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Is law school worth it? A Juris Doctor (JD) offers high median earnings and a substantial earnings boost relative to a bachelor's degree in the humanities or social sciences--two of the more common fields of study that lawyers pursue as undergraduate students. However, graduates of most law schools carry substantial student loan debt, which dims the financial returns associated with a JD. "A Law Degree Is No Sure Thing: Some Law School Graduates Earn Top Dollar, but Many Do Not" finds that the return on investment (ROI) in earnings and career outcomes varies widely across law schools. The median earnings net of debt payments are $72,000 four years after graduation for all law school graduates, but exceed $200,000 at seven law schools. By comparison, graduates of 33 law schools earn less than $55,000 net of debt payments four years after graduation.

Is graduate school worth it? Graduate degrees--including master's, professional, and doctoral degrees--can help individuals boost their earnings and improve career advancement opportunities. But they can also be high-risk investments given rising costs, student debt, and the current lack of transparency about program outcomes. "Graduate Degrees: Risky and Unequal Paths to the Top" proposes new measures to improve accountability and transparency in graduate education through a regulatory framework for Grad PLUS loan eligibility that includes both an in-field earnings premium test and a debt-to-earnings test. The report also examines median earnings, costs, and debt across different types of graduate degrees in different fields of study, along with equity gaps in graduate degree attainment and earnings outcomes by race/ethnicity and gender.

There are hundreds of local labor markets fuel the American economy, and each one is driven by the needs of the local area's mix of industries and the skills of its workers. For each labor market to operate at its peak potential, these needs and skills must align. Achieving alignment requires local education and training providers to convey in-demand skills through the programs they offer; when providers fail at this task, skills gaps can manifest or grow. The result of failure is a great misalignment between credential supply and labor-market demand, specifically at the middle-skills level. On one side of this great misalignment is the middle-skills employment: jobs that require more than a high school diploma but less than a bachelor's degree. On the other side lies the vast array of middle-skills education and training providers, which include public community colleges, private nonprofit and for-profit two-year institutions, and private training institutions such as technical, clerical, and cosmetology schools, along with some four-year colleges that offer middle-skills credentials. These providers often explicitly design their programs to serve local workforce needs, including by collaborating directly with employers to create educational offerings that match the skills demands of the local labor market. This report focuses on middle-skills credentials--that is, postsecondary sub-baccalaureate certificates and associate's degrees. As of the 2020-2021 school year, providers of these credentials numbered almost 4,800 nationwide. These providers were spread unevenly across the 565 local labor markets described in this report, with some markets served by dozens of providers and others served by only one. The pressure on these middle-skills providers to meet community workforce needs continues to grow: the national economy is expected to create an average of 18.5 million job openings annually through 2031, and 5.8 million of these job openings each year (slightly more than 31 percent) will go to workers with an associate's degree, a certificate, or some college credit but no degree.

Rural America has long been perceived as "left behind" by policies that leave it struggling while benefiting bustling urban cities and suburbs. That narrative holds some truth: rural America has a declining population, along with lower educational attainment and lower workforce participation than urban America. But while rural America certainly faces challenges, it also has its own strengths and assets. "Small Towns, Big Opportunities: Many Workers in Rural Areas Have Good Jobs, but These Areas Need Greater Investment in Education, Training, and Career Counseling" counters some of the negative stereotypes and finds that working adults in rural America are almost as likely (50 percent) as working adults in urban America (54 percent) to have a good job.

Concerns about rising college costs and uncertain economic returns have combined with a wave of populist backlash to reduce public trust in higher education, which plummeted to new lows in 2023. President Biden, who ran his 2020 campaign on a platform that included student loan forgiveness and free community college, has focused some of his recent public messaging on high-paying jobs for workers without college degrees--despite the fact that such jobs are rare. The data shows that time and again a college degree is the most reliable pathway to the middle class: 74 percent of workers with college degrees have good jobs, compared with 42 percent of workers with no more than a high school diploma. These statistics indicate that Americans need both more access to affordable college education and more and better pathways to economic opportunity for workers without college degrees. But they also demonstrate that college degrees remain valuable both to individuals and to society. This report documents the economic benefits associated with increases in college degree attainment that occurred between 2010 and 2020, both nationally and within each state. It also describes the nonmonetary ways in which education contributes to human flourishing.

In the wake of the Supreme Court's ban on race-conscious admissions, the pursuit of diversity and equity in higher education is increasingly under threat. While access to higher education has improved overall for historically underrepresented students, the quality of that opportunity remains uneven, particularly along the lines of race/ethnicity and class. Race-conscious affirmative action brought about a modicum of racial and ethnic diversity to selective colleges, and by extension to our social and economic institutions. Yet this still failed to sufficiently increase representation at selective institutions to reflect the growing percentage of underrepresented minority students who are of college age. This report is a retrospective analysis of the changing demographics of selective and open-access institutions from 2009 to 2019, the decade leading up to the COVID-19 pandemic. Race/ethnicity could still be explicitly considered in the admissions process during that decade. The authors chose to end the analysis with the onset of COVID-19 because the pandemic profoundly altered college enrollment. This report demonstrates that even with race-conscious affirmative action, diversity gains made at the nation's most selective colleges and universities were incremental at best. The US is still a long way from successfully closing equity gaps by race/ethnicity at selective universities, while historically underrepresented students continue to disproportionately enroll in open-access institutions.

This appendix documents the methodology used by the Georgetown University Center on Education and the Workforce to project educational demand within the US economy. The methodology produces forecasts using data from two private analytics companies. The authors use occupational forecasts provided by Lightcast that are calibrated to total employment forecasts from IHS Markit. The data is then fed into a model that was created more than a decade ago and has been repeatedly refined. In the model, the authors use gross domestic product (GDP) and employment projections from IHS Markit as feedstock for an input-output (I/O) model developed by Lightcast. The authors have a four-step approach to forecasting educational demand: (1) Forecast educational distributions within occupations; (2) Estimate long-term employment projections; (3) Estimate change in the occupational structure; and (4) Project educational demand through 2031.

Over the past century, the United States workforce has undergone a massive structural shift. Technological change has moved the economy toward skilled labor and away from unskilled labor--a phenomenon known as skill-biased technical change. This structural shift has increased the relative demand for educated and skilled labor, leading to commensurate increases in the relative wages of skilled workers, and changes in the nature of work itself. The authors project that the United States will have 171 million jobs in 2031, compared to 155 million in 2021. This total is even more impressive when compared to the low of 138 million jobs during the COVID-19 pandemic. This report shows: (1) A breakdown of job projections by 13 major industries; and (2) A breakdown of job projections by nine major occupational clusters and 22 total occupational groups. All of the industry and occupational sections include projections for jobs through 2031 by needed level of educational attainment. This report also accounts for the increasing role of technology in American society, particularly in the world of work. The authors find that the nature of work has changed dramatically to incorporate technology not only as a complement to human labor but also as a substitute for tasks within jobs and sometimes even workers. This report includes a national overview of job projections and their educational requirements across industries, occupational clusters, and detailed occupational groups.

The staggering highs and lows of the recent US economy and their effect on the labor force has been deeply unsettling. The US has come through the COVID-19 recession, the deepest economic downturn since the Great Depression, followed by the quickest recovery ever. One trend in the workforce has remained unaltered throughout this historic change: the increasing need for workers to have greater levels of education in order to succeed in the modern economy. The US economy is bifurcated between a large but sluggish blue-collar and skilled-trades economy and a smaller but faster-growing managerial and professional economy. This is leading to a widening economic divide between those who have postsecondary education and those who do not. The projections of education demand outlined in this report rest on a combination of historical data and growth forecasts. The economy will continue to create jobs for workers with a high school diploma or less. But these jobs, in many cases, do not offer high enough earnings for the workers who hold them to adequately maintain a home and raise a family. The labor force will be increasingly divided between those who have postsecondary education and those who don't. But it is becoming ever clearer that postsecondary education or training is the only path for most workers to a middle-class lifestyle.

This report projects education requirements linked to forecasted job growth for all 50 states and the District of Columbia from 2021 through 2031. It complements a larger national report that projects education demand by occupation and industry for the same period. The national report finds that by 2031, 72 percent of all jobs nationally will require at least some postsecondary education and training beyond high school. These requirements will differ by state: in the District of Columbia, more than 80 percent of all jobs will require postsecondary education in 2031, while in two states, Louisiana and Arkansas, fewer than 60 percent of jobs in 2031 will require education beyond high school. In this report, the authors show the following for each state: (1) The education composition of jobs in the base year (2021) compared to the forecast year (2031); (2) How each state's job forecasts compare to the national average, and how the states rank compared to one another; and (3) A breakdown of where the jobs are by state and by education level and occupation, for 25 detailed occupational categories in 2031.

This is the executive summary of the report, "What Works: Ten Education, Training, and Work-Based Pathway Changes That Lead to Good Jobs. Findings by Race, Gender, and Class from the Georgetown University Pathways-to-Career Policy Simulation Model." To identify the pathway changes with the greatest potential, the Georgetown University Center on Education and the Workforce (CEW) developed the Pathways-to-Career policy simulation model. The model uses longitudinal data to identify promising junctures at which a strategic intervention could increase the likelihood of working in a good job--one define as providing minimum annual earnings of about $38,000 per year, with a median of $57,000, at age 30. The Pathways-to-Career model establishes an actionable, solution-oriented framework for improving the economic lives of young adults by simulating the potential impacts of different pathway changes at critical junctures along the route from adolescence to early adulthood. Using the model, the researchers identified 10 pathway changes involving education, training, and work experience that could most improve the likelihood of having a good job at age 30. [For the full report, see ED628027.]

An expected national ban on the consideration of race in college admissions will threaten the racial and ethnic diversity of students at selective colleges unless these colleges fundamentally alter their admissions practices. This report finds that selective colleges barred from considering race and ethnicity in their admissions decisions may be able to partially claw back some racial/ethnic diversity using class-conscious admissions practices, but they will be extremely unlikely to enroll student bodies that come close to mirroring the demographic diversity of the high school class. The authors examine the following six admissions models and the impact they would likely have on racial/ethnic and socioeconomic diversity if used consistently across selective colleges: (1) Academic merit, socioeconomic status, and race/ethnicity; (2) High school class rank, socioeconomic status, and race/ethnicity; (3) Academic merit only; (4) Academic merit and socioeconomic status; (5) High school class rank only; and (6) High school class rank and socioeconomic status. All six models assume the elimination of preferences for legacy applicants, student athletes, and other groups that receive admissions boosts for reasons unrelated to academic merit, race/ethnicity, or socioeconomic status (SES).

If the Supreme Court bans race-conscious affirmative action, as expected, selective higher education institutions almost certainly will become less diverse, reducing the rates of degree attainment among students from historically underrepresented racial/ethnic groups. "Race, Elite College Admissions, and the Courts: The Pursuit of Racial Equality in Education Retreats to K-12 Schools" explores the legal history of racial equity in education, evaluates alternatives to using race/ethnicity in college admissions, and considers changes to the K-12 education system that would improve educational opportunity. In the long term, the only way to ensure diversity at selective higher education institutions is to confront the segregation and inequity in K-12 education and society at large.

College typically pays off for low-income students, but not as much as it does for their peers. Low-income students, whose families earn $30,000 or less per year, comprise more than one-third of college students. "The Colleges Where Low-Income Students Get the Highest ROI" finds that low-income students have a lower return on investment (ROI) than all students, largely because they tend to earn less as adults. This holds true across public and private institutions and certificates, associate's degrees, and bachelor's degrees. Among institutions that primarily award bachelor's degrees, public institutions generally lead to the highest ROI for low-income students during a 40-year timeframe ($951,000), followed by private nonprofit institutions ($863,000) and for-profit colleges ($763,000). The ROI for low-income students follows a similar pattern at colleges that primarily grant associate's degrees and certificates, with the highest returns from public institutions, followed by private nonprofit and for-profit institutions. However, low-income students' returns from associate's degrees can exceed $1 million, and certificates can be just as lucrative, depending on which college a student attends.

Majoring in business typically pays off. While graduates' earnings and federal student loan debt vary by institution and degree level, the majority of business programs lead to median earnings that are roughly 10 times graduates' debt payments two years after program completion. "The Most Popular Degree Pays Off: Ranking the Economic Value of 5,500 Business Programs at More Than 1,700 Colleges" finds that the economic value of business programs is high compared to the financial returns from other programs, though not as high as returns associated with health, engineering, and computer and information sciences programs. Two years after graduation, associate's degree holders in business have median annual earnings of $30,000 after debt payments. The financial returns from a business degree rise to $43,200 after debt payments for bachelor's degree holders and $51,600 for master's degree holders.

Americans share a strong belief that the country offers access to opportunity. In 2017, 82 percent of Americans said they had achieved the American Dream or were on their way to achieving it. But do all Americans--regardless of race, ethnicity, gender, or socioeconomic status--have equal access to the American Dream? This report examines racial/ethnic and gender gaps in who has a good job as a young adult. It explores how the likelihood of having a good job is affected by the intersection of race/ethnicity and gender and related opportunity gaps in: (1) educational attainment; (2) field of study; (3) occupation; (4) full-time work; (5) access to high-quality work-based learning; (6) experiences with structural racism and sexism; and (7) intergenerational wealth. These elements work together to perpetuate inequality of opportunity for young Americans. It is part of a two-report exploration of the elongated pathway to a good job. [For the companion report, "The Uncertain Pathway from Youth to a Good Job: How Limits to Educational Affordability, Work-Based Learning, and Career Counseling Impede Progress toward Good Jobs," see ED624515.]

The economic and social landscape that young people encounter today is substantially more complex and challenging than the one faced by earlier generations. Technological change and globalization have transformed the labor market, increasing the value of postsecondary education and hollowing out industries that once employed many workers who had no more than a high school diploma. While access to postsecondary education has expanded, gaps in educational attainment and access to good jobs among demographic groups persist. Together, these factors limit opportunity for many young workers. Within each racial/ethnic group, women are less likely to have a good job than men. Many young people seeking to secure a good job find themselves on winding pathways rife with barriers. Among these barriers are three major hurdles: (1) the rising cost of postsecondary education, (2) limited access to high-quality work-based learning (WBL), and (3) an absence of comprehensive counseling and career navigation services. These three hurdles, exacerbated by discrimination, have heightened disparities in educational attainment and financial security by race, class, and gender. Finally, they have slowed young adults' ability to accumulate wealth, especially for those who acquire substantial debt to cover the rising costs of postsecondary education. [For the full reports, "The Uncertain Pathway from Youth to a Good Job: How Limits to Educational Affordability, Work-Based Learning, and Career Counseling Impede Progress toward Good Jobs," see ED624515 and "The Uncertain Pathway from Youth to a Good Job: How Racial and Gender Bias Impede Progress toward Good Jobs," see ED624516.]

The propensity to believe that good things are likely to happen fuels the enduring belief in the American Dream, including the expectation that each generation will enjoy a better quality of life than the previous one. This report is part of a series on young people's pathways to good jobs. In it, the researchers examine how the route from youth dependency to economic independence in young adulthood has changed over time. It explores how the likelihood of having a good job is affected by (1) educational attainment; (2) field of study; (3) occupation; (4) full-time work; (5) access to high-quality work-based learning; and (6) socioeconomic status. These elements work together to perpetuate inequality of opportunity for young Americans. In this report, the researchers focus on overall historical trends and socioeconomic gaps in opportunity. [For the companion report, "The Uncertain Pathway from Youth to a Good Job: How Racial and Gender Bias Impede Progress toward Good Jobs," see ED624516.]

In partnership with the Postsecondary Value Commission, we conducted a thought experiment on the costs of inequality in the US education system. Our simulation found that the US economy misses out on $956 billion dollars per year, along with numerous nonmonetary benefits, as a result of postsecondary attainment gaps by economic status and race/ethnicity. "The Cost of Economic and Racial Injustice in Postsecondary Education" finds that closing these gaps would require an initial public investment of at least $3.97 trillion, but the benefits would outweigh the costs over time. Equalizing educational attainment without increasing student debt for low-income adults could also boost GDP by a total of $764 billion annually. [During the writing of this report, Kathryn Peltier Campbell, Ban Cheah, Megan L. Fasules, Artem Gulish, Michael C. Quinn, Jenna R. Sablan, Nicole Smith, and Jeff Strohl received funding from the Institute for Higher Education Policy for work done on behalf of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.]

"The College Payoff: More Education Doesn't Always Mean More Earnings" explores how lifetime earnings vary by education level, field of study, occupation, industry, gender, race and ethnicity, and location. The lifetime earnings of a full-time full-year worker with a high school diploma are $1.6 million, while workers with an associate's degree earn $2 million. However, at least one quarter of high school graduates earn more than an associate's degree holder. Bachelor's degree holders earn a median of $2.8 million during their career, 75% more than if they had only a high school diploma. Master's degree holders earn a median of $3.2 million over their lifetimes, while doctoral degree holders earn $4 million and professional degree holders earn $4.7 million. However, one quarter of workers with a bachelor's degree earn more than half of workers with a master's or a doctoral degree.

"If Not Now, When? The Urgent Need for an All-One-System Approach to Youth Policy" makes the case that the United States' disjointed approach to youth policy has failed young people. In the current fragmented system, pre-K-12, postsecondary education, and the workforce operate in silos that allow many young people to fall through the cracks. In its place, the country needs an all-one-system approach that supports youth on their journey through education and training and into careers.

Affirmative action critics argue that race-conscious admissions policies are keeping Asian American enrollment numbers unfairly low because Asian American students are held to higher admissions standards than applicants of any other race or ethnicity. "Selective Bias: Asian Americans, Test Scores, and Holistic Admissions" evaluates the common arguments made by them and Students for Fair Admissions, which is suing Harvard University and has lawsuits pending against the University of North Carolina and the University of Texas at Austin over their admissions practices. The report finds no strong evidence of discrimination against Asian American applicants in admissions to highly selective colleges.

This is the executive summary for the report, "The Dollars and Sense of Free College." Policymakers have debated the specifics of free-college programs--including whether free-college eligibility should extend to students at four-year public colleges as well as community colleges, and whether it should be universal or targeted to low-income and middle-income students. Free-college proposals generally reflect support for some form of publicly funded program that makes college attendance affordable for a majority of students. Joe Biden endorsed a free-college plan that was originally part of the party's platform in the previous election. This plan would make public community colleges tuition-free for all students. It also would make four-year public colleges and universities tuition-free for students with family incomes under $125,000, which would mean that approximately 80 percent of in-state undergraduate students at public four-year colleges and universities would not have to pay tuition. The federal government and state governments would share the costs of this program, with the federal government contributing $2 for every $1 contributed by a state. While the Biden plan has immediate relevance to the 2020 election, there are other ways to design free-college plans. This report discusses a variety of free-college models and assesses their relative costs and benefits. [For the full report, see ED608985.]

Education beyond high school is now the preferred currency for workers seeking economic opportunity in the US labor market. Since the 1980s, the bachelor's degree has been the gold standard for stable employment and lifetime earnings and the most promising route to the middle class. The new rules of the college and career game confirm that education level matters, and that more education is generally better when it comes to earnings potential. What is less well known is that program of study and major matter even more to potential earnings than education level. As a result, less education can often be worth more. In fact, some certificate holders can earn more than those with an associate's or bachelor's degree, and some associate's degree holders can earn more than those with a bachelor's degree. In other words, certificates and associate's degrees--credentials on the middle-skills pathway--can be viable routes to economic opportunity. Workers who have taken this pathway to jobs are doing so with certificates, associate's degrees, noncredit education, certifications, licenses, and a host of emerging microcredentials such as badges or coding and technology boot camps. But, while pockets of opportunity exist, not enough is known about the risks and rewards of the particular education and training programs available. Today the combined number of certificates and associate's degrees awarded by colleges is roughly equivalent to the number of bachelor's degrees, around 2 million per year, with certificates and associate's degrees each accounting for about 1 million. The students earning the vast majority of these credentials attend public two-year colleges. While certifications, licenses, microcredentials, and noncredit education are also important options on the middle-skills pathway, much less is known about the workforce outcomes of these options because no data source consistently captures this information. Due to limitations in the data, this report focuses on certificates and associate's degrees.

This report examines the relationship between authoritarianism and postsecondary education, including liberal arts education. This analysis rests on the idea that authoritarianism is part of human nature, but its influence waxes and wanes according to circumstances. Having entered a new era defined by the COVID-19 pandemic, the evidence suggests that there is good reason to worry about the future of democracy. Presenting enormous threats to physical and economic well-being worldwide, this contemporary emergency bears the hallmarks of a possible tipping point into authoritarianism. Key findings include: (1) College graduates are less inclined to express authoritarian preferences and attitudes than their peers with less education; (2) Higher education provides people with a greater sense of security. As a result, it can lead to the development of interpersonal trust, which is associated with a weaker inclination toward expressing authoritarian preferences and attitudes; (3) People with postsecondary education are more likely to be politically active, which in the United States is associated with a lower inclination toward expressing authoritarian preferences and attitudes; (4) Liberal arts majors in particular are less inclined to express authoritarian preferences and attitudes than majors in business-related fields and STEM disciplines (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics); (5) People with postsecondary education are more economically secure than those without it, and people who are economically secure are less inclined to express authoritarian preferences and attitudes; and (6) Postsecondary education tends to expose people to secular values and cultures, leading them to be less inclined to express authoritarian preferences and attitudes. [Foreword by John J. DeGioia.]

This is the executive summary for the report, "The Unequal Race for Good Jobs: How Whites Made Outsized Gains in Education and Good Jobs Compared to Blacks and Latinos." Between 1991 and 2016, White workers built on their past educational and economic privileges to attain bachelor's and graduate degrees in historically high numbers and consequently gained access to good jobs that demanded higher levels of education. As a group, White workers with bachelor's degrees and graduate degrees gained 10.6 million good jobs even as overall employment growth for White workers was modest: 1.9 million jobs. With the constantly growing demand for workers with postsecondary education and the disproportionate advantage that Whites have accrued in educational attainment. Black and Latino workers also sought and attained higher levels of education as a pathway to greater opportunity, but their gains have been far short of those of Whites. Black workers gained 1.9 million good jobs for workers with at least a bachelor's degree, while their employment increased by 4 million jobs overall; Latino workers gained 2.2 million good jobs for workers with at least a bachelor's degree even as their employment increased substantially, by 13.1 million jobs overall. [For the full report, see ED600048.]

The manufacturing workforce has been shaped by decades of industry transformation. Modern manufacturing requires workers with a diverse set of skills to perform functions such as research and development (R&D), product and production design, marketing and sales, and customer support. While workers with a high school diploma or less dominated the manufacturing workforce of the past, today, even production jobs have begun to shift to workers with postsecondary education. The result is that while manufacturing still has good jobs that pay well, they are now going to a downsized, better-educated workforce. This report describes five key trends that define the changing character of the manufacturing workforce: (1) Manufacturing, once the powerhouse of the industrial economy, now plays a smaller, less central role in an economy dominated by services; (2) Manufacturing, despite its decline, is still a source of good jobs for less educated workers; (3) While there are still good jobs in manufacturing, the structure of economic opportunity has shifted in favor of those with postsecondary education and industry-recognized credentials; (4) Manufacturing workers, like workers in other industries, now pursue education and training options beyond traditional degrees and diplomas; and (5) Current trends suggest that there will be no return to the glory days when good manufacturing jobs were plentiful for high school-educated workers. While it continues to be a top source of good jobs in many states, manufacturing is not expected to be a major job generator in the future. The industry's shrinking presence across the country means that it employs fewer workers, provides fewer good jobs, and creates smaller ripples in the surrounding economy. Production itself is being reshaped through new techniques, such as 3-D printing, robotics, and computer-based modeling and simulation. These trends, often associated with advanced manufacturing, have altered the mix of production and non-production functions needed by employers, reinforcing the demand for educated and skilled workers. This report details four suggested practical steps to bolster the economic vibrancy of manufacturing firms and workers: (1) Support research and technology development in manufacturing; (2) Build the capacity of small and medium-sized manufacturers; (3) Build the manufacturing workforce of the future; and (4) Improve worker transitions. Acting on these ideas will require a new understanding from policymakers and the public.

Judging from how much high school students and their parents worry about standardized test scores, one might presume that an SAT or ACT score is the primary factor in college admissions. But a look at the numbers reveals a different reality. A review of SAT and ACT standardized test scores among students in a recent class at the nation's 200 most selective colleges finds that if all students were admitted solely on the basis of their test scores and no new seats were added, 53 percent of incoming students at the nation's most selective colleges would no longer be attending. These students had median test scores that were 110 points below the median of all students at selective colleges (1140, compared to 1250). More than half of the students who would be ousted are affluent students-from families in the top quartile of socioeconomic status (SES). The problem however is that if those students were ousted and replaced by applicants with higher test scores, the student bodies of America's most selective colleges would become even more aristocratic. Now, 60 percent of incoming freshmen at selective colleges are from the top quartile of family SES, but that would increase to 63 percent if students were admitted based on standardized test scores alone. In addition to having more affluent students, selective colleges would become notably less racially diverse. The White enrollment would grow by about 14 percent. Meanwhile, the combined Black and Latino enrollment at selective colleges would be reduced by 43 percent, and Asian enrollment would decline as well-by about 9 percent. Researchers performed an thought experiment in which data that followed students entering high school in 2009, which includes information about those students' family socioeconomic status, race and ethnicity, standardized test scores, and college enrollment were examined. Students from the high school class of 2013 who enrolled at the most selective colleges and universities in the country were identified. Then all the prospective college students from that year who reported SAT or ACT scores were reviewed. Researchers sorted by score and took the highest-scoring students until every existing seat was filled in the most selective colleges. After filling all 300,000 existing seats, it was determined that no one with an SAT or SAT-equivalent score below 1250 would have been admitted to the 200 most selective colleges and universities if admissions were based on test scores alone. Findings from this experiment indicated that an SAT-only admissions process isn't the answer. If admission to the most selective colleges were based on SAT scores alone, those institutions would serve even more affluent White students than they already do, further perpetuating intergenerational race and class privilege. Results obtained from this experiment show that the current admissions system disproportionately benefits affluent Whites, and supports the argument that just as an SAT-only admissions standard isn't the answer, neither is an admissions process without any standardization at all. Researchers concluded that what is needed is an admissions system that is not only holistic (while still including some form of standardization), but also transparent. Without transparency, there is no way to ensure that the college admissions system is fair.

This is the executive summary for the report, "Born to Win, Schooled to Lose: Why Equally Talented Students Don't Get Equal Chances to Be All They Can Be." Throughout their youth, relatively advantaged children enjoy protective and enriched environments that help ensure their success. Meanwhile, equally talented children from poor backgrounds are held back by material disadvantages. Stunningly, a child from the bottom quartile of socioeconomic status who has high test scores in kindergarten has only a 3 in 10 chance of having a college education and a good entry-level job as a young adult, compared to a 7 in 10 chance for a child in the top quartile of socioeconomic status who has low test scores. Thus, the likelihood of success is too often determined not by a child's innate talent, but by his or her life circumstances--including factors that determine access to opportunity based on class, race, and ethnicity. In short, the system conspires against young people from poor families, especially those who are Black or Latino. Among these youth, even those who "make it" and earn a college degree are less likely than their more affluent peers to get a good entry-level job as a young adult. [For the full report, see ED599947.]

This is the executive summary for the report, "Our Separate & Unequal Public Colleges: How Public Colleges Reinforce White Racial Privilege and Marginalize Black and Latino Students." America's selective public colleges should be among the great equalizers in our society. Funded primarily by taxpayers and carrying a relatively low price tag, these colleges are meant to be engines of opportunity for all. In reality, however, the doors of these colleges are open wider to White students than to their Black and Latino peers. Whites have almost two-thirds (64%) of the seats in selective public colleges even though Whites make up barely half (54%) of the nation's college-age population. Blacks and Latinos are making unprecedented gains in college-going, but the vast majority of Black and Latino students enroll in overcrowded and underfunded open-access colleges, primarily community colleges. Consequently, fewer Black and Latino students receive a bachelor's degree. [For the full report, see ED594576.]

The gender wage gap, the disparity in pay between men and women, has narrowed to 81 cents in 2016 from 57 cents on the dollar in 1975. Nevertheless, the gap persists. Over the course of a career, the gender wage gap results in women earning $1 million less than men do. To close this gap, women have relied primarily on the advantages conferred by education. Today, women are enrolling in college in greater numbers than men, breaking through barriers to pursue degrees in male-dominated majors that offer higher earnings, as well as graduating in greater numbers at all levels of education. In the 1970s, the number of associate's degrees awarded to women began outnumbering those awarded to men. In the 1980s, the number of bachelor's degrees and master's degrees awarded to women overtook the number awarded to men. By the 2000s, more women completed doctoral degrees than men. The report explores the complex set of reasons that have kept the gender wage gap in place. Even when comparing men and women who have equal educational attainment and work in the same occupation, women still earn only 92 cents for every dollar earned by men. [For the executive summary, see ED594548.]

It has gotten increasingly harder for students to work their way through college, especially for low-income students who face steep challenges when combining work and learning. Students from higher-income families tend to benefit as they work fewer hours in jobs directly related to their fields of study. Low-income working college students often work longer hours, and as a result, are less likely than their higher-income peers to get good grades and attain bachelor's degrees or any credential at all. Key findings reveal that: (1) Of the 14 million working learners, about 6 million (43%) are low-income students; (2) Low-income working learners are disproportionately Black (18%) and Latino (25%), women (58%), and first-generation college-goers (47%), while higher-income working learners tend to be White (73%); (3) Low-income working learners are more likely to enroll in certificate programs and attend either two-year public or for-profit colleges than higher-income working learners, whereas higher-income working students are more likely to enroll in bachelor's degree programs and attend selective four-year colleges and universities; and (4) Low-income working learners are less likely to earn a credential overall, even if they come from the upper end of the academic performance distribution. "Balancing Work and Learning: Implications for Low-Income Students" finds that while working and studying generally helps students from higher-income families, low-income students face steeper challenges when combining work and college. Family income is still a major determinant of college enrollment, selectivity, completion, and long-term economic success. [For the executive summary of this report, see ED590711.]

In the post-World War II period, workers with a high school diploma or less were able to attain jobs with middle-class wages in American industry. Good jobs were available in manufacturing and other blue-collar industries that employed large numbers of high school-educated workers. But as automation, globalization, and related phenomena have led to major structural changes in the American economy, economic opportunity has shifted toward more educated workers with higher skill levels. Whereas two out of three entry-level jobs in the industrial economy demanded a high school diploma or less, now two out of three jobs demand at least some education or training beyond high school. In this report, the authors write about the three pathways to good jobs, each defined by education and skills: the high school pathway, the middle-skills pathway, and the bachelor's degree (BA) pathway.

Colorado has the second most-educated adult populace, but largely because it imports college-educated labor from other states. Almost 56 percent of Coloradans have a high-quality certificate, associate's degree, bachelor's degree, or higher. Yet at the same time Colorado has the fifth lowest high school graduation rate in the nation. The state's 77 percent high school graduation rate puts it close to the bottom--the national average is 83 percent. Because the state is committed both to improving the quality of its workforce and to improving opportunity for Coloradans born in the state, it has set an educational attainment goal that by 2025, 66 percent of state residents will have a postsecondary credential. The majority of states have set overall postsecondary attainment goals, but Colorado has gone a step further by setting 66 percent goals for each significant racial and ethnic grouping. State leaders expect each racial and ethnic group in the state individually to reach this goal, but right now only Whites are on track to do so: Latinos and Native Americans are the farthest behind in reaching the goal (29% of each have a postsecondary credential), Whites are the closest (64%), and Blacks are in between (39%). Among the racial and ethnic subgroups, Latino high school students are the most underserved. Colorado's postsecondary attainment gap between Whites and Latinos ages 25 to 34 is the highest among the nine states that have at least one million Latinos. This report is a pipeline analysis of Colorado high school students attending public colleges in the state, since that is within the purview of what Colorado leaders can address in order to meet the state's educational attainment goal. Using state administrative data, it examines the postsecondary enrollment, completion, and earnings of White and Latino Colorado public high school graduates who earned a high school diploma between 2009 and 2011.

In a republic, the mission of higher education is to empower individuals to live fully in their time free from economic or public dependency. The mission endures, but times change. Because postsecondary education and training have become the most well-traveled pathways to middle class earnings, both students and the educators who serve them need to learn new rules of the college and career game. Students need to shop around for college because higher education is a student's first major investment in the transition from dependent adolescent to independent adult. Students deserve to know what they are paying for. The five rules presented in this report can help students navigate the college game in these uncertain times: (1) Education level still matters, and generally more education is better; (2) Education level matters, but program of study and majors matter even more; (3) While field of study is important, it does not control one's financial destiny--there is great variation in earnings within majors; (4) Less education can be worth more; and (5) Humanities and liberal arts majors never catch up with the highest earning majors.

This report shows how state leaders are using technological advances to improve the use of data in five critical areas: (1) Helping economic and workforce developers, businesses, and colleges to reduce the high costs resulting from uninformed education and workforce decisions; (2) Assisting college leaders in making program-related decisions that take into account labor market needs; (3) Ensuring that postsecondary education and training programs strike a balance between learners' foundational knowledge and what they will need to know and be able to do in the workplace; (4) Enhancing high school counseling and college advising to make the process of exploring, entering, and finishing college easier for learners; and (5) Helping workers understand how to take advantage of postsecondary education and training options as they change jobs and navigate their careers. These five practices call for the integration of postsecondary education and workforce data to support individual, organizational, and policy decisions. Together, they represent closer alignment between the postsecondary education and workforce sectors. Alignment does not mean that the postsecondary sector becomes the pawn of the workforce sector, or vice versa; rather, the two sectors work in concert to contribute to a state's overall success. The tools featured in this report represent how leaders within and across eight geographically diverse states are using labor market information to build a more complete picture of what happens to learners and workers before, during, and after they complete their postsecondary studies. Each section of the report includes an overview and describes the data being integrated, as well as the intended audience for each of the Five Ways. Each section concludes with one or more state examples.

This executive summary highlights findings presented in the full report, "Latino Education and Economic Progress: Running Faster but Still Behind." The report reveals that Latinos have a long way to go in achieving educational and economic equality. Latinos' rates of high school graduation are improving, but they are still last compared to Blacks and Whites. As a result of their low high school graduation rate, Latinos are also last in postsecondary enrollment. However, Latinos' postsecondary enrollment is growing faster than White enrollment. Latinos initially enrolling in postsecondary certificate programs exceed both Blacks and Whites in their completion of certificates but have the lowest overall educational attainment. Due to their low educational attainment, Latinos have the lowest earnings. However, Latinos with at least some postsecondary education earn more than Blacks, on average. [For the full report, see ED590639.]

A college education is widely recognized as a gateway to economic opportunity and intergenerational mobility in the United States. Children from households with highly educated parents are three times more likely to get a Bachelor's degree than children from households in which the parents did not attend college. Today, at least some postsecondary education is a baseline requirement for anyone who aspires to enter the middle class. Deeper research has demonstrated that it is not just the college degree that matters; labor market outcomes also are tightly tied to what one studies and what job one gets. This report on The University of Texas System (UT System) Bachelor's degree recipients demonstrates that college, as one of the first big investment decisions a young person makes, has lifelong economic consequences. As is the case in the Center on Education and the Workforce's national research, the major that UT System graduates pursued in college is the biggest predictor of wage outcomes. Moreover, UT System graduates earn more, on average, than Bachelor's recipients nationally, as well as those currently working in Texas. Six key findings from the report are: (1) A UT System education is a worthwhile investment; (2) Major matters most; (3) Choice of major outweighs institutional selectivity; (4) All UT System graduates earned a wage premium, including students who received Pell Grants; (5) Access to particular occupations after college matters when examining earnings disparities by race or ethnicity; and (6) Women initially outearn men in majors dominated by women, but fall behind men over time. [This report was prepared in partnership with The University of Texas System.]

Access to college for African Americans has increased, but African Americans are highly concentrated in lower-paying majors. The college major, which has critical economic consequences throughout life, reflects personal choices but also reflects the fact that African-American students are concentrated in open-access four-year institutions that limited choices of majors offered. African Americans represent 12 percent of the US population, but are underrepresented in the number of degree holders in college majors associated with the fastest-growing, highest-paying occupations - STEM, health, and business. African Americans account for only 8 percent of general engineering majors, 7 percent of mathematics majors, and only 5 percent of computer engineering majors. They are similarly under-represented in business: only 7 percent of finance and marketing majors are African-American. In health majors, they account for 10 percent but are clustered in the lowest-earning detailed major: 21 percent are in health and medical administrative services, compared to only 6 percent in the higher-earning detailed major of pharmacy, pharmaceutical sciences, and administration. African Americans are also highly represented in majors associated with serving the community, which tend to be low-earning - human services and community organization (20%) and social work (19%). Since 2009, there has not been significant change in the proportion of African Americans across majors. One of the most significant changes occurred within the architecture and engineering major group. The percentage of African Americans with industrial and manufacturing engineering or miscellaneous engineering technologies majors decreased by 4 percentage points and 3 percentage points, respectively. Also, the proportion of African Americans in majors where they were already highly concentrated saw a slight increase: social work and health and medical administrative services both increased by 3 percentage points. This report analyzed 137 detailed majors among African Americans and found that: (1) African Americans only account for 8 percent of general engineering majors, 7 percent of mathematics majors, and 5 percent of computer majors; (2) Law and public policy is the top major group for African Americans with a Bachelor's degree; (3) The highest concentrated detailed major among African Americans is in health and medical administration; and (4) The second lowest-paying major among African American is in human services and community organization with median earnings at $39,000.

Pennsylvania's State System of Higher Education is the largest provider of higher education in the Commonwealth, with nearly 107,000 degree-seeking students and thousands more who are enrolled in certificate and other career-development programs. With almost 90 percent of students coming from Pennsylvania and the vast majority of graduates remaining in the state immediately after graduation, the future of the 14 State System universities and that of the Commonwealth are intimately tied. According to projections by the Georgetown University Center on Education and the Workforce, by 2020, more than one-third of Pennsylvania jobs and job openings will require a Bachelor's degree or higher. Individuals with a college education fare better than their peers in both economic and non-economic terms. Students, parents, businesses, taxpayers, legislators, and other policymakers understand this and recognize the importance of higher education to the state. In response to this changing environment and the State System's strategic plan, "Rising to the Challenge 2020," the State System has renewed its emphasis on aligning its academic programs with the workforce and personal growth needs of students. The State System is critically looking at ways to supplement and complement the existing work that is going on in our 14 universities to prepare our students for a lifetime of productive employment. An important resource in this effort is the State System's Program Alignment Toolkit, an infrastructure of resources that will help the 14 universities individually and collectively connect better with the state's economy. The toolkit includes a supply/demand gap analysis, which will add to the State System's capacity to use labor market intelligence, provide better data to students, and offer needs-based research such as that conducted by colleagues and partners at Georgetown University. This report demonstrates the State System's contribution to higher education in the Commonwealth and highlights the economic outcomes of college-educated workers in Pennsylvania. This information has informed and guided the development of the State System's supply/demand gap analysis project. It is an example of improved data developed specifically to help students, faculty, employers, state legislators, and policymakers better understand the Keystone State's higher education landscape and contextualize the State System's contribution within this environment. Appended are: (1) Occupational Earnings and Employment for Top State System Major Groups; and (2) Pennsylvania Employment and Earnings for Detailed Major Subgroups.

Economic projections show that skills-based technological change across industries and occupations will support rising demand for postsecondary education and training. By 2025, the Georgetown University Center on Education and the Workforce projects that 68 percent of the jobs in Iowa will require some level of postsecondary education. A key driver is the growing need for workers in healthcare, education, management, STEM, and other high-skill occupations. Many of the largest employers in the state--clustered in healthcare, finance and insurance, manufacturing, and education--need workers with at least some college education. Businesses that relocate to or expand in Iowa will also require an educated workforce. Setting a goal of having 68 percent of the workforce achieve a postsecondary degree, certification, or other industry-recognized credential with labor market value by 2025 would not just be reasonable, given demand-side projections, but also highly supportive of future economic growth in the state. Appended are: (1) National projections and why Georgetown Center on Education and the Workplace projections differ from Bureau of Labor Statistics projections; (2) Educational distribution of 2025 employment by occupation in Iowa (number); (3) Educational distribution of 2025 employment by occupation in Iowa (percent); (4) Job openings by occupation group and subgroup in Iowa, 2010-2025; (5) Distribution of occupations in top 20 industries by employment in Iowa; and (6) Career Pathways in Iowa.

For decades, the popular conception of a college student in this country has been the full-time residential financially dependent student who enrolls in a four-year college immediately after graduating from high school. That student has not been the norm at U.S. postsecondary institutions for more than 30 years. Such students exist but they are greatly outnumbered by working learners: students who balance learning in college with earning a paycheck. This report examines the students who are combining work with ongoing learning. This report finds that: (1) Going to college and working while doing so is better than going straight to work after high school; (2) Working while attending college hurts disadvantaged students the most; (3) Working and learning simultaneously has benefits, especially when students work in jobs related to what they study; (4) Most students are working; (5) One-third of working learners are 30 or older; (6) More people are working full-time while in college; (7) You can't work your way through college anymore; and (8) Students are working and taking out more loans to pay for college. Policy implications include: (1) Working learners need stronger ties between the world of work and the world of education; (2) To improve the connections between work and learning, federal and state policymakers should fund postsecondary education, in part, based on performance measured by labor market outcomes; (3) Policymakers should also invest in competency-based education programs that teach skills with labor market value. Data sources are appended.

This report explores the crucial transformation of the United States from an industrial to a post-industrial economy, with a particular focus on the shifting skill levels and incomes of American workers. It shows the increasing value of postsecondary education in today's economy and examines how workers have fared as the nation's focus has shifted from manufacturing to the delivery of services like healthcare, education, and finance and business services. Included in the report is the appendix: Sources and Methods.

This report analyzes the growing need for qualified nurses. The study projects that the economy will create 1.6 million job openings for nurses through 2020. Yet, there will not be enough nurses to fill those openings. this report projects that the nursing workforce will be facing a shortfall of roughly 200,000 nursing professionals by 2020. One of the reasons for the growing demand is due to changing demographics; older nurses are retiring in large numbers, creating thousands of job openings. Another factor is the Affordable Care Act, which expands health insurance coverage to millions of job openings. In addition, nursing schools lack the faculty, facilities, and training sites to match the growing demand. A glossary and bibliography are provided.

This third installment of "Hard Times" updates the previous analyses of college majors, unemployment, and earnings over the Great Recession. While there is wide variation by college majors, hard times have become better times for most college graduates, but the recovery is far from complete. Hard times are becoming better times for most college graduates, though how much better varies widely among college majors--and for Communications and Journalism majors, whose unemployment rates are still rising, better times have yet to arrive. Overall, however, unemployment rates among college graduates are declining. The earnings advantage they enjoy over high school diploma workers is holding up, though this is due in part to declining earnings among the latter group. The national trend on earnings has been flat or slightly declining, and earnings among college graduates are no exception. A full recovery in the employment of college graduates, especially at the Bachelor's degree level, may be as far off as 2017 and a full recovery in earnings may take longer. Appended are: (1) Unemployment rates for grouped undergraduate majors, 2009-2012, based on data from the American Community Survey; (2) Median earnings for grouped undergraduate majors, 2009-2012; (3) Unemployment rates by detailed majors, 2009-2012; and (4) Median earnings by detailed major, 2009-2012.

"College Is Just the Beginning: The Employer Role in $1.1 Trillion Postsecondary Education and Training System" focuses on employer investment in formal training for workers in the context of the broader postsecondary education and training system and the primary institutions involved in skill development in the United States. Along with colleges and universities, employers are the main providers of formal training in the United States. In this brief report, we analyze how much employers spend on formal training, what they spend formal training dollars on, and how spending on formal training varies by workers' educational attainment, age, and industry sector. Formal learning or training features a scheduled, regimented series of learning or training sessions, typically administered by an assigned trainer. Informal learning or training, by contrast, occurs through experience on the job. Appended is: "Data Sources and Methodology."

"State Online College Job Market: Ranking the States" analyzes the online college labor market on a state-by-state basis. We examine the geographic distribution of online job ads for college graduates within industries and occupational clusters, and compare the relative strength of the online college labor market across states. We estimate that between 60 and 70 percent of job openings are now advertised online, and that the online job market continues to grow each year. Nearly 4 million unique job advertisements are posted online each quarter. The appendix contains the following: (1) Online job ads as real-time proxy for labor demand; (2) Adjustments to the data; and (3) Location quotient.

More than 80 percent of job openings for workers with a bachelor's degree or better are posted online, compared to less than 50 percent of job openings for workers with less education, according to a new report from the Georgetown University Center on Education and the Workforce. The report's findings suggest that careers in STEM fields--Science, Technology, Engineering and Math--provide the greatest opportunities, with salaries ranging between $30 to $45 an hour. Demand for college talent in the job market was examined using: (1) online job advertisements for college degree-holders by education, occupations, and industries; and (2) online job boards and employer websites to fill job openings. This report asks: What are the most in-demand jobs in various occupational fields? and What strengths and weaknesses of the online labor market exist today for college graduates? The following are appended: (1) Online job postings as real-time proxy for labor demand; (2) Adjustments to the data; and (3) Professional and business services history and structure.