Alumni outcomes as a solution to the question “What is the ROI for our students?”

This year, Wavelength has continued to hear a repeated question from our university partners- “What is the ROI for our students?” Be it community colleges, public, or private, undergraduate or graduate programs, now more than ever, prospective students and their parents are wanting to make sure they see the value of attending a higher education institution.

At Wavelength, we have always prioritized the importance of data. Data allows you to better personalize your outreach, maintain meaningful relationships, and encourage alumni to support each other who have shared interests, career opportunities and more. Considering the wealth of data we have on alumni, and pairing that with the regional, state, and national career trends, we have begun to offer visualizations and metrics to support the argument of why higher education degrees are worth the investment.

Our approach is to take the alumni outcomes we do have of your institution and combine that with current salary ranges of the job titles and within the regions your alumni currently live. From there, we can compare census data, bureau of labor and statistics, state level economic reports, and other data points to show if your alumni base is performing well against state and national averages in income and beyond.

The data is there- the question is whether you are using it to show your prospects and current students the value you are offering. We have begun to create industry scorecards to help visualize careers that are projected to grow in the coming years along with what education and skillsets are required for upward mobility within those industries.

This data can help to influence ongoing curriculum decisions: are you offering classes that will provide skillsets to make your students career ready in the fields they are interested in? Is your school mandated to show ROI for credentialing purposes? Are you hoping to develop a dashboard for prospective students to see alumni outcomes by major and where they are today? Do you wish to know what industries your alumni are currently working in and what job level they are in? Is there a need to know what additional education your alumni may have received post graduating from your institution? We have all of that data without even asking for your alumni names. Let us help you in telling your story. Reach out to info@searchwavelength.com to learn more.