Workforce Development: Demonstrating Impact in Your Region, State, and Beyond
How Are Your Alumni Contributing to Workforce Development? At our June Coffee Break webinar, Matt Cooper and Chelsea Bassett from Academic Analytics shared practical, powerful strategies for understanding the real-world impact of your alumni and how that data can fuel workforce development, policy conversations, and student outcomes.
As external pressures grow for colleges and universities to demonstrate value, tracking where graduates go, what they do, and how they shape their communities has never been more crucial. This session offered a deep dive into the tools and insights institutions can use to measure and showcase that impact.
Missed the session? Here’s what you need to know:
Key Takeaways:
🔹 Beyond Graduation Rates – Today’s definition of student success extends well past completion. Institutions are being asked to show long-term outcomes—where alumni work, how they progress, and how they contribute to their local economies and beyond.
🔹 Validated, Person-Level Outcomes – Matt and Chelsea walked through Academic Analytics’ human-verified process for tracking alumni careers—offering more reliable, up-to-date data than surveys or algorithm-only tools can provide. And the best part? Results are mapped back to student records, making assessment and program review more meaningful.
🔹 Insights That Drive Action – Attendees saw how institutions are using alumni data to inform everything from advising and career planning to policy advocacy. Examples included mapping where graduates live and work, estimating salaries by region, and visualizing career paths from degree to job title.
🔹 Tools for the Front Lines – With career pathway visuals and emerging job skill mapping, advisors and career centers can better support students by showing them what’s possible—and how to get there. As Chelsea noted, “Students can only become what they see.”
🔹 Mission Fulfillment and Economic Development – Whether you're a public institution proving your value to the state or a dean preparing for a global advancement trip, alumni outcomes data can strengthen your story and your strategy.
The bottom line? Workforce development isn’t just a policy buzzword. It’s a critical piece of institutional storytelling. With the right data, you can show the full impact of your graduates and use that insight to shape stronger programs, partnerships, and student outcomes.