A lot of new research and resources have been released over the past month. Here’s what you may have missed:

New Studies

Georgetown’s Center for Education and the Workforce has published two new reports of interest to the CTE community. The first, “College Is Just the Beginning,” examines the world of post-secondary education and training and found that roughly $1.1 trillion is spent annually.

Researchers split the sum between colleges and universities ($417 billion) and employers ($177 billion in formal training; $413 billion informal on-the-job training). However, that employer number comes with a caveat – employers spend more because education providers may only have a student for a handful of years while an employer may have them for decades. The study also found that federally funded job training is the smallest component, ringing in at $18 billion.

The cost of training also varies widely among industries depending on the intensity of the training. Manufacturing, for example, was found to be the most training intensive.

The center also released a new report called, “The Undereducated American,” which looks at the country’s number of college-going workers and claims that supply has failed to keep pace with growing demand since the 1980s, resulting in widening income inequality.

Other studies of note:

• Achieve’s 9^th annual “Closing the Expectations Gap” report
• “The New Forgotten Half and Research Directions to Support Them,” from the William T. Grant Foundaiton

New Surveys and Forecasts

A new public opinion poll from the Association of American Colleges and Universities found strikingly large gaps between employers and recent college graduates regarding career readiness.

While the survey found that employers continue to overwhelmingly endorse the need for broad learning and cross-cutting employability skills, they gave their recent hires very low marks on 17 learning outcomes related to being well-prepared for careers.

Meanwhile, recent graduates held a very different view of their preparedness with some of the largest gaps being critical thinking, written communication and working with others.

Another survey of note:

• CareerBuilder’s 2015 Jobs Forecast

New Data

A new report from the Government Accountability Office takes aim at state data systems. Despite the $640 million federal investment, the results are state systems linking education and workforce data that are riddled with holes. While the systems have had some success, there are many challenges remaining and questions about sustainability when federal funding goes away.

Other data of note:

• The National Center for Education Statistics has updated two data sets of interest
  • Revenues and Expenditures for Public Elementary and Secondary Education at the national and state level (FY 2012)
  • Revenues and Expenditures for Public Elementary and Secondary Education School Districts (FY 2012)

Andrea Zimmermann, State Policy Associate