Colorado collects significant data on postsecondary credentials and workforce outcomes. This brief outlines where that data lives, how it connects, and how Colorado’s Statewide Longitudinal Data System can unify it.
Where Postsecondary Data Lives
Expand each section to see the data gathered by each agency.
CDHE maintains data for all public colleges (including technical colleges) and three private non-profit colleges (Colorado Christian University, Regis University, and the University of Denver) on:
- Institutional/college characteristics
- Student admissions
- Student enrollment (including colleges and courses)
- Credentials completion (certificates, degrees)
- Student demographic information
- Financial Aid
The Division of Private and Occupational Schools housed within CDHE also collects information about the characteristics of private and occupational schools operating in Colorado.
CDHE can directly report:
- Characteristics of students who apply and enroll
- Where students enroll
- Whether and where students transfer
- Who earned a college credential
- Which college credentials students earn
- Whether students need and/or received remedial support
- Students’ program of study/major
- Graduation rates
- Time and credits it took to get a degree
- Trends over time and by demographics for all categories
CDHE does not collect wage or employment data directly.
CDLE maintains:
- Unemployment insurance wage records (including quarterly earnings)
- Characteristics of programs that are classified as Eligible Training Providers to access WIOA federal funding
- Education enrollment and completion data for individuals who qualify for WIOA
- Apprenticeship data
CDLE can directly report:
- Whether individuals are employed in Colorado (excluding many self-employed or federal employees)
- Wage levels
- Industry employment trends
- Workforce training enrollment and completion
- Employment outcomes for those participating in WIOA programs
- Information on apprenticeships offered in Colorado
- Information on apprenticeship participants
CDLE only collects education completion data for individuals participating in WIOA.
The Current State of Data Sharing
Data-sharing agreements between CDE, CDHE, and CDLE currently enable a number of reports. Through these agreements, CDHE is able to connect education records with wage records to report on program employment and earnings following college graduation.
Key Public Reports & Information
Expand each section to see the data available in each report and its limitations.
Produced by Colorado Department of Higher Education.
Enabled by data sharing agreements between CDE and CDHE.
Required annually by statute, this report links high school graduate data to college enrollment data to provide:
- Enrollment and retention metrics
- Remedial education needs
- Concurrent enrollment participation
- College credential and degree completion rates
- Time-to-completion data
- Disaggregation by student demographics, district, and high school
Limitations:
- Does not include employment or wage outcomes
- Focused on postsecondary academic progress only, so does not include apprenticeship or industry certification outcomes data
Produced by Colorado Department of Higher Education.
Enabled by data sharing agreements between CDHE and CDLE (for unemployment insurance files).
Required annually by statute, this report links education data to wage records and includes:
- Completion by Degree and Major
- Employment rates of college graduates in Colorado
- Median wages one, five, and ten years after college completion
- Cost and Time to Degree
- Student Debt
- Outcomes by institution and academic program
Limitations:
- Primarily based on in-state Unemployment Insurance wage data, meaning if students leave Colorado, there is limited data
- Aggregated reporting
- Limited occupation-level detail, which does not provide specificity into what job they have in the sector
This data is also used to produce the Minimum Value Threshold, a measure that the Colorado Commission on Higher Education uses as part of its annual strategic plan, but these data are not currently available in a public report.
Produced in coordination with the Colorado Department of Higher Education and the Colorado Department of Labor and Employment.
This report brings Labor Market Information (LMI) data together with other existing datasets to show key talent trends in Colorado.
Required annually by statute, this report analyzes alignment between Colorado’s education outputs and projected workforce demand and includes:
- A list of top jobs, jobs that both meet a wage threshold and demonstrate projected workforce demand
- Analysis of talent supply and workforce demand
- Alignment between credential production and high-demand occupations
- Gaps in key industry sectors
Limitations:
- Does not provide individual-level longitudinal tracking
- Focused on system-level alignment rather than student-level outcomes
Produced by Colorado Department of Labor and Employment.
These reports provide statewide and regional labor market data and include:
- Industry employment trends
- Occupational employment and wage estimates
- Regional workforce demand projections
Limitations:
- Does not include postsecondary completion data
- Not linked to specific education pathways or credentials
Produced by the Colorado Department of Labor and Employment.
Required as part of the Annual Federal reporting and includes:
- Employment outcomes for WIOA participants by program
Limitations:
- Federal reporting has small sample sizes
- Pooled data aggregates outcomes across multiple years but is not required by statute
- Only includes WIOA participants; many of these programs have other participants for whom outcomes are not captured
Limitations of the Current Data Infrastructure
Because Colorado’s postsecondary and workforce data are still housed across multiple agencies, most cross-sector reporting relies on separate, purpose-specific data-sharing agreements rather than a single integrated system.
These agreements enable important reports, but they are limited in scope, time-bound, and often restricted to specific statutory uses.
No single agency currently maintains an integrated, end-to-end education-to-workforce dataset.
Colorado’s Statewide Longitudinal Data System
In 2024, the General Assembly passed HB24-1365, which formally established Colorado’s Statewide Longitudinal Data System (SLDS). The bill builds on earlier cross-agency data efforts and is intended to create a more durable, integrated infrastructure connecting education and workforce data.
Once fully implemented, the SLDS will securely connect data across state agencies and time, and serve as the source of understandable information that supports decision makers in their efforts to improve education and workforce outcomes and address opportunity gaps. It can help improve the data sharing infrastructure and make cross-agency reports more common and the data behind them more accessible for analysis and both policy and operational decision-making.
Current work includes:
- Leadership from the Colorado Governor’s Office of Information Technology (OIT), which is responsible for technical infrastructure and system architecture
- Establishment of formal governing structures and adoption of a charter, mission, and vision (completed)
- Selection and onboarding of a system vendor (completed)
- Execution of a legal framework for cross-agency data governance
- Beginning the technical system build to securely connect K–12, postsecondary, and workforce data
The SLDS includes a statutorily established Governance Board and advisory groups that provide formal cross-agency oversight. This level of structured governance and sustainability planning places Colorado among a smaller group of states pursuing fully coordinated, education-to-workforce data integration.
The SLDS is expected to release its first report in October 2026, focused on high school pathways.
Header Photo by Allison Shelley/Complete College Photo Library