The use of labor market information (LMI) and student outcomes data, as well as the innovative use of technology, are key for improving students’ economic outcomes.
Last year, the Project on Workforce and Education Design Lab studied four community colleges working to integrate LMI, student performance data and new technologies to better support underserved students. Hudson County Community College (New Jersey), Community College of Aurora (Colorado), Riverland Community College (Minnesota) and South Texas College all vary widely in their service areas and enrollment numbers, but they all have some of the same struggles when it comes to accessing data.
They also all have a “strong appetite for innovation,” said the authors of the resulting report.
Leveraging labor data, industry partnerships
All four colleges are making strides to create or expand industry-aligned workforce programs. Regional labor market data and strong industry partnerships are vital to the success of those programs.
For Hudson County Community College (HCCC), getting consistent and timely labor market information is challenging. The data often reflect information from previous years. One college administrator interviewed for the report said that the lag can lead to “a disconnect in what we see in the LMI and what we hear from employers, perhaps because the data is inherently backward-looking, while hiring decisions are forward-looking by nature.”
LMI data are complex and hard to interpret, too. Job titles, for instance, may not match from one industry to the next.
But the college can monitor the regional job market using data from the New Jersey Department of Labor & Workforce Development Quarterly Census. That provides information on employment trends, wage data and industry growth for the region.
Also, HCCC uses Lightcast Career Coach to power its Career Coach website and provide labor market information and career insights for each academic program. That allows students to make informed decisions about their career paths.
In southern Minnesota, Riverland Community College staff are working to integrate LMI tools in the college’s strategic planning. But Riverland faces several challenges, including a declining rural population and funding limitations. This has sometimes made it difficult for the college to pursue a data-driven agenda.
Given those limitations, Riverland leverages state resources to best serve its students and local industries. Through the state, Riverland has access to RealTime Talent’s labor market analytics. That provides information about talent supply and demand trends across industries at both the state and regional levels. Riverland also accesses the state’s career navigation tools.
The use of those resources, as well as Riverland’s strong partnerships with regional employers, such as Hormel Foods and Mayo Health Clinics, have helped the college create successful industry-aligned pathways. More than 78% of graduates find employment in their fields within a year.
Community College of Aurora (CCA) uses LMI – along with industry and faculty input – during its annual program review process. The review process ensures the college is “responsive to regional workforce changes and that graduates are prepared for in-demand, quality jobs with local employers,” according to the report.
The process has led to the sunsetting of more than 30 underperforming programs (without the loss of faculty) and the development of new offerings.
South Texas College (STC) uses real-time labor market data through Lightcast and LMI from the Texas Workforce Commission to drive program development. During the program development phase, STC also works with internal and external stakeholders and collects data through student surveys to see if there’s even interest in new programs.
Like HCCC, STC also uses Lightcast Career Coach to allow students to explore job trends and better understand the economic value of their credentials.
Using data, technology to advance student success
To track students’ progress while they’re at the college, STC uses digital tools such as DegreeWorks and Starfish. To boost faculty and staff’s comfort using these tools, STC launched the Emerging Technologies Academy.
In addition, STC has created a culture of data by holding annual data summits, which help staff and faculty gain competency and confidence in using data to enhance student success.
Community College of Aurora uses chatbots to quickly respond to students and dashboards to measure enrollment trends and student outcomes. And using the CollegeAPP platform allows the college to tailor its outreach and help both current and potential students visualize academic pathways.
New Jersey’s HCCC uses internal data sets to help students while they’re at the college and to improve institutional effectiveness. Using data on retention, persistence and completion helps the college pinpoint equity gaps and develop interventions to support students. HCCC also uses data to evaluate the effectiveness of student support services, such as tutoring and academic coaching.
Enrollment dashboards allow staff to monitor trends in real time, ensuring “enrollment efforts are aligned with institutional goals,” according to the report.
Among the platforms HCCC uses is EAB Navigate 360, which provides an overview of student progress, tracks registration status and pushes out financial aid alerts.
Post-graduation data remains a challenge
All four colleges had similar challenges in tracking post-graduation outcomes – data that’s crucial to ensuring programs are effective. HCCC, for example, lacks a centralized system to track student outcomes after graduation.
“Even having access to basic data on graduates’ first jobs would offer valuable insights into how well the programs are preparing students for the labor market, helping to refine course content and identify areas for improvement,” the report’s researchers said.
CCA surveys alumni but often receives a low response rate.
“Sometimes we will send out an important survey to 20 graduates, and we will only get about four responses. We are working on trying to improve our response rate,” said Ana Martin-Mejia, CCA’s dean of academic success in effectiveness and instructional support, when interviewed.
Riverland Community College staff interviewed for the report identified alumni engagement as an area for growth, both to help with post-graduate data tracking and to better support alumni seeking career changes or professional development.
For South Texas College, tracking is harder because students often leave the state, or even the country, following graduation due to the lack of quality jobs in the Rio Grande Valley.
One time when STC was able to secure data, it learned that graduates of a program were securing jobs different from those originally intended because industry changes had shifted jobs. STC engaged in a comprehensive review involving the advisory committee, academic department and curriculum office. It revised course offerings, changed the program title and assigned it a new Classification of Instructional Programs (CIP) code, ensuring students were better prepared for the jobs they were entering.
The college also has invested in software – College Central Network – to improve its post-graduation tracking. It connects students with employers and follows their employment trajectories.
STC is especially motivated to have accurate, timely data because of Texas’ performance-based funding model, which links a portion of state resources to student outcomes, making accurate student and labor market data essential.
