Conventional wisdom regards a college degree as necessary for a well-paying job and a good life. By focusing on average earnings, this conventional wisdom obscures the enormous variability in outcomes at each education level; in fact, the top half of high school graduates earn in the same range as the bottom half of college graduates. However the…

This report compares employment and earnings outcomes of 2013 graduates in AISD with and without industry certifications and whether graduates with certifications worked in a related field. The supplemental technical report (published separately) describes the methodology. [For the supplemental technical report, see ED627091.]

This paper aims to develop a better understanding about the labour market dynamics behind the unparalleled demand in higher education and dragging growth rates in vocational high school (VHS) education in Turkey. While estimating labour market outcomes of fields of study has been the subject of many studies in the West, such studies are lacking in…

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…

Post-recession Federal policy initiatives, such as secondary/postsecondary career pathways and gainful employment higher education accountability standards, prioritize the alignment of education practices with market-driven outcomes. Using longitudinal student record data merged from college and state K-12 data systems with the Unemployment…

This study examines if the college wage premium favoring college graduates still exists. The NLSY-79 data is employed. The sample includes individuals who received their high school degree and college degree in 1980 and 1981. These individuals were followed until the year 2004. A cross sectional regression model was estimated for the years 1982,…

Young female adults with disabilities are at risk for difficult lives. The transition from high school to post-secondary education is fraught with difficulties for disabled persons and research indicates they do not fare as well as their non-disabled peers (Wagner, 1992; Wagner, Newman, Cameto & Levine, 2005). In addition, gender disparities…

This paper reports findings from a national random sample survey of more than 600 young Americans, asking them for their views on jobs, college, and their own economic prospects. The survey was designed to shed light on questions such as these: (1) How do young Americans think about college and jobs as they become working-age adults and begin…

In an effort to document the secondary school experiences and postsecondary outcomes of students with disabilities over the last two decades, the U.S. Department of Education (ED) sponsored two longitudinal research studies 15 years apart. The first study, the National Longitudinal Transition Study (NLTS) generated nationally representative…

The 2017 edition of the "Digest of Education Statistics" is the 53rd in a series of publications initiated in 1962. The "Digest" has been issued annually except for combined editions for the years 1977-78, 1983-84, and 1985-86. Its primary purpose is to provide a compilation of statistical information covering the broad field…

Using data from the National Education Longitudinal Study of 1988, this article investigates whether students who made relatively large test score gains during high school had larger earnings 7 years after high school compared to students whose scores improved little. In models that control for pre-high school test scores, family background, and…