Find your way to a great job!

Welcome to the Illinois High School to Career tool! This product is a result of the partnership between several departments in the State of Illinois to increase transparency to citizens. The tool provides an opportunity for students and parents to review a wide-range of information on Illinois public high school seniors and their pathways after high school, including post-secondary education choices by degree type and academic area of study, as well as their career outcomes. This information is made possible through a data sharing partnership between the Illinois Department of Employment Security (IDES), Illinois Student Assistance Commission (ISAC), Illinois State Board of Education (ISBE), and Illinois State University (ISU).

The website contains merged data from the Illinois State Board of Education (ISBE), National Student Clearinghouse (NSC), and Illinois Department of Employment Security (IDES). The ISBE data contains high school seniors from academic years 2008 through 2012. Those ISBE students were linked to the NSC to gather a picture of their post-secondary college completion, if any. The ISBE students were also merged to IDES' wage records to determine at what industries in Illinois they are working and how much money they are making. Career outcome measures are derived from longitudinal linking of ISBE student records to quarterly employment and earnings records of approximately 6.2 million workers which are reported by Illinois employers to IDES under the Unemployment Insurance Act. IDES employer records cover nearly 95% of all employment, but exclude the unincorporated self-employed, independent contractors, students working for universities under certain cooperative programs, salespersons primarily paid on commission, federal government workers, railroad workers, and agricultural laborers. The outcomes developed under this partnership represent only those graduates who entered the labor market (i.e. are not subsequently enrolled during the year for which wage data is being displayed) and are employed within Illinois. Therefore, the information coverage is a subset of all graduates. Additionally, recent graduates with high-demand skills may receive a higher wage from out-of-state employers. Moreover, the annual wage for graduates is available only as a statewide median; wage levels and wage growth vary by regions within the state. The distinction between students who subsequently enroll in further education, and those who do not, is based on ISBE student records linked to enrollment records from the NSC StudentTracker database. It should be noted that some students may have subsequently enrolled, but may not show up in the NSC match for several reasons, including: the school does not report their data to the NSC, the student or school has a FERPA block on their records, or the student’s record has a major typographical error. That being said, the NSC believes its records cover about 97% of post-secondary institutions in the United States. This project defines subsequent enrollment for a student as having attended a college during the year being displayed in the results (i.e. 3 years after completing a college credential for those that do so, or 3 years after completing high school for those that do not complete a college credential). The distinction between subsequent enrollment and not subsequent enrollment is critical for capturing accurate outcomes, in that their labor market behavior is dissimilar. During their period of subsequent enrollment, individuals may demonstrate more tenuous workforce attachment and lower earnings. Non-Disclosure The underlying information supporting the HS2C tool includes student records from ISBE and individual employment and earnings data submitted by Illinois employers to IDES. In the tool, confidentiality requirements are implemented with respect to each career outcome measure. Disclosure of any outcome measure for an academic area or industry requires at least ten persons that meet the criteria of entered the labor market (i.e., not subsequently enrolled) and employed in Illinois. It should be noted that the outcome measures are job-based, and that ten persons could represent as many as 30-40 job observations depending on the measure. Some of the data in the tool is derived from a small number of students and should be interpreted with consideration. Data that is not already publicly available is automatically suppressed if fewer than ten individuals are represented. As an additional step in disclosure proofing, the project team “fuzzed” individual earnings data with an unbiased, random adjustment.

The information in this website is provided by the State of Illinois (“the State”) as a public service. Every effort has been made to offer the most current, correct and clearly expressed information. Nevertheless, inadvertent errors in information may occur. If inaccurate, misleading or otherwise inappropriate information is brought to our attention, a reasonable effort will be made to fix or remove it. The information contained in this website, whether express or implied, is not legally binding upon the State. No action by the user should be taken in reliance upon the information contained herein. The State disclaims any responsibility or liability for the user's loss due to his/her reliance upon said information. Information should be verified by the user by calling the Illinois Student Assistance Commission, the state agency responsible for maintaining the website at 1(847)831–8351. Published information from the HighSchool2Career tool is intended for the benefit of students and their parents/guardians to help them make informed choices and decisions about their educational and occupational plans. The use of any part of the tool, or information derived from the tool for any commercial purpose is strictly prohibited. The State is obligated to act in compliance with state and federal laws and policies that govern the subject matter of and the data provided on this website. Accordingly, notwithstanding any information contained in this website, such laws and policies shall control. Contacting the Website If you have any questions about these terms of use, the practices of this site, or your dealings with this website, you can contact: Illinois Student Assistance Commission 1755 Lake Cook Road, Deerfield 60015

General Information The Illinois Student Assistance Commission respects your right to privacy. We are committed to ensuring that your personal, professional and financial information is secure. We have taken several steps to safeguard the integrity of our communications and computing infrastructure, including but not limited to authentication, monitoring, auditing, and encryption. Security measures have been integrated into the design, implementation and day-to-day practices of the entire operating environment as part of our continuing commitment to risk management. Please read the following policy to understand how your personal information will be used as you make full use of our online services. “Personal information” means any information by which you can be personally identified. Personal information includes your name, address, telephone number, e-mail address, driver’s license, Social Security number and the like. A domain name or Internet Protocol address is not considered personal information. This policy applies to the following site: Illinois High School 2 Career Reading or downloading information You browse our sites anonymously, and personal information is not collected. We gather and analyze data regarding usage of our websites, including domain name (the name of your Internet service provider), the number of hits to our sites, pages visited, and time and length of a user’s session. We use this information to evaluate and improve the content, appearance and utility of the sites and to track our visitors’ use of the sites for internal market research or other business purposes. Sending us an e-mail If you send us an e-mail containing comments, concerns or suggestions, we will use your e-mail address only to send you a response. Your e-mail address will not be forwarded to any third parties without your permission. Using our calculators or planning tools Personal information is stored only temporarily to complete the calculations required by the user. None of the calculated results or information is retained. The only information that is retained is that someone anonymously used one of our tools. Using links we provide to other sites The tool contains links to other websites. While we make every effort to protect your information on our tool, please be aware that we do not control the policies or content of other sites and cannot protect personal information you provide on other sites (including those we may link to). Please do not assume that our privacy policy covers those other sites. To review or update information provided to: Illinois Student Assistance Commission Telephone: 1(847)831–8351 8 a.m. to 5 p.m., Monday through Friday (Central Time) Write: Illinois Student Assistance Commission 1755 Lake Cook Road, Deerfield 60015 Disclaimer The information in this website is provided by the State of Illinois (“the State”) as a public service. Every effort has been made to offer the most current, correct and clearly expressed information. Nevertheless, inadvertent errors in information may occur. If inaccurate, misleading or otherwise inappropriate information is brought to our attention, a reasonable effort will be made to fix or remove it. The information contained in this website, whether express or implied, is not legally binding upon the State. No action by the user should be taken in reliance upon the information contained herein. The State disclaims any responsibility or liability for the user's loss due to his/her reliance upon said information. Information should be verified by the user by calling the Illinois Student Assistance Commission, the state agency responsible for maintaining the website at 1(847)831–8351. The State is obligated to act in compliance with state and federal laws and policies that govern the subject matter of and the data provided on this website. Accordingly, notwithstanding any information contained in this website, such laws and policies shall control. Contacting the Website If you have any questions about these terms of use, the practices of this site, or your dealings with this website, you can contact: Illinois Student Assistance Commission 1755 Lake Cook Road, Deerfield 60015 The State reserves the right, at its discretion, to modify, add or remove portions of this Privacy Policy at any time. You should check this page periodically for changes. Your continued use of this tool following the posting of changes to this Privacy Policy will mean that you accept those changes.