California Dashboard Provides Data on College Opportunity, Employment, and Quality of Life

Title: California Postsecondary to Prosperity Dashboard

Source: California Competes

A new dashboard and accompanying report from California Competes highlights data on college access, employment, and prosperity indicators, which include cost of rent, student debt, commute times, and business deserts. The tool enables users to consider how trends vary by resident demographic markers (e.g. race and ethnicity, gender, income) and across the state’s regions.

Key findings include:

• Most Central American, Cuban, Mexican and Native American or Alaska Native residents do not earn a living wage.
• Asian, White, and rural residents have the highest rates of home ownership.
• Rural areas disproportionately lack doctors’ offices, have colleges that do not enable students to use government loans, and maintain lower rates of college attainment.

As part of their written policy implications, the authors reiterate a need for California to create a higher education coordinating entity and statewide longitudinal data system, with a commitment to protecting the privacy of groups with smaller numbers (e.g. Native American or Alaska Native Californians).

Click here to read the dashboard’s accompanying report.

—Anna Marie Ramos