Sometimes the Straight Line Isn’t the Right One: Why Short-Term Credentials Matter for Postsecondary Success
New Futures
Molly Friesenborg, Director of Scholar Programs
Griselda Macias, Director of Strategic Partnerships & Community Impact
Isabella graduated from high school with a clear dream: she wanted to become a nurse.
Like so many of our students, she jumped right in. Isabella enrolled at Montgomery College to pursue an associate’s degree in Nursing and immediately began tackling the required prerequisite courses. She worked hard, earned strong grades, and even made the Dean’s List during her very first semester.
On paper, Isabella was doing everything “right.”
But behind the scenes, the reality was more complicated. Like many students, Isabella wasn’t only a student—she was also navigating family and other life responsibilities, including getting married during that time. By the end of her first semester, she realized that despite her academic success, the combined cost of tuition, living expenses, and new family responsibilities made continuing financially impossible, even with New Futures’ financial support.
Isabella made the incredibly difficult decision to stop out and take a full-time job at a cleaning company, hoping to save enough to return to school. Shortly after, she became pregnant, and as time passed, the distance between her goals and her day-to-day reality began to feel wider—and harder to bridge. She began to question whether she would ever find her way back into the healthcare field she once felt so confident pursuing.
When Isabella reconnected with New Futures and shared more about her situation, her advisor didn’t push her back toward the same path she had already tried. Instead, they focused on identifying the next best step—one that aligned with her long-term goal but fit her immediate circumstances.
Together, they identified a short-term option: a one-month Certified Nursing Assistant (CNA) program through the American Red Cross. The program would allow Isabella to earn a credential quickly, start working in healthcare, and begin building both income and experience. With New Futures’ support for tuition and transportation, in just a few weeks, she became a licensed Nursing Assistant and re-entered the field she had worked so hard to access.
Without an immediate, short-term option like this, Isabella may have dropped out of postsecondary education entirely.
Her story is not unique.
Why We Need to Normalize Multiple Pathways
Too often, we frame postsecondary success as a single, linear pathway: enroll full-time in a bachelor’s degree program immediately after high school, persist continuously, and earn a degree before entering the workforce. When students deviate from that path—because of finances, family responsibilities, health, or simply changing goals—we label them as “off track.” But the reality for many young people, particularly first-generation students* and students of color, is far more complex.
This narrative is slowly changing; there are national and local conversations right now about the value of multiplying pathway options beyond the traditional bachelor’s degree. And many of you are in the DC Postsecondary Success Collaborative, championing other options. However, even among young people, perceptions of non-degree pathways remain mixed — a national survey found that only about 58% of Gen Z students agreed that companies should hire more graduates who pursued non-degree pathways, highlighting ongoing uncertainty and stigma around alternatives to the traditional degree.
We still need to do more to normalize, promote, and encourage the full range of postsecondary pathways: straight-to-work options, short-term certifications, apprenticeships, stackable credentials, associate and bachelor’s degrees—and the unlimited combinations in between.
Short-term credentials are especially powerful for students who need to “learn while they earn.” National workforce research consistently shows that industry-recognized certificates are associated with earnings gains of about 20% while allowing students to remain connected to the labor market and continue their education over time. In fields like construction, these credentials often help workers move from entry-level roles into more skilled positions, opening the door to higher wages, greater job stability, and clearer pathways for advancement without requiring students to step away from work.
*In this article, “first generation students” is used in reference to any student who is the first in their family pursuing postsecondary education.
The Support Gap for Short-Term Students
The stigma isn’t the only challenge. There is also a significant support gap.
Scholarship dollars overwhelmingly flow toward students pursuing bachelor’s degrees. Even low-cost or free training programs often lack the wraparound support structures that traditional college students receive—things like advising, career coaching, mental health support, and a sense of belonging to a community.
For students balancing work, parenting, or caregiving responsibilities, the absence of these supports can be the difference between completion and attrition.
At New Futures, we’ve long believed in multi-step education pathways. But as our signature program grew, we recognized a gap in our own work: we were not adequately serving students pursuing the shortest-term credentials.
Launching Career Launch
This fall, we took a step to address that gap by launching Career Launch, a new program designed specifically for students enrolled in short-term certification programs.
Career Launch brings New Futures’ core model—financial support, personalized advising, and career readiness programming—to students completing 14-week construction certifications. We are building on the incredible work of our partner, Catholic Charities’ Green Construction Program, which provides high-quality technical training. New Futures adds scholarships, career readiness workshops, and one-on-one holistic advising to help students persist, complete, and transition successfully into employment.
As one Career Launch participant said, “Being a part of this program has benefitted me in very positive ways. I’ve gained more confidence when it comes to interviews, and I now have a resume to present. The team at New Futures helped me improve my resume and my speech for interviews with their guidance and support.”
We wrapped up our first cohort in December and are excited about the potential to expand this work in the future.
It Takes an Ecosystem
The final—and perhaps most important—part of Isabella’s story is that she didn’t succeed alone.
She was referred to New Futures by CollegeTracks. She completed her CNA through the American Red Cross while receiving New Futures’ support. Later, she went on to receive support from Generation Hope as she pursued her bachelor’s degree. At every stage, a different organization stepped in to provide the right kind of support at the right moment.
This is what an ecosystem of support looks like.
And this is why the DC Postsecondary Success Collaborative is so critical. Our students can’t do this alone—and neither can any single organization. When we share information, coordinate pathways, and collectively elevate multiple pathway options, we create more on-ramps to success and fewer dead ends.
Isabella’s path wasn’t straight. But it was progress. And because practitioners across the city recognized the value of the next best step, she kept moving toward her goal—one credential, one connection, and one community at a time.