Promotion, Placement, and Pay Disparities Among Community College Graduates

• In Event: Pathways to Success: Exploring Student Outcomes, Equity, and Institutional Practices in Higher Education

Abstract

We integrate post-college person-level wages from a state unemployment insurance system with data reported by a private source that uses web-scraping to find alumni job titles and occupations to explore the economic outcomes of students at a large, urban community college. For students with matched data, we construct indicators of job placement aligned with a student’s field of study, managerial status, and job seniority based on words present in the person’s job title. We examine the demographic characteristics associated with job placement and study the relationship between placement indicators and wage data. Overall, fields of study and demographics are associated with students’ post-college career outcomes, with female students and students of color facing significantly lower odds of attaining managerial status.

Author

• Navi Dhaliwal, Dallas College