Overview

Young adults are confronted with an increasingly complex range of choices as they navigate the transition from K-12 education to postsecondary education, vocational training, or the workforce. While a great deal of research has been dedicated to understanding outcomes among students who follow more “traditional” routes—that is, those in which a student graduates from high school, immediately starts a four-year degree program, and then enters the labor market—less is known about the labor market payoffs for students who take different approaches. For example, some students might work immediately after high school before continuing to a training program. Others may earn an associate’s degree and later transition to a four-year program, perhaps after taking time off to work. In recent years there has been an increase in dual-enrollment programs (in which students earn college credits while in high school) and nondegree programs (in which students can acquire skills without earning an associate’s degree), making even more options available to students. Sifting through so many potential trajectories can be daunting for a young adult during this pivotal transition period.

In recognition of this complexity, MDRC has partnered with the Washington Student Achievement Council (WSAC) and the Washington Education Research & Data Center (ERDC) in hopes of shedding light on the most common pathways among young adults in Washington and their labor market implications. This project will provide insights into students’ pathways, including postsecondary degree, nondegree, and workforce pathways, both overall and among subgroups defined by demographic and geographic characteristics. The project will thoroughly investigate the pathways taken by students who participate in dual-enrollment or nondegree courses. This work was funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. Its findings and conclusions will be those of the research team, and will not necessarily reflect positions or policies of the foundation.

The project begins with an extensive exploration of the ERDC’s state longitudinal data set, which follows individuals in Washington from prekindergarten through postsecondary education and into the labor force. The team will use an innovative combination of social sequence analysis (a statistical method used to examine ordered sequences of events or states over time, identifying patterns or regularities in the data) and cluster analysis (a statistical technique used to group similar data points based on shared characteristics or patterns) to map the trajectories of recent Washington high school graduates and identify their most common pathways. Next, the team will assess labor market outcomes for each pathway, and explore the pathways for important subgroups (students of color, students from households with low incomes, and students from high schools in rural areas) and among students who take dual-enrollment courses and who participate in nondegree programs. Ultimately, the project hopes to expand access to and usability of Washington State’s rich State Longitudinal Data System by providing insights of use to policymakers, practitioners, school counselors and advisers, administrators, parents, and, most importantly, to students themselves.

Members of the team from partner organizations include KC Deane and Daniel Oliver from WSAC and Dani Fumia from ERDC.