Explore DC students' routes to economic mobility - and where we can increase opportunity.
These interactive tools explore how DC students navigate educational pathways to employment, including who pursues a Career and Technical Education (CTE) focus area, who completes and does not complete high school, who enrolls in college and further postsecondary education, and how those pathways lead to economic stability and wage growth over time.
These tools map out a variety of current pathways formed by DC’s alumni and help us navigate the areas where additional citywide supports may be needed for further success.
The data behind these tools comes from DC administrative records that follow graduates over time. While this gives us a strong picture of overall trends, it is important to acknowledge that individual experiences vary, and some outcomes—like personal goals, barriers, or achievements—may not be fully captured in the numbers.
Dive into the Journey DC Public and Public Charter High School Alumni Take:
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)
The ETE (Education through Employment) Data System is a secure, longitudinal data system that links information from DC public and public charter schools with social services, postsecondary education, and employment records. The system measures the impact of PK-12 education, higher education, public workforce, social services, and justice programs on access to family-sustaining careers and economic mobility.
The public dashboards show high-level, aggregate results to help policymakers, practitioners, and community members understand how DC students are doing after high school in terms of education, employment, and wages.
The dashboards focus on a few key questions:
- Wages: How much are former DC students earning at different points after high school, by education pathway?
- Industries of employment: In what industries are they working, and does that differ by education level?
- Education and work together: How do wages compare for people with different levels of education (for example, high school diploma, some college, degree completion)?
- Equity: How do outcomes look for specific groups, such as homeless youth or students with particular characteristics?
Importantly, the employment and wage outcomes shown reflect only jobs covered by DC's Unemployment Insurance (UI) system - that is, work for DC UI-covered employers. They are not a complete picture of every job a DC student holds. Earnings from jobs in other states, most federal employment, self-employment, and gig work are not captured. See the Wage Data FAQs for details.
It is normal for the numbers in these dashboards to differ from:
- District reports
- DC partner agency-specific reports
- National statistics
Reasons include:
- Different cohorts (who is included)
- Different timeframes (for example, calendar year vs. school year)
- Different definitions (for example, how "employed" or "enrolled" is defined)
- Different data snapshots (newer or updated information)
- Identity resolution: to follow a person across schools, colleges, and jobs, the ETE Data System matches records from different agencies to figure out which ones belong to the same person. Because there is no single perfect ID shared across all sources, this matching is done by comparing information and is not perfect. A small number of records may be matched or missed differently than in an individual agency's own count, which can make totals differ slightly.
No. The dashboards show patterns and associations - for example, that people with higher levels of education tend to have higher median wages - but they do not prove that education alone caused wage differences.
Many factors can influence outcomes, including:
- Program and field of study
- Work experience
- Local and national economic conditions
- Personal circumstances and opportunities
The dashboards are a starting point for questions and conversations, not a definitive statement about cause and effect.
No. The ETE Data System's public dashboards show only aggregate statistics, such as percentages and medians for groups of people.
- Individual records are never visible on ETE public dashboards.
- The system is designed to protect privacy and comply with applicable laws and data-sharing agreements.
The dashboards are updated annually (typically in the second quarter of the calendar year), when:
- New education records (graduation, earned degree or certificate, etc.) become available.
- New wage data become available for additional quarters or years.