In a move to further bridge the gap between academia and the labor market, Tennessee's Office of Evidence and Impact (OEI) under the Department of Finance and Administration has rolled out a new and improved dashboard that breaks down educational achievements against employment outcomes. According to the department's recent announcement, the "Education to Employment" dashboard is designed to provide both transparency and key insights by showcasing how Tennessee graduates fare in the job market after their educational endeavors.
The updates, aimed to largely simplify and streamline the previously available data, include detailed information on student outcomes from the years 2018 to 2022. The dashboard, as stated by Department of Finance and Administration Commissioner Jim Bryson, represents a "commitment to transparency to the public and stakeholders," as per a department announcement. He also highlighted the efforts behind the initiative, stating that the dashboard "provides needed insights into how Tennessee graduates are succeeding in the workforce."
Data incorporated within the dashboard is expansive, encompassing input from a variety of state departments via TN DATA, the state’s enterprise data analytics platform. Contributions originate from the Tennessee Higher Education Commission, the Tennessee Independent Colleges and Universities Association, the Tennessee Department of Education, the Tennessee Department of Labor and Workforce Development, and the Tennessee Department of Economic and Community Development. This collaborative effort has yielded a comprehensive resource for assessing post-graduation success across multiple dimensions.
New enhancements to the dashboard not only simplify the presentation but also aim to change accurately reflect the wages by adjusting them for inflation. This approach promises to offer a more dynamic and realistic measure of graduates' economic standing. Additional visualizations also now clearly display employment outcomes by factors such as major field, award level, and time elapsed since graduation, making it easier to directly observe trends and results in the labor market.
