New Evidence on Workplace Education

Abstract

This paper presents an analysis of the impact of a workplace education program that was administered by a community college at two companies. One of the companies we study is in the manufacturing sector and the other is in the service sector. The analysis relies on longitudinal administrative data and cross-sectional survey data. We examine a broad range of outcome variables, including workers’ earnings, performance awards, job attendance, and subjective performance measures. Our main finding is that the program had a small, positive impact on earnings at the manufacturing company, but an insignificant impact at the service company. We also find that the training program had a positive association with the incidence of job bids, upgrades, performance awards, and job attendance. At the manufacturing company, occupational courses, such as blue print reading, had the largest impact.