A Dozen Economic Facts About K-12 Education - Education is a powerful force for promoting opportunity and growth. On many dimensions—lifetime earnings, incarceration rates, and life expectancy, to name a few—Americans who do not graduate from high school or college are increasingly falling behind those with a college degree. This paper explores both the condition of education in the United States and the economic evidence on several promising K-12 interventions that could improve the lives of Americans. (The Hamilton Project, September 2012)...

National Foundation Skills Strategy For Adults - In November 2011, Australia's COAG Standing Council on Tertiary Education, Skills and Employment (SCOTESE) agreed to a National Foundation Skills Strategy for Adults. The Strategy brings a national focus to improving education and employment outcomes for working age Australians with low levels of foundation skills (language, literacy, numeracy and employability skills). The Strategy is centered on the needs of the adult learner and includes four key priority areas for action, with agreed actions for each at the national, jurisdictional and systemic level. (SCOTESE, September 2012)...

One in Seven: Ranking Youth Disconnection in the 25 Largest Metro Areas - This brief ranks the country’s 25 largest metropolitan areas as well as the nation’s largest racial and ethnic groups in terms of youth disconnection (neither working nor in school). The report concludes with a set of recommendations for preventing youth disconnection, including moving beyond the “college-for-all” mantra to provide meaningful support and guidance both to young people aiming for a four-year bachelor’s degree and to those whose interests and career aspirations would be better served by relevant, high-quality career and technical education certificates and associate’s degrees. (Measure of America, September 2012)...

Trends Among Young Adults Over Three Decades, 1974-2006 - This report describes patterns of continuity and change over time in four areas of the transition to adulthood among young adults as measured 2 years after their senior year of high school. The four areas are postsecondary enrollment, labor force roles, family formation, and civic engagement. The analysis population is spring-term high school seniors in 1972, 1980, 1992, and 2004. The data come from four separate NCES sponsored studies: the National Longitudinal Study of the High School Class of 1972 (NLS:72), High School and Beyond (HS&B), the National Education Longitudinal Study of 1988 (NELS:88), and the Education Longitudinal Study of 2002 (ELS:2002). (NCES, July 2012)...

College and Careers Tables Library - This site provides data on a range of issues related to college and career readiness, including but not limited to, student financial aid and employment, degrees and certificates awarded, and graduation and completion rates. (National Center for Education Statistics, March 2012)...

The Long-Term Impacts of Teachers: Teacher Value-Added and Students' Outcomes in Adulthood - In exploring if teachers’ impacts on students’ test scores (“value-added”) are a good measure of their quality, the authors question whether value-added (VA) provides unbiased estimates of teachers’ impacts on student achievement and whether high-VA teachers improve students’ long-term outcomes. They address these two issues by analyzing school district data from grades 3-8 for 2.5 million children. (Chetty, Friedman, and Rockoff, 2011)...

The College Payoff: Education, Occupations, Lifetime Earnings - A college degree pays off--but by just how much? In this report, the authors examine not just what a college degree is worth but also what else besides a degree might influence an individual's potential earnings. The report examines lifetime earnings for all education levels and earnings by occupation, age, race/ethnicity and gender. Clearly, a college degree is key to economic opportunity, adding substantially higher earnings on those with credentials than those without. An executive summary is also available. (Georgetown University Center on Education and the Workforce, August 2011)...

2008-09 Baccalaureate and Beyond Longitudinal Study (B&B: 08/09): First Look - This report describes the enrollment and employment experiences of a national sample of college graduates a year after their 2007-08 graduation. (NCES 2011)...

One Degree of Separation: How Young Americans Who Don't Finish College See Their Changes for Success - This report presents findings from a national random sample survey of more than 600 young Americans asking for their views on jobs, college and their own economic prospects. (Public Agenda, June 2011)...

The Undereducated American - Following analyses of wage data for the past thirty years, this report confirms that policies that promote access to postsecondary education and encourage completion of college are essential for our economic future. Moreover, the undersupply of college-educated workers has led to the dramatic rise in income inequality over the last thirty years. (Anthony Carnevale and Stephen Rose, Georgetown University Center on Education and the Workforce, June 2011)...

Select Findings From "What's It Worth? The Economic Value of College Majors" - This report analyzes the correlation between undergraduate major and earnings after graduation. Students graduating in the fields of engineering, computers, math and business were found to earn the highest salaries, with education, psychology and social work representing fields with the lowest earnings potential. Click here for the full report. (Georgetown University Center on Education and the Workforce, May 2011) ...

Is College Worth It? College Presidents, Public Assess Value, Quality and Mission of Higher Education - Findings indicate that the majority of Americans feel the higher education system fails to provide good value for the money students and their families spend. Additionally, about four-in-ten college presidents say the system is headed in the wrong direction. This report is largely based on findings from two Pew Research Center surveys conducted in the spring of 2011: The general public survey is based on telephone interviews of adults; the college president survey is based on a web survey conducted with college and university presidents.(Pew Research Center, May 2011)...

Who Wins? Who Pays? The Economic Returns and Costs of a Bachelor's Degree - This study examined starting and estimated career-long salaries for bachelor's degree recipients from a range of institutions, including proprietary, public and private nonprofit colleges and universities at varying levels of admissions selectivity. The authors then calculated the net cost or net financial gain to students and to taxpayers. (American Institutes for Research, May 2011)...