The value of higher education has been a hot topic lately, and the following research and reports provide insight into returns on an investment in higher education.

• Career Technical Education and Labor Market Outcomes: Evidence from California Community Colleges released by the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) discusses how Career Technical Education (CTE) impacts students’ future earnings in California. The study of 112 community college campuses with 2.6 million students is critical to helping students decide the worth of attending higher education for their desired career field. Health careers were one of the occupations that students found extremely high returns on their college investment.
• A study of employers through the recent CareerBuilder survey found that 65 percent of employers are looking to hire recent college graduates and the most sought after candidates will have skills in IT, customer service, finance, sales and business development.
• The Aspen Institute released From College to Jobs: Making Sense of Labor Market Returns to Higher Education exploring the ways in which labor market data are collected and used to determine the value of higher education. A collection of eight short papers resulted in a variety of findings, one of which was that the skills valued by employers are not always found within one field. For example, skills associated with STEM degrees are valued across non-STEM fields.

Katie Fitzgerald, Communications Associate