California parents can now get a little extra insight about what their student’s future might look like after graduating from a local school district after the state launched a new database tool this week.
The Cradle to Career Data System tracks about 3.5 million high school graduates in California, looking at where they went to school, what degrees they received and how much money they make after graduating college.
The data system only tracks graduates from public high schools who also attended public colleges and universities within the state, according to reporting by CalMatters.
Users can find figures on the data system through filtering it by school district, legislative district or different population demographics, including race and ethnicity or gender.
Legislative District 3 represents Butte, Glenn, Placer, Sutter, Tehama and Yuba counties.
According to Cradle to Career, 57% of the district’s high school graduates from 2015 first enrolled in a two-year college. Almost 40% of those students did not or have not yet completed college. Only 19% of the total high school graduates from that year completed a bachelor’s degree.
More than half of the high school graduates from the district who graduated from public colleges in 2023 received an associate’s degree. On average, it took about five years for those students to earn that degree.
The database also shows that four years after graduating from a public college in 2019, students with associate’s degrees from the district earned on average more than $41,000 annually. That’s compared to the more than $60,000 annually earned by students from the district who earned bachelor's degrees that same year.
