Across two rounds of grants from 2010 and 2021, the Health Profession Opportunity Grants (HPOG) Program aimed to provide education and training to Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) recipients and other adults with low incomes for occupations in the healthcare field that pay well and are expected to either experience labor shortages or be in high demand. From a participant’s perspective, the goal of the HPOG Program was to increase their employment opportunities through training for healthcare professions.

Programs such as HPOG that provide education and training towards an occupational credential can help participants gain in-demand skills, move along a career pathway, and improve employment and earnings. However, not everyone who starts education and training completes it. In some cases, people who enroll in a program that offers training never actually start that training. Across participants enrolled in either round of HPOG, 19 percent did not start a healthcare training and another 12 percent of those who started healthcare training failed to complete.

This report provides program operators with considerations and recommendations for how to improve the rates of participants starting and completing healthcare training.

Key Findings

• Basic skills and prerequisite subject course requirements can be a hurdle for participants in starting healthcare training. However, those who complete basic skills and start healthcare training are as likely to complete as those who don’t take basic skills training.
• Participating in pre-training workshops and activities is associated with increased participant success in training. Pre-training activities in HPOG such as college readiness, digital literacy, or orientation to healthcare careers workshops are associated with a higher likelihood of starting and completing healthcare training.
• Providing support services and increasing participants’ use of them could increase rates of starting and completing healthcare training. Our results show that participants who received personal or logistical support services (to address challenges such as transportation and child care) had a higher likelihood of starting healthcare training. Receipt of these support services, as well as receipt of academic supports or employment assistance supports, were associated with a higher likelihood of completing healthcare training once started.
• Programs should consider finding additional ways to support participants with lower levels of education or basic skills, who need to meet pre-training requirements. We find that participants who have lower levels of education or basic skills, particularly those who have not completed high school, are less likely to start and complete healthcare training. They may need additional support or programmatic options tailored to their skill levels. Given that those who leave the program before starting healthcare training spend only a short time in HPOG, programs may want to accelerate entry into training by providing workshops and basic skills instruction at the same time as — or integrated into — healthcare training.
• Programs should consider providing additional, ongoing supports to those in longer healthcare trainings. Our analysis shows that the longer a healthcare training takes, the less likely a participant is to complete, even though longer trainings (e.g., CNA vs. LPN, LPN vs. RN) can have more desirable employment and earnings outcomes. Programs should consider providing participants who start longer trainings additional support or taking steps to encourage them to take up available supports. Future programs might also provide financial support beyond tuition assistance, such as a stipend (which was prohibited under HPOG’s authorizing legislation for the two rounds of grants included in this study).