Author: Josh Levy
LEAD recently unveiled a new online resource called NC TOWER (Tool for Online Workforce and Education Reporting), which provides data on employment rates, wages, and higher education enrollment for graduates of the North Carolina Community College System and University of North Carolina system schools. The tool provides the ability to track the workforce and educational outcomes of graduates up to 10 years after their graduation, and to compare program outcomes across campuses, degree types, and subject areas. It allows users to investigate whether students find jobs in industrial sectors related to their field of study, and to see which industries pay the highest wages for graduates in particular fields. It also shows whether graduates of a particular program go on to pursue further education at North Carolina community colleges and universities.
NC TOWER is a product of the statewide Common Follow-up System (CFS), a longitudinal repository of workforce and education data maintained by LEAD. The system contains employment and wage information on all individuals working in jobs covered by North Carolina's unemployment insurance laws. The CFS also contains data on participants in North Carolina public employment, training, and education programs going back to the late 1990s. NC TOWER is the result of collaboration between LEAD, the North Carolina Community College System, the University of North Carolina General Administration, and the North Carolina Office of Information Technology Services (ITS).
An example from NC TOWER, showing the highest paid university degrees for a cohort graduating in 2008:
More information about the data found in NC TOWER is here, www.nctower.com.