California Postsecondary to Prosperity Dashboard Uncovers Inequities in Opportunity
California depends on its strong postsecondary institutions and workforce to drive economic growth, but in the wake of the current pandemic and accompanying unemployment rates, the state must rethink its approach to higher education access and developing skilled workers in order to secure our shared future.
That begins with prioritizing equity to improve outcomes for California’s students and workforce. Broad statistics often mask stark challenges for different populations, including Latinx, Black, and Native American and Alaska Native Californians. Understanding disaggregated outcomes is a first step to building a strong and vibrant future for the state’s diverse communities and its economy.
The California Postsecondary to Prosperity Dashboard, launched today by California Competes, addresses these critical oversights by assessing educational opportunity, upward mobility in the workforce, and quality of life indicators such as commute time and homeownership rates throughout California’s diverse regions. With individual metrics disaggregated by race, ethnicity, gender, income, education level, and region, the Dashboard highlights inequitable pathways to higher education and economic mobility.
“Considering that many Californians face unemployment without real possibilities for re-employment soon and the growing awareness of structurally-driven equity gaps, we are examining data that highlights the breaks and fissures in the pathway from higher education to employment and the ability to thrive,” said California Competes Executive Director Dr. Su Jin Gatlin Jez. “Advancing prosperity requires an understanding of who is flourishing and who is struggling. This first step can open dialogue, shift perspectives, expose inequitable structures, and, ultimately, drive change.”
Advancing prosperity requires an understanding of who is flourishing and who is struggling. This first step can open dialogue, shift perspectives, expose inequitable structures, and, ultimately, drive change.
Dr. Su Jin Gatlin Jez
Building on California Competes’ 2018 research, Opportunity Imbalance: Race, Gender, and California’s Education-to-Employment Pipeline, the Dashboard is an online resource allowing users to examine how educational and economic opportunities line up for specific populations in each of the state’s 12 regions. It paints a uniquely detailed picture of opportunity across California and considers the indicators at work. California Competes is grateful to ECMC Foundation and the Rosalinde and Arthur Gilbert Foundation for their support in developing this tool, as well as all of our generous funders: College Futures Foundation, Futuro Health, Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the James Irvine Foundation, and Lumina Foundation.
In addition to the Dashboard, today California Competes releases the accompanying report, Postsecondary to Prosperity: Examining California’s Opportunity Landscape. The report highlights a set of findings from the Dashboard, focusing on statewide racial and ethnic disparities, along with differences between regions.
Users are invited to examine factsheets by region, race/ethnicity, and statewide to view a curated set of metrics or to use the Dashboard to analyze an even wider set of metrics and disaggregation functions at the statewide and regional level. More than ever, well-informed public policy measures are critical to addressing persistent inequities in California’s education-to-employment pipeline. The new Dashboard offers policymakers, service providers, institutions, employers, journalists, and others comprehensive data to guide more equitable and shared prosperity in the future.
Click here to visit the California Postsecondary to Prosperity Dashboard and explore variable educational and workforce outcomes throughout California.
