Policy narratives on applied baccalaureate degrees: implications for student access to and progression through college in the United States

Abstract

This study analyses the perspectives of four stakeholder groups towards Applied Baccalaureate (AB) degrees in the United States. Perspectives towards AB degrees that are held by community college personnel, university personnel, employers and student participants are analysed using the Policy Narrative Framework. Findings show the stakeholder groups hold common as well as contrasting perspectives on the contributions of AB degrees to college access, completion and progression to employment. Community college AB degree participants, the preponderance of whom represents historically underserved student groups, appreciate the flexible scheduling, applied learning and workforce relevance of these degrees, and they perceive that community colleges are advocates, or heroes, in helping them obtain AB degrees that will get them a good job. However, community college and university personnel view AB degrees differently, with community college personnel seeing them as having reasonable costs and wide benefits and universities seeing them as having high costs and narrow benefits. Employers have limited understanding of AB degrees yet tend to view them favourably, including the benefit of encouraging local economic and community development. Despite these perceived benefits, the authors conclude that AB degrees remain a contested second-order change to higher education that is yet to demonstrate results to improving the educational attainment and social mobility of undeserved students.

Keywords:

• Higher education
• policy narrative framework
• career-technical education
• vocational-technical education
• college access
• college completion
• education reform

Notes

1. Federal legislation passed approximately a decade ago replaced the vocational education (VE) with CTE to address concerns that VE had become stigmatised as part of the tracking racial, ethnic, and other minority students into lower quality secondary education programmes that did not lead to college or living-wage employment (see, e.g. Stern, n.d.).