E.g., 04/19/2024
E.g., 04/19/2024
NCIIP: Adult and Postsecondary Education

NCIIP: Adult and Postsecondary Education

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.

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.

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.

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.

penn state students studying
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.

10122015_EFichtner__Pheonix_029
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

Pages

Recent Activity

Video, Audio, Webinars
March 12, 2015

This webinar, with perspectives from MPI, the WE Global Network, and Lutheran Immigrant and Refugee Service, examines the role of economic development initiatives and refugee resettlement programs/infrastructure in immigrant integration.

Video, Audio, Webinars
March 5, 2015

This webinar, with perspectives from MPI, the National Partnership for New Americans, and the National Skills Coalition, looks at the role of adult education and English language and skills training in the immigrant integration process.

Video, Audio
February 12, 2015

A report release examining PIAAC data on the skills of U.S. immigrant adults and whether there is a gap with native-born adults, and discussion of how these skills relate to key immigrant integration outcomes such as employment, income, access to training, and health.

Reports
February 2015
Immigrant adults in the United States lag their native-born peers in literacy, numeracy, and problem-solving skills, with resulting effects on their income, employment, education, and health, according to MPI analysis of U.S. scores on the 2012 Program for the International Assessment of Adult Competencies (PIAAC). The findings, which reveal wide ethnic and racial gaps in scoring, underscore deep U.S. social inequalities.
Video, Audio, Webinars
January 7, 2015

A webinar examining the outreach and initiatives by educational institutions and other community stakeholders seeking to support the education and training success of grantees of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program.

Reports
January 2015
Since its launch in 2012, the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program has intertwined immigration policy and the education and training fields in an unprecedented way. Based on fieldwork in seven states, this report examines the ways in which local educational institutions, legal service providers, and immigrant youth advocates have responded to the first phase of DACA, as well as the program's effects on students' educational and career aspirations.
Audio, Webinars
September 16, 2014

A discussion and report release on the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program, how its educational requirements may be impacting application rates, and recommendations for overcoming the education-success challenges that key subgroups of DACA-DREAM youth face.

Reports
September 2014
The Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program is unprecedented in the scope of its educational requirements. This report provides sociodemographic snapshots of three key DACA groups, explores the challenges to their educational success, and offers recommendations for educators and other stakeholders looking to support the educational attainment of these young unauthorized immigrants.

Pages