Disaggregating the Effects of STEM Education and Apprenticeships on Economic Mobility: Evidence From the LaunchCode Program

Abstract

Despite an increase in employer-aligned certificate and apprenticeship programs, there is limited research examining the impact of these programs on economic outcomes. Moreover, for research that has explored the impact of these programs, it is unclear whether the outcomes are a product of the courses alone or the apprenticeships and other work-related experiences that many of these programs provide. In order to fill these gaps, we conduct a large-scale impact analysis on LC101, a unique technology certificate and apprenticeship program offered by LaunchCode. We merge administrative data containing entrance exam scores with survey data for individuals (a) that were not accepted into the program, (b) that were accepted but did not complete the course, (c) that completed the course but not the apprenticeship, and (d) that completed both the course and the apprenticeship. By using entrance exam scores as an instrumental variable, we conduct an intent-to-treat model, finding that being accepted into the program was significantly associated with increased earnings, as well as increased probabilities of working in a STEM profession. Then, by using machine-learning generated multinomial propensity score weights, we conduct a treatment on the treated model, finding that these increases appear to be primarily driven by the apprenticeship component.