A February working paper by the Annenberg Institute at Brown University examined student outcomes in Texas and found that earning credentials during high school didn’t increase employment likelihood — but it was associated with a 9% increase in earnings. Similar to Fordham's study released this week, it also found that those earnings increases varied by subject area, with transportation and construction seeing the largest benefits from credentials.
The Annenberg study was based on six cohorts of public high school graduates between 2017 and 2022, representing nearly 1.7 million students.