Frequently Asked Questions

How current is this information?
The employment and student characteristics information covers all students who left a training program between 2001 and 2004. The website is currently being redesigned, which has delayed the annual data update for several months. Data for all training programs will be updated again in the Fall of 2007. The program information is maintained by each school. The program information page displays the date of the most recent update.

How accurate is the employment and earnings information?
We check state Unemployment Insurance records of people employed in Washington and most other states. If students who have completed a vocational program are found in these records, they are counted as "employed" and their earnings are counted in the typical wage and earnings numbers. We do not find all workers by using this method. Some could be self-employed, working for certain non-profit organizations, working on a family farm, or working in a state that does not provide us employment records. The reported employment numbers might be low for programs that typically result in this type of employment, when the actual employment rate could be high.

How many schools are included on this site?
All training programs on the Washington href="http://www.wtb.wa.gov/etp/">Eligible Training Provider List are included in Job Training Results. Currently included are nearly all job preparatory degree and certificate programs at all 34 Community and Technical Colleges, over 500 programs at over 200 private career schools and nearly 500 programs from the public and private colleges and universities across the State. Information on 32 registered Apprenticeship programs is also available.

Why can't I see all the information about a program?
To protect the confidentiality of students and to provide more reliable information, we will only publish employment data if there are 15 or more graduates who are working. Similarly, we will only publish student characteristics if there are at least 10 students who left the program. Some programs do not have any employment or student information displayed because they are new programs that have not had any graduates yet, or are small programs that train very few people. Note: All programs will be updated with new data in January 2007.

Why do you discourage users from making comparisons between programs?
The employment and earnings information for programs listed on this site depend on many factors, only one of which is the "quality" of the program. The types of students a program attracts and the college's location will both have a large impact on the wages of program completers. For example, would you expect a group of 20 year old students who went straight from high school to college to earn the same amount as a group of 40 year old laid-off Boeing workers who completed a similar program? Would you expect someone coming out of a program in Moses Lake to find a job in their area that pays the same amount as a job secured by a person coming out of a program in the Puget Sound area? For this and other reasons, we strongly discourage the use of this site for making comparisons between similar programs.

When will the data be updated again?
All data was updated in March 2006. The website is currently being redesigned, which has delayed the annual data update for several months. Data for all training programs will be updated again in the Fall of 2007. Data is typically updated on an annual basis. Schools/organizations can update their program information at any time.