Higher education has been under increased scrutiny as students, institutions, and employers increasingly prioritize return on investment (ROI). Rising costs and an evolving job market have transformed how students evaluate their education, pushing colleges and universities to prove not only the academic value of their programs but also their professional relevance.
Metrics like job placement rates, salary growth, and long-term career outcomes are becoming the benchmarks by which success is measured, while short-term credentials and industry partnerships are taking on a more prominent role as pathways to workforce readiness.
These trends are clearly reflected in UPCEA’s recent report, Predictions 2025: Insights for Online & Professional Education. As the leading association for professional, continuing, and online education, UPCEA is at the forefront of shaping innovation in higher ed. So it’s worth paying attention when Kathleen Ives, Chief Business Development Officer & Senior Vice President of Member Engagement at UPCEA, predicts the following on page 23 of the report:
“By 2025, the focus on ROI in higher education will shift toward better aligning educational outcomes with workforce needs. Both institutions and students will increasingly look at ROI as a key factor in decision-making. With the rising cost of higher education, students will seek greater clarity on how their degrees translate into job opportunities, salary growth, and career advancement. In response, institutions will create more advanced, data-driven tools to track post-graduation success, using metrics like job placement rates, average salaries by degree, and long-term career progression.”
These trends – amplified by the accelerating disruption of in-demand skills in today’s labor market – call for a transformation not just in how education is delivered, but also in how its value is demonstrated.
In this article, we’ll delve into how Lightcast helps colleges and universities meet these challenges head-on. From providing actionable workforce intelligence to supporting innovative program design, Lightcast empowers institutions to align their offerings with the demands of an ROI-driven future.
Better Aligning Educational Outcomes with Workforce Needs
To thrive in an ROI-driven future, colleges and universities must ensure their academic offerings align closely with workforce needs. Lightcast provides institutions with the tools to bridge the gap between education and employment, equipping them to design programs that deliver both academic and professional value. Through solutions like the Program Demand Gap Analysis and Analyst, institutions can take a data-driven approach to aligning their programs with labor market trends, meeting the needs of both students and employers.
Program Demand Gap Analysis: Identifying Opportunities, Closing Gaps
Lightcast’s Program Demand Gap Analysis (PDGA) helps institutions quickly see how their program portfolio aligns with regional workforce demand. By comparing the availability of educational offerings in the region against occupation and industry growth trends, the PDGA report delivers actionable recommendations for program creation, expansion, or right-sizing.
For instance, East Carolina University (ECU) used Lightcast’s analysis to uncover high-demand opportunities in nursing and business. With these insights, ECU is strategically expanding its programs to address critical workforce gaps, ensuring program investment is aligned with their enrollment goals and regional workforce needs.
Analyst: Comprehensive Labor Market Insight, On-Demand
Once institutions identify gaps through the PDGA, Lightcast’s Analyst platform provides a deeper dive into labor market data. Analyst allows colleges and universities to refine their program offerings by exploring trends in job postings, skills demand, and career pathways. With automatic data updates, robust filters and search options, and access to Lightcast’s proprietary taxonomies, Analyst makes it easier than ever to track and understand labor market trends.
By layering Analyst’s detailed insights on top of the foundational work of the gap analysis, institutions can make informed decisions about curriculum design and program development. For example, Waubonsee Community College used their PDGA and Analyst to implement a data-driven program review process centered around employer demand, occupation growth, and wages. But Analyst is also plenty powerful on its own: For instance, the Gies College of Business at the University of Illinois used labor market insight from Analyst, including in-demand skills for target occupations, to develop and market their new graduate certificates. This approach ensured that the certificates aligned with employer demand and delivered clear value to learners.
Integrated Tools for Workforce Alignment
Together, these tools enable a data-driven, strategic approach to program research. The Program Demand Gap Analysis identifies high-level gaps and opportunities in the regional market while Analyst enables ongoing, detailed analysis of in-demand jobs and skills.
Equipped with data-driven insight, colleges and universities can design (and market) programs that deliver measurable value, preparing students for meaningful careers while reinforcing institutional relevance in a competitive higher education landscape.
Providing Clarity on How Education Translates to Careers
Today's students face a daunting challenge: navigating an ever-evolving landscape of career opportunities while trying to understand the education and skills required to succeed. Rising tuition costs and shifting employer expectations mean students are no longer satisfied with general promises of a degree’s value—they want clear, actionable guidance on how their academic investment translates into meaningful, well-paying careers. Institutions that can meet this demand for transparency not only empower their students but also strengthen their own competitive edge. Lightcast supports this effort through tools like Career Coach and Widget Builder, enabling colleges and universities to demonstrate how their academic offerings connect directly to workforce outcomes.
Career Coach: Personalized Career Exploration
Lightcast’s Career Coach equips students with the resources they need to explore career options and plan their academic journeys with confidence. This tool uses real-time labor market data to match students' interests and goals with potential careers, detailing job outlooks, salary ranges, and required skills. By deploying Career Coach, institutions can create a seamless pathway from enrollment to employment.
For example, Sierra College integrates Career Coach to help students connect their academic choices to tangible outcomes, offering insights into job opportunities and required skills that make their educational investment more transparent and meaningful. The platform also equips faculty and career counselors with the data they need to engage in face-to-face conversations with students more effectively.
Widget Builder: Embeddable Career Insights for Program Pages
Complementing Career Coach, Lightcast’s Widget Builder allows institutions to integrate labor market insights directly into their websites and program pages. These embeddable widgets provide prospective and current students with real-time data on careers related to specific programs, including salary expectations and regional job demand. They can even display program-specific alumni career outcomes data. By embedding this information where students naturally explore academic options, institutions make it easier for them to see how programs connect to career outcomes.
Meeting Students’ Expectations
When used together, Career Coach and Widget Builder create an “always-on,” public-facing system for career exploration and guidance that augments the work of career advising and enrollment marketing teams. Widget Builder helps you proactively engage students and prospects with career and alumni insights while Career Coach provides more personalized, in-depth guidance. This dual approach empowers students to make informed decisions, enhances their confidence in their academic investment, and positions institutions as leaders in connecting education to workforce success.
Tracking post-graduation success
As students and stakeholders increasingly demand clear evidence of higher education’s impact, tracking post-graduation success has become a critical priority for institutions. Demonstrating how graduates fare in the workforce—whether through career outcomes, salary progression, or skill development—can significantly enhance an institution's value proposition. Lightcast offers powerful tools and services, including Alumni Pathways, the Embark first-destination survey, and the National Alumni Career Mobility survey (NACM), to help institutions gather, analyze, and present this vital data.
Alumni Pathways: Visualizing Career Outcomes
Lightcast’s Alumni Pathways tool provides institutions with a comprehensive, program-specific view of alumni career trajectories. By matching an institution’s student records to Lightcast’s profile data set, Alumni Pathways helps colleges and universities track where former students work, their industries, job titles, skills, or additional education they pursued after transferring or graduating. This data empowers institutions to demonstrate the long-term impact of their programs and identify areas for improvement or growth.
For example, Coastline College used Alumni Pathways to equip faculty with insights into graduates’ career outcomes, ensuring programs remain aligned with workforce needs. This data not only supports curriculum development but also helps students visualize their own potential paths, strengthening confidence in their academic investments. Similarly, Lake Washington Institute of Technology used this data to secure grant funding and support implementation of the guided pathways model. And The City College of New York (CCNY) is using Alumni Pathways to reshape their narrative, helping alumni, donors, and other stakeholders better understand the impact of an education at CCNY.
And good news for marketing teams: As we mentioned earlier, this data can be easily embedded directly into program pages, via the Widget Builder, to serve as inspiration and evidence of alumni success for prospective students considering your institution.
Alumni Surveys: Connecting Data to Experience
Alumni surveys like Lightcast’s Embark first-destination survey and National Alumni Career Mobility survey (NACM) complement Alumni Pathways by offering even deeper, qualitative insights into graduates’ experiences and satisfaction.
The Embark first-destination survey focuses on the critical early months after graduation, tracking initial job placements, continuing education, and related milestones. It also comes backed by support from the Lightcast team, including a sophisticated data collection and messaging process, and an online portal for visualization and analysis of survey results. The NACM survey engages alumni 5 and 10 years after graduation, and invites alumni to reflect on how their college experience prepared them for long-term career success. Responses illuminate equity gaps, institutional strengths, and opportunities to improve the student experience. NACM also captures career mobility and alumni satisfaction data, shedding light on how alumni perceive the value of their educational experience.
Together, these surveys enable institutions to showcase immediate and long-term ROI, offering students and stakeholders a comprehensive understanding of post-graduation success.
Integrating Insights for Strategic Action
When combined, Alumni Pathways and alumni surveys create a complete picture of graduate outcomes, blending quantitative and qualitative data. Institutions can use these insights to improve program design, enhance student advising, and communicate their impact to prospective students and donors. For instance, by using Alumni Pathways to identify high-performing alumni and supplementing with NACM or Embark survey data, institutions can craft compelling narratives that highlight their role in student success stories.
Tracking post-graduation success is no longer optional in today’s higher education landscape. By leveraging Lightcast’s alumni outcomes data and surveys, institutions can provide the transparency that students and stakeholders expect.
Conclusion
As higher education continues to evolve, institutions face growing pressure to demonstrate their value in tangible ways. By aligning academic programs with workforce needs, providing students with clear career pathways, and tracking post-graduation success, colleges and universities can meet the expectations of today’s ROI-focused students, parents, and other stakeholders. Lightcast data empowers institutions to navigate these trends with confidence, delivering actionable insights that drive student success and institutional growth. By leveraging the power of workforce data and alumni career insights, colleges and universities can build stronger connections between education and employment, ensuring their graduates are prepared for meaningful, rewarding careers.
Want help finding the right solution for your institution? Let’s connect! We’re excited to learn more about your mission and priorities, and show you how our data can help.
