SDP Education to Workforce Pathways Diagnostic Toolkit
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By 2031, 72 percent of jobs in the United States require some form of postsecondary education. Given the demand for college-educated workers, it is crucial to address the gap between the current number of qualified young adults and the anticipated workforce needs. Identifying and removing barriers to a postsecondary education requires education leaders and policymakers to have data at their fingertips to understand students’ movements through educational pathways, where many fall off, and who ultimately completes those pathways.
Newly modernized longitudinal data systems allow us to unlock local insights about how students navigate pathways from K12 education into higher education and the workforce and where students may be faltering.
To this end, the Strategic Data Project designed a free diagnostic toolkit that leverages P20W data systems to:
- Better inform state education leaders about the college-going, college-completion, and workforce outcomes of their students; and
- Identify potential areas of action to better support students’ postsecondary attainment and financial stability.
What's in the toolkit?
The toolkit contains:
—An analysis narrative guide which introduces the diagnostic’s background, goals, terms, overviews of analyses, example visualizations, and suggestions for further reading.
—A technical guide for analysts as they execute the analyses, including data decisions to make, data specifications, model considerations, practice interpreting statistical output, and more.
—An overview of the diagnostic for state education leaders that highlights the key questions answered by the analyses.
—Stata code and data templates for replicating the Diagnostic analyses on the SDP GitHub.
What Questions Will This Toolkit Answer?
This diagnostic has been implemented in two states thus far, and sheds light on progress toward the state education goals and provides context around areas of improvement. This toolkit empowers policymakers to understand:
- Is your state on track to meet its education attainment goals?
- Who needs support enrolling in college?
- Who needs additional support making it through college?
- Who earns a livable wage?
Specifically, analysts will be able to answer the following research questions:
- Which state high school graduates are earning postsecondary credentials? Are some students more likely to earn certain postsecondary credentials than others?
- How many high school graduates go to college? Where and when do they enroll?
- Are some students more likely to enter postsecondary pathways than others?
- Which state high school graduates stop out of college? Which students are more likely to stop out than others?
- What are the re-enrollment behaviors of college stop outs?
- How do earnings vary by educational attainment and student characteristics?
Read the SDP Education to Workforce Diagnostic Toolkit Policymaker Guide.
The Diagnostic in Action
In 2011, the Georgia Board of Regents and the State Board of Technical Colleges set an ambitious goal of increasing the percentage of Georgians with post-secondary credentials to 60 percent by 2025. This goal was motivated by the critical need to align state education attainment rates with the needs of the evolving state economy. By 2025, over 60 percent of jobs in Georgia will require some form of a postsecondary education. Currently, only 48 percent of the state’s young adults meet this qualification.
To help the state of Georgia understand its current progress toward the state education goal, set future benchmarks for success, and strategically identify barriers to remove, the Strategic Data Project designed a set of diagnostic analyses that tracks students from high school to their entrance into the workforce.
Read Georgia's Diagnostic Report.
In 2013, the Washington Student Achievement Council set an ambitious goal for 70 percent of the state's 25-to-44-year-olds to possess a credential beyond high school. This goal was motivated by the need to align state education attainment rates with the evolving requirements of the sta
te economy and its changing demographic composition. One study estimated that between 2024 and 2029, nearly 70 percent of jobs in Washington will require some form of a postsecondary education. However, as of 2021, only 53% percent of the state’s 25—to 44-year-olds had earned at least an associate degree.
To help the state of Washington understand its current progress toward the state education goal, set future benchmarks for success, and strategically identify barriers to remove, the Strategic Data Project designed a set of diagnostic analyses that tracks students from high school to their entrance into the workforce.
Read Washington's Diagnostic Report.