myFutureNC Releases 2022 County Attainment Profiles
The new, updated 2022 County Attainment Profiles produced by myFutureNC in partnership with Carolina Demography are now available online. The 2022 County Attainment Profiles highlight each of North Carolina’s 100 counties’ educational attainment levels and performance on key myFutureNC metrics in order to assist in the decision-making process regarding local priorities to increase educational attainment at the local level. There is also an overall 2022 attainment profile for the state.
Example: 2022 County Attainment Profile
Each 2022 County Attainment Profile is a two-page document with 57 indicators from 13 different state and federal data providers. Some indicators are direct downloads from data providers; some indicators were provided by special request; and other indicators were derived by Carolina Demography. Full documentation of data sources and methods is available here.
myFutureNC is a non-profit organization that is working across sectors to support the state’s efforts to close the educational attainment gap in North Carolina in support of the state’s educational attainment goal of having two million North Carolinians have an industry-valued credential or post-secondary degree by 2030. As of 2022, North Carolina has an estimated 1,555,543 adults (ages 25-44) with a degree or industry-valued credential. This is currently 31,000 individuals short of where the state needs to be, at this time, in order to be on target for the two million goal by 2030.
North Carolina’s regions and counties are the true frontiers of the state’s educational attainment efforts. In many communities across the state, good work is already underway to increase postsecondary attainment and alignment with workforce needs. The 2022 County Attainment Profiles also include three opportunities for growth. Opportunities for growth were identified by examining county performance on specific indicators relative to its peers (e.g., rural non-metro, rural metro, suburban, and urban). The three largest gaps between the county and peer county average performance were used to identify opportunities for growth. If a county did not have three opportunity areas based on this evaluation, its performance was then compared to the state. The following indicators are the potential opportunities for growth:
- Adult & Non-Traditional Learners
- Chronic Absenteeism
- College & Career-Ready in Math
- College & Career-Ready in Reading
- Opportunity Youth
- Earning College Credit in High School
- FAFSA Completion
- First-Year Persistence
- NC Pre-K / Early Learning
- Postsecondary Completion
- School Counselors
- Transition to Postsecondary (Enrollment)
- High School Graduation
In addition to partnering with Carolina Demography, myFutureNC collaborated with the NC Community College System, UNC System Office, NC Independent Colleges and Universities, NC Department of Commerce, NC Department of Public Instruction, and thousands of leaders throughout the state to ensure the profiles were developed with key stakeholder input. If you would like to receive updates on additional action-oriented tools and resources from myFutureNC, please sign up for updates here.
For more information, please contact: Melany Stowe, myFutureNC Director of Marketing and Communications, melany@myfuturenc.org