Companies are facing a persistent and growing skills gap, which has been exacerbated by the tight labor market. Employers use industry certifications, college degrees, boot camps, and badges to measure job skills, but until recently it was impossible to compare certifications or degree attainment. This paper describes credential transparency and…

This report aimed to identify the key characteristics of Utah postsecondary graduates pursuing a graduate degree. Besides demographic data, the percentage of students who earned a graduate degree outside of Utah and those who attended private institutions are included. Additionally, this report explored how many students can fill Utah's…

My dissertation consists of three chapters in the field of labor and education economics. The first chapter studies the impact of early morning classes on students' educational trajectories. The second chapter explores how college course shutouts affects students' educational outcomes. The third chapter investigates the impact of kindness on wage…

Survey methodology is the dominant approach among universities in the United States for reporting employment outcomes for recent graduates. However, past studies have shown that survey methodology may yield upwardly biased results, which can result in overreporting of employment rates and salary outcomes. This case study describes the development…

Utilizing the 2013 "National Survey of College Graduates" (Scientists and Engineers Statistical Data System, National Science Foundation, 2015), this study examined three measures of labor market outcomes: annual earning potentials; primary work activity; and education-job match for science, technology, engineering, and mathematics…

Level of postsecondary schooling and field of study remain significant markers of social stratification. However, the extent to which these various types of postsecondary schooling influence the labor market outcomes of recent male and female graduates is unknown. Drawing on data from Statistics Canada's 2013 National Graduates Survey, we examine…

This chapter provides institutional researchers a foundation to understand workforce data and how they can be accessed and used within an institutional research operating culture. Specific wage methodologies, earnings reporting, and future directions for using wage data are provided.

College-educated immigrants in the United States are more likely to have advanced degrees and to major in science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) fields than their U.S.-born peers with college degrees. But their educational levels have not always translated into occupational gains: They are more likely than U.S.-born workers to be…

California has long been a national and global leader in developing and maintaining quality higher education options, as well as in providing financial aid and consumer protections for Californians who access that education. However, although California's colleges and the state government do collect, receive, and report a great deal of data, these…

The need for educational programs to show their return on investment is exemplified in the intense debate surrounding gainful employment programs--defined as programs that lead to gainful employment in a recognized occupation and theoretically differ from programs that offer education in the liberal arts or prepare students for further education.…

Given the importance of a college education to entering and staying in the middle class and the high cost of obtaining a bachelor's degree, "Who Wins? and Who Pays?" are questions being asked today at kitchen tables and in the halls of government throughout the nation. Using publicly available data, the authors look at who wins and who pays…

Discussions of early childhood care and education usually focus on its social and educational value, and how it helps children and families. More recently, the focus in many states, including Wisconsin, has been on potential investments in child care quality improvements as strategies for improving long-term educational outcomes for disadvantaged…

This document contains 29 statistical tables grouped into five sections: "General Statistics,""Occupations and Earnings,""Earnings of Selected Professional Occupations,""Women and Higher Education," and "Family Income and Composition." Among the tables are those that show the following: (1) 1991 annual average U.S. civilian work force by…

This study provides estimates of the private returns to schooling in Palestine utilizing eight quarterly labor force surveys for 1999 and 2001. This period was chosen to investigate the differential impact of the Israeli closure policy on Palestinian male and female workers. Although gross enrollment ratios for males and females reveal little to…

Using data from Thailand's National Labor Force Survey, this paper analyzes the long-run earnings differentials for vocational and academic schooling at the secondary and post-secondary levels. The results show that vocational schooling offers consistently higher returns for men and women at the secondary and post-secondary levels. However, the…