The availability of skilled labor is the second most important location decision factor cited by corporate executives — and when combined scores from executives and consultants are considered, it ranks first overall. It is the factor that most consistently determines which communities make the short list and which ones don't.
But "skilled labor" means different things to different industries. A semiconductor manufacturer cares about STEM-credentialed engineers. A logistics company needs skilled trades workers. A financial services firm wants a deep pool of analytically trained professionals. A single measure of educational attainment misses most of this complexity. This dashboard is built to handle it.
We take a university- and education-focused approach, benchmarking communities across three dimensions: the current workforce's educational profile, the pipeline of graduates being produced locally, and where those graduates actually go after they leave.
Educational Attainment
Share of the population 25+ with a bachelor's degree or higher — the most common baseline proxy for skilled labor availability across 383+ metros.
University Presence & Completions
Location of every U.S. university, graduate production by major and degree level (2020–2021), and integration of four major university rankings for quality filtering.
Alumni Mobility
Where graduates from 2,600+ institutions actually went to work — not just where they studied. Production is only half the story; retention is the other half.
About the data
Bachelor's attainment
Census 5-year ACS, 2017–2021. Share of population 25 years or older with a bachelor's degree or higher.
University completions
NCES IPEDS, 2020–2021 school year. Bachelor's degrees and above, first majors only. Sub-bachelor's data available on request.
Alumni mobility
Conzelmann et al., "Grads on the Go: Measuring College-Specific Labor Markets for Graduates" (2022). LinkedIn data on alumni from 2,600+ institutions, 2010–2015.
University rankings
QS World University Rankings 2023; U.S. News Best Engineering Schools 2023; U.S. News Best National Universities 2023; U.S. News Best Global Universities for Computer Science 2023.
