employment outcomes each type of education leads to.