Then and Now: The Changing Landscape of Education Outcomes and Funding in the 21st Century (Part 3 of 3)

This is the final installment of a three-part series which brings together labor market, workforce, occupational, and educational trends since 2000 to tell a story of the American worker through data. Part three looks at wage disparities between workers with and without college degrees, and the rising costs of higher education. The "Then and Now" series explores data broadly and granularly with a demographic lens, recognizing that general trends often are not experienced universally across groups. We identify where opportunities for some workers have improved and where there may be a need for additional efforts to increase opportunities for enhanced economic mobility. This is a story told primarily through charts and tables to serve as an illustration of how workers are experiencing the labor market. We bring together two decades of data and hope this informs workforce practitioners, policymakers, business leaders, and others as they double down in areas where the trends show positive signs of improvement and continue as change agents in areas where the trends are stagnant or regressing.