States work to enhance their longitudinal data systems
State longitudinal data systems have enormous potential for strengthening the connection between education and opportunity.By establishing comprehensive state data systems that collect and share education-to-employment data, states can create an invaluable resource that makes reliable and actionable data available to leaders, researchers, and the public.“Education-to-employment data help us understand how individuals are participating in education programs and whether they are then moving into fulfilling jobs after completion,” said Jon Furr, Strada senior vice president and chief data ecosystem officer. “Without good data, there’s no way to know whether the more than $1 trillion Americans spend on education and training beyond high school is having the intended impact.”In partnership with Strada, the Data Quality Campaign prepared profiles of 10 states and what they are doing to improve their longitudinal data systems. Among the states featured are:
California
The California Community Colleges Chancellor’s Office has developed two tools that provide access to education-to-opportunity data for a variety of audiences. The Salary Surfer tool presents data on community college students’ earnings over time, and the Data Mart tool includes data on the state’s community college students and their outcomes.These two tools act as centralized hubs for potential students, policymakers, and researchers to explore data on the workforce outcomes of people who attended California community colleges. Salary Surfer is designed for use by potential community college students as they make decisions about their education, while Data Mart is designed more to help policymakers and researchers understand broader trends by providing access to a large variety of data points on community colleges and student outcomes.While these tools are not fully representative of the current data efforts in California, they are an important effort to make postsecondary and workforce data accessible to the public and to tailor state data tools for different audiences and purposes.What’s next: The California Community Colleges Chancellor’s Office now submits data to California’s new Cradle-to-Career Data System, or C2C, the state’s longitudinal data system. C2C is designed to provide integrated cross-sector data, tools, and supports to diverse stakeholders across the state. Leaders in the chancellor’s office hope C2C will eventually become a source of data used by California Community Colleges.
Georgia
Created by the Governor’s Office of Student Achievement, the Georgia Higher Learning and Earnings dashboard was launched in 2017 to bring together state education and workforce data, allowing individuals to compare the wages of Georgia graduates by degree type, program of study, and college or university.The dashboard is designed to help students and families make informed decisions about postsecondary pathways. For example, the comparison information provided can be used to determine which college and program of study may make the most financial sense for a prospective student by offering the highest return on investment based on possible future workforce earnings.Intended for students and their families so that they can use robust state data when making choices about their intended degree, major, and postsecondary institution, the dashboard enables users to explore wage data over time based on postsecondary degree type, program of study, and postsecondary institution. School counselors may also find the tool useful when guiding students to make decisions about their postsecondary path.What’s next: The development team is considering adding additional years of data and more degrees and programs of study. To put as much functionality as possible into users’ hands, the team may want to consider adding data on outcomes for individuals with a high school diploma or additional degrees and certificates, perhaps by linking the Georgia Higher Learning and Earning dashboard to other tools such as Governor’s Office of Student Achievement’s High School Graduate Outcomes dashboard.
Kentucky
Kentucky’s KYSTATS, an independent entity that manages and disseminates insights from the state’s cross-agency longitudinal data system, is a national model for formal, cross-agency data governance and the ways it fosters data accessibility.Since it was established in 2012, KYSTATS has created tools and reports providing information on educational pathways, workforce trends, and employment outcomes that enable data-driven policy formulation, educational planning, and workforce development across the state.Kentucky’s data governance law and its service-oriented approach to building data tools can serve as blueprints for other states in developing robust data systems that center user access and utility.KYSTATS has created numerous interactive tools in the years since it was created. One recent innovation is the Multi-State Postsecondary Feedback Report, which displays employment outcomes of graduates from Kentucky, Indiana, and Ohio’s postsecondary institutions. This tool arose from Kentucky’s partnership with the Coleridge Initiative, a multi-state data collaborative aiming to improve the availability of data tools that trace individual journeys across states, and makes it possible to trace the journey of Kentucky graduates across state lines, and analyze these outcomes across several different variables including major, credential type, and demographics.What’s next: Looking ahead, leaders at KYSTATS are pursuing projects that each center around “democratizing data” — putting data into the hands of individuals who need it and broadening the utility of the data they already have.
Virginia
Virginia’s Education and Workforce Alignment Dashboard, created by the state’s Office of Educational Economics, provides information on education and workforce demand and alignment by integrating data from the state’s postsecondary and workforce agencies, in addition to other data sources.Launched in October 2023, the dashboard provides policymakers and program leaders with a comprehensive analysis of the state’s labor market needs to inform their decision-making and improve Virginia’s talent pipeline.The dashboard provides data and analysis on educational programming, current and future workforce demographics and earnings, and labor market alignment. The tool will ideally allow state policymakers and education leaders to create targeted programs and initiatives that improve outcomes for students and workers. The dashboard presents labor market data based on geographic area and occupational sector, providing a localized perspective on education and workforce needs.What’s next: The Education and Workforce Alignment Dashboard is relatively new. The agency is planning a larger launch in 2024, which will allow it to learn more about the dashboard’s use and value. With this upcoming launch, the Virginia Office of Educational Economics intends to build use cases and create video tutorials to highlight features of the dashboard, show the possible uses of the tool, and demonstrate the benefits of accessing data about education and workforce alignment.
The longtime insurance brokerage executive and Strada trustee begins his second term as board chair.
Cobert, who has extensive public and private sector experience, will oversee the Strada affiliates and relationships with other nonprofits.
Ellspermann, Flores, and Williams will provide leadership and support for Strada’s strategic plan, with a goal of creating more effective links between education and employment.
The education policy advocate brings extensive federal experience to shape policy solutions that strengthen pathways to opportunity.
Reindl, Rigdon, and Valle-Palacios will head newly established teams that will focus on collaboratively shaping policy at the state and federal levels to create pathways to opportunity for more people.
The initiative,designed to support aspiring leaders at HBCUs through scholarships and work-based learning opportunities, expands to 50 schools.
The higher ed leader will provide collaborative leadership to help Strada strengthen the link between education and opportunity in America.
The recognition, awarded to Strada plus all four organizations that make up Strada Collaborative — CAEL, Education at Work, InsideTrack, and Roadtrip Nation — signals continued prioritization of DEI efforts.
Austin will assume the role permanently after leading Strada’s financial operations through a leadership and strategy transition as interim CFO.
The postsecondary education policy leader will oversee the nonprofit organization’s advocacy work with state and federal policymakers.
The experienced corporate leader and legal expert brings a diverse range of experience to guide Strada’s legal team and serve the organization’s board of trustees.
The former U.S. Commerce Department official will head the social impact organization’s strategy and innovation team.
Higher education’s measurement of student success is in the midst of an evolution. For nearly five decades, success efforts focused on access, then two decades with completion as the horizon for success, and now the focus is extending to student outcomes beyond completion.
In the wake of historic pandemic-related enrollment declines, postsecondary institutions have responded by developing and expanding innovative approaches to engaging learners.
Students can see the high costs of education, but a clear and predictable career path is more opaque in an ever-shifting labor market transformed by remote work, gig work, outsourcing, automation, artificial intelligence, and global supply chains.
Steep declines in undergraduate enrollment during 2020 and 2021 threaten to widen existing equity gaps in college completion and career opportunities.
Nondegree credentials have been growing rapidly for decades. During the COVID-19 economic crisis, interest in nondegree credentials and skills training options was especially high. Questions about their quality and value, however, remain.
The high school classes of 2020 and 2021 have endured massive disruption to their education.
In order to inform solutions for how to reconnect with young adults whose education plans have been disrupted, Strada Education Network is conducting a multiphase research study with high school graduates from 2020 and 2021.
The pandemic has led to a national crisis of widespread disruption to both work and education for millions of adults in the U.S., especially those from historically marginalized groups.
Over the past 15 years, the number of student loan recipients has increased by 51 percent and the debt associated with those loans has more than doubled.
In the recovering economy, employers will play a central role as Americans look to reskill, upskill, and compete in the workforce.
The economic impact of COVID-19 is widespread, but the ramifications are felt disproportionately among people of color.
This week’s data are based on the Strada Public Viewpoint and Strada Student Viewpoint surveys, which together collected more than 25,000 responses this year.
Our mission is to improve lives by forging clearer and more purposeful pathways between education and employment.
Breaux, Jenkins, and Olinger join the governing board; Coulis is selected as board chair for the national social impact organization focused on strengthening education-to-employment pathways.
Seven months into the COVID-19 pandemic, Americans feel stuck at work and unconvinced a good job or opportunities to advance are within their reach.
COVID-19 is Disrupting Students’ Confidence in the Value of Higher Education
These insights are from the Strada Student Viewpoint survey, which collected more than 4,000 responses from students at four-year institutions between Sept. 10 and 25.
The nationally representative Public Viewpoint survey, with more than 17,000 responses collected between March 25 and Sept. 3, is intended to provide insights to the education and training providers, policymakers, employers, and individual Americans who are navigating the COVID-19 crisis.
Five months into the pandemic, Americans are now three times more likely than they were in April to believe COVID-19’s impact will last more than a year.
The COVID-19 crisis continues to touch nearly every aspect of American life, but the latest Strada Public Viewpoint research shows Americans’ interest in online learning would be significant with or without the effect of the pandemic.
This week’s data also shows what is motivating the workers looking to change fields—and for about half, the decision isn’t about finances or career advancement.
COVID-19 is taking the lives of Americans and disrupting the fabric of work, education, and daily living for the entire nation, but the impact is disproportionately affecting people of color.
After weeks of impact to Americans’ emotional and economic well-being because of COVID-19, many are beginning to consider what will come next in their lives.
Responses from more than 7,000 adults now are included in this survey*, updated weekly and designed to track the impact of the pandemic on American lives, work, and education.
Two-thirds of Americans remain concerned they may lose their jobs. About half are worried COVID-19 will have a negative impact on their finances.
Those were among the findings in the second week of a nationally representative survey* of 1,000 people that is designed to track the impact of the pandemic on Americans’ lives, work, and education.
This nationally representative survey* of 1,000 American adults will be updated weekly.
In a collaborative study of more than 40,000 Americans who started attending college, but did not finish with a degree, this report from Strada Education Network, Lumina Foundation and Gallup Research provides insights into the reasons they stopped out of college, and what could help them return.
A “How To” Playbook for America’s Governors
What do Americans value in their education? We haven’t really known, because too often learners have been absent from the conversation.
The number of job openings in the United States now surpasses the number of people available and qualified to fill them. Through the Strada-Gallup Education Survey, we talk to Americans about their desire for more education and skills training and explore what motivates them to return to school.
Strada and Gallup share findings from their Strada-Gallup Employer Survey of a representative national sample of 1,139 adult employees involved in hiring decisions who participated in an online survey.
Choksi, Dyke and Markell join the governing board for the national social impact organization focused on strengthening education-to-employment pathways.
In the future, the most valued workers will be those who combine technical skills with uniquely human skills, such as critical thinking, problem solving, and communication.
We’re getting mixed messages about the outcomes of liberal arts graduates. Depending on who you ask, these graduates are either headed for a lifetime as a barista or are capable of doing absolutely anything. The answer lies somewhere in the middle.
The 2017 Strada-Gallup College Student Survey showed that students who had these types of conversations are more likely than other students to feel confident about their future upon graduation.
An Early History of Strada Education Network 2014-2017
The 2017 College Student Survey, a new nationally representative survey of current students examining their perceptions about preparation for the workforce and the career-related support they receive from their institutions.
