You have /5 articles left.
Sign up for a free account or log in.
Results from a recent survey show that although state higher education agencies already share student outcomes data with the agencies overseeing K-12 education and workforce development, many of those agencies are beginning to expand their data sharing.
The survey report was released Monday by the State Higher Education Executive Officers Association. It indicates that as higher ed agencies realize the benefits of linking their data with data collected by other state agencies, such as health and human services, foster care, and corrections agencies—the rate of data-system connections is rising.
“Results from our survey illustrate the deep value state agencies find in their PSURS” [postsecondary data systems], said Carrie Klein, associate vice president at SHEEO. “As these systems and their connections continue to evolve and grow, agencies are identifying opportunities for improved insight into and support of student realities and outcomes.”
Forty-seven state higher ed agencies are accessing workforce data such as wages earned, and 44 are accessing K-12 information such as school district of origin and high school graduation dates. The number of data-sharing connections between higher ed and other state agencies such as human services and foster care are smaller, 13 and 12 respectively. But even those numbers are up from when SHEEO last conducted the same study in 2020 —only six agencies were linked with human services then, and only nine were linked with foster care.
As states look to efficiently and effectively expand their interconnected data networks, survey results showed that the most common barriers include data privacy concerns, a lack of common identifiers to serve as a “crosswalk” linking the data sets and a lack of time and fiscal resources.
