This report, the first in the Economic Vitality and Education in the South (EVES) series, provides state-by-state information on more than 20 critical data points associated with the education-to-workforce pipeline. The report looks specifically at the 17 states in the Southern Education Foundation (SEF) region: Alabama, Arkansas, Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maryland, Mississippi, Missouri, North Carolina, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, Virginia, and West Virginia. It explores persistent and historic outcome gaps for Black, Hispanic, and low-income Americans and discusses how inequities in the education system and the labor force--due to these persistent gaps--are often more pronounced in the South.