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CRPD After the Cap and Gown Webinar Highlights

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Where do Greater Minnesota’s high school graduates go to college, and where do they end up working? A nine-minute look at the statewide results.

Webinar recorded [DATE]

Our study, After the Cap and Gown: Workforce Trajectories of Greater Minnesota’s High School Graduates, follows graduates from 2008 to 2023 across five regions: Northwest, Central, Southwest, Northeast, and Southeast. CRPD Senior Researcher Kelly Asche presented the statewide results in a webinar, and the highlights below are organized into seven short segments.

Jump to a segment below.
  1. 0:00Workforce participation in the 10 years after high school
  2. 1:34How the three pathways relate to workforce participation
  3. 3:19College completion and sustained workforce participation
  4. 4:55Where college completers end up working
  5. 5:25Who completes college in the region vs. outside it
  6. 6:51Career and technical education and staying in the regional workforce
  7. 7:33Key takeaways

What we found

About half of high school graduates completed college in every region, from 47.8% to 55.8%.
14–21 pts more likely to have sustained employment in Minnesota for graduates who completed college.
3–10 pts higher sustained employment in their home region for non-completers who took part in high school CTE.
Where graduates finish college is what decides whether their home region keeps them.

Graduates who complete a credential in their home region are the ones most likely to stay and work there, which puts regional colleges and universities at the center of workforce retention. The pattern also complicates the common story that rural regions simply lose their young people. Many graduates stay, return, or build careers close to home. The question for communities is which paths make that more likely, and how to strengthen them.

Read the reports

After the Cap and Gown: Statewide comparison and regional reports Northwest · Central · Southwest · Northeast · Southeast Read the reports →

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