NCIIP: Adult and Postsecondary Education

Policy Briefs

October 2023

Leveraging Data to Ensure Equitable and Effective Adult Skills Programming for Immigrants

Adult immigrant students work together in an English class

iStock.com/shironosov

Immigrants make significant contributions to the U.S. economy and social fabric, but many also face barriers to integration. Adult education and workforce development programs offer services intended to help address such challenges yet can be mismatched to immigrants' needs. This issue brief sketches a profile of U.S.-born and immigrant adults, highlighting key similarities and differences relevant to the design of adult skills programs.

Reports

February 2022

The IELCE Program: Understanding Its Design and Challenges in Meeting Immigrant Learners’ Needs

Immigrant adults working together at a long table in a classroom

iStock.com/lisegagne

U.S. adult education systems have undergone significant changes, including to programs supporting immigrant integration. The creation of the Integrated English Literacy and Civics Education (IELCE) program has sparked the development of innovative initiatives, but also raised concerns about their accessibility and ability to meet immigrant adults’ diverse learning goals and needs.

Commentaries

November 2021

Narrowing the Skills Gap: Equipping Immigrant-Origin Workers with Postsecondary Credentials

Photo of woman walking around a school campus.

iStock.com/RyanJLane

The number of U.S. adults who could benefit from efforts to boost postsecondary credential attainment is strikingly large. Nearly 96 million working-age adults lack a postsecondary credential, 28 million of them of immigrant origin, MPI estimates. This commentary examines how enabling immigrant-origin adults to attain credentials beyond a high school diploma is vital to both building a skilled workforce and closing equity gaps.

Fact Sheets

April 2021

Immigrant and U.S.-Born Parents of Young and Elementary-School-Age Children: Key Sociodemographic Characteristics

Parents and their children sit in a library for Princeton Children's Book Festival 2018

Princeton Public Library

Parents play an important role in supporting their children’s education, but certain factors—such as limited English proficiency, low levels of formal education, and digital access barriers—can make it difficult to do so. This fact sheet series looks at the characteristics of immigrant and U.S.-born parents of young and elementary-school-age children in 31 states and nationwide, and discusses how taking a two-generation approach to services can benefit entire families.

Fact Sheets

October 2020

Immigrant-Origin Students in U.S. Higher Education: A Data Profile

Penn State

Immigrants and the children of immigrants make up a large and growing segment of students at U.S. colleges and universities—up from 20 percent in 2000 to 28 percent in 2018. This fact sheet offers a first-of-its-kind profile of this population’s size and growth, identifies the top states for these students, and explores characteristics such as race/ethnicity and immigration status.

Policy Briefs

October 2018

English Plus Integration: Shifting the Instructional Paradigm for Immigrant Adult Learners to Support Integration Success

Ethan Fichtner/IRC

To successfully integrate, immigrants and refugees need a variety of skills and knowledge—from English proficiency to understanding how school systems and local services work. Yet the adult education programs in place to support them have narrowed in scope. This policy brief proposes a new instructional model, English Plus Integration, to help states more comprehensively meet the diverse needs of their adult immigrant learners.

Recent Activity

Multimedia September 28, 2015 Overcoming WIOA’s Barriers to Immigrant and Refugee Adult Learners	Reports September 2015 Implications of Immigration Enforcement Activities for the Well-Being of Children in Immigrant Families: A Review of the Literature By Randy Capps, Heather Koball, Andrea Campetella, Krista Perreira, Sarah Hooker and Juan Manuel Pedroza
Commentaries September 2015 Danger Ahead for Aspiring Citizens as New Federal Workforce Law Is Implemented By Margie McHugh	Articles August 13, 2015 Origin and Community: Asian and Latin American Unauthorized Youth and U.S. Deportation Relief By Sylvia Rusin
Policy Briefs August 2015 DACA at the Three-Year Mark: High Pace of Renewals, But Processing Difficulties Evident By Angelo Mathay and Margie McHugh	Multimedia April 28, 2015 Ready to Meet the Needs of All Children? A Closer Look at Diversity in the Early Childhood Workforce
Reports April 2015 Immigrant and Refugee Workers in the Early Childhood Field: Taking a Closer Look By Maki Park, Margie McHugh, Jeanne Batalova and Jie Zong	Multimedia March 18, 2015 Cross-Cutting Needs and Opportunities: Language Access, Funding, Multi-Level Partnerships, and Planning for the Long Term

Pages

Fact Sheets December 2010 Updated Estimates of the 2010 DREAM Act	Reports September 2010 Still an Hourglass? Immigrant Workers in Middle-Skilled Jobs By Randy Capps and Michael Fix
Policy Briefs July 2010 DREAM vs. Reality: An Analysis of Potential DREAM Act Beneficiaries By Jeanne Batalova and Margie McHugh	Reports July 2009 Is This Working? Assessment and Evaluation Methods Used to Build and Access Language Services in Social Services Agencies In Social Services Agencies By Laureen Laglagaron and Jessica Sperling
Reports June 2009 Taking Limited English Proficient Adults into Account in the Federal Adult Education Funding Formula By Randy Capps, Michael Fix, Margie McHugh and Serena Yi-Ying Lin	Reports July 2007 Adult English Language Instruction in the United States: Determining Need and Investing Wisely By Margie McHugh, Julia Gelatt and Michael Fix

Recent Activity

Video, Audio, Webinars

September 28, 2015

Overcoming WIOA’s Barriers to Immigrant and Refugee Adult Learners

This webinar examines the implementation at state and local levels of the federal Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act (WIOA) and how it may limit immigrant integration, along with a discussion on strategies that may help ensure more equitable access to services.

Reports

September 2015

Implications of Immigration Enforcement Activities for the Well-Being of Children in Immigrant Families: A Review of the Literature

Rising immigration enforcement in the U.S. interior over the past decade increased the chances that the estimated 5.3 million children living with unauthorized immigrant parents, the vast majority of them born in the United States, could experience the deportation of a parent. This report reviews the evidence on the impacts on children, finding significant and long-lasting harm can occur at emotional, economic, developmental, and academic levels.

Commentaries

September 2015

Danger Ahead for Aspiring Citizens as New Federal Workforce Law Is Implemented

Ahead of National Citizenship Day, this commentary examines how regulations for the implementation of the federal Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act (WIOA) at state and local levels could jeopardize citizenship preparation services for millions of immigrants across the United States.

Articles

August 13, 2015

Origin and Community: Asian and Latin American Unauthorized Youth and U.S. Deportation Relief

This article explores differences in application and renewal rates for the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program among unauthorized immigrants from Latin America and Asia. Based on interviews with immigrant advocates and service providers, it appears participation in the deportation relief program may be different among origin groups based on varying perceptions of lack of trust in government and shame over legal status, as well as political barriers.

Policy Briefs

August 2015

DACA at the Three-Year Mark: High Pace of Renewals, But Processing Difficulties Evident

With August 2015 marking the three-year anniversary of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program, this issue brief examines the status of DACA renewal applications and adjudications, the consequences of failing to renew on time, and issues affecting renewal rates. As of March 2015, 83 percent of those eligible to renew their initial DACA grant had applied to do so—proof of the program's high value to recipients, the authors find.

Video, Audio, Webinars

April 28, 2015

Ready to Meet the Needs of All Children? A Closer Look at Diversity in the Early Childhood Workforce

On this webinar, MPI analysts present the findings from their report Immigrant and Refugee Workers in the Early Childhood Field: Taking a Closer Look, and discuss the issue with a leading expert in the field of child-care worker employment.

Reports

April 2015

Immigrant and Refugee Workers in the Early Childhood Field: Taking a Closer Look

With the young child population in the United States rapidly becoming more diverse, the cultural and linguistic competencies of the early childhood education and care workforce (ECEC) are more important than ever. This report aims to fill gaps in knowledge of immigrants and refugees in the ECEC workforce and provides recommendations for strengthening workforce quality to better serve all children.

Video, Audio, Webinars

March 18, 2015

Cross-Cutting Needs and Opportunities: Language Access, Funding, Multi-Level Partnerships, and Planning for the Long Term

Part of a series exploring issues likely to be addressed by the new National Integration Plan, this webinar, with perspectives from the cities of New York and Seattle and others examines possible recommendations on federal coordination of local government immigrant integration initiatives, including language access.

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