SDP Education to Workforce Pathways Diagnostic Toolkit

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: 

1. Better inform state education leaders about the college-going, college-completion, and workforce outcomes of their students; and

2. Identify potential areas of action to better support students’ postsecondary attainment and financial stability.