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What happened to adult education in the United States?

Blake H. Heller,
Kirsten Slungaard Mumma

In 2000, federally funded public adult education programs provided basic skills training and English language instruction to over 2.6 million students, or about 1.5% of the U.S. adult population. By 2021, enrollment had plummeted to under 900,000, or less than 0.4% of adults. What explains these declines? This policy brief describes the evolution of federally supported U.S. adult education over the past 25 years as it relates to demographic shifts and trends in costs, providers, and federal accountability policies. We organize our brief around five findings drawn from our analysis of federal reporting data and conclude with recommendations for policy and research. Our brief highlights the increasing importance of immigrants to this sector, rising costs, and missed opportunities for research due to inadequate data systems.

Education level
Post-secondary education
Topics
Out-of-School and Alternative Education
Tags
Immigrant origin students,
Multilingual learners
Download 11/2024
Document Object Identifier (DOI)
10.26300/k1n3-e371
EdWorkingPaper suggested citation:
Heller, Blake H., and Kirsten Slungaard Mumma. (). What happened to adult education in the United States?. (EdWorkingPaper: -1101). Retrieved from Annenberg Institute at Brown University: https://doi.org/10.26300/k1n3-e371

Machine-readable bibliographic record: RIS, BibTeX