Increasing Student Access to Labor Market Information: Insights from Qualitative Research
Summary
Labor market information has the potential to play an instrumental role in helping students make decisions about their education and career. Research suggests that access to information about the economic returns associated with different fields of study can influence educational decision-making and career planning, but students often have incomplete or inaccurate perceptions of labor market opportunities. Across federal data sources, state systems, and workforce research, LMI can include:
- Occupational demand and growth projections
- Wage data and earning potential
- Required education, credentials, and certifications
- In-demand technical skills
- Regional and local labor market variation
- Career pathways and advancement opportunities
- Institutional outcomes data for alumni, including job placement, industries of employment, earnings, and career trajectories of graduates
Employers, policymakers, state agencies, and institutions routinely rely on LMI to understand job availability, industry trends, wages, and in-demand skills. Yet students making consequential education and career decisions typically have limited access to, and understanding of, this resource.
To explore current institutional practices and student engagement with LMI, Strada conducted a series of 37 in-depth qualitative interviews with career services professionals (14) and undergraduate students (23) across a diverse range of institutions. The key findings in this report and its accompanying brief are based on the three primary themes that emerged in these conversations about using LMI in academic settings.
Key findings
Students actively make independent efforts to understand how their education connects to potential careers, but these efforts frequently are unguided and unstructured. Without coordinated institutional support, students draw on social media, peer networks, and other sources to make sense of complex information. Students may have limited support for interpreting and applying what they learn from these sources to their own education and career decisions.
Students report using career centers primarily for discrete career supports rather than as hubs for labor market insights and long-term career planning. While students are eager for LMI and would like it to be embedded throughout their educational experience, they also reported limited exposure to it through coursework or faculty interactions, and few report meaningful exposure early in their college experiences.
While most institutions are embedding LMI into the classroom and advising contexts, both practitioner perspectives and student narratives suggest these efforts are not yet pervasive, visible, or consistently experienced across the college journey. Practitioners identified challenges in scaling LMI efforts, including uneven faculty engagement and low workshop participation.
Highlights
These quotes from student interviews in the qualitative research provide insights into the use of LMI on U.S. college campuses.
“I really wish there were more transparency around what salaries actually look like. Any time I look up statistics online, some websites list numbers that seem way higher than I’d expect, and others are much lower.”
— Corinne, student
“I look at salaries on Google, but I also watch videos on social media, TikTok, Instagram, YouTube, about different nurses, where they work, and what it’s like for them. They talk about pay differences, overtime, and weekend or night-shift benefits.”
— Avery, student
“The data is there, but no one really shares it with us. You have to go out and research it yourself.”
— Aria, student
“Most of what I’ve learned has come from fellow students, mainly seniors who are close to graduating and have already worked in the field.”
— Kai, student
“Our instructor made us intensely research educational requirements, salary, who do you need to know, and what companies you could possibly work for. We also had a few speakers. Because of how he formatted the class, we got so much knowledge and were able to kind of look within and say, ‘OK, is this really what I want? Is this where I want to go?’”
— Leanna, student
Recommendations
The recommendations below highlight several areas and opportunities for institutions to strengthen how students access, interpret, and apply LMI throughout their education-to-career journey:
Help students become effective consumers of career information.
Students often rely on social media, online platforms, peers, and informal networks to get career and LMI. Equipping them instead with professionally curated resources, guiding questions, and a framework to gauge the value and reliability of information is essential to making better informed education and career choices.
Intentionally engage students in structured LMI experiences.
At key educational milestones, such as selecting a college, choosing a major, and exploring internship opportunities, provide structured opportunities for students to engage with LMI both inside and outside the classroom.
Strengthen career information across students’ networks of support.
In addition to getting help from faculty and staff, students also can get invaluable support in their education and career journeys from families, community organizations, near peers, and recent graduates. Resources that strengthen LMI fluency across these groups promote shared understanding and consistency in student support.
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