Entry Level Wages Over Time shows the trend of median annual wages for students one year after completing various education levels. The report also shows the number of employed completers whose wages are being summarized.

The data help us understand how entry level wages have differed over time for students who completed their education in Michigan by education level. A download data file link is below the graph and provides all data displayed.

Exploring the Entry Level Wages Over Time report can answer questions like:

Are certain education level completers seeing higher entry level wages than from five years ago? 

Compare the endpoints of each data line representing education levels to determine what student group saw the highest increase across five years. 

To calculate Entry Level Wages Over Time, wage records are matched to the education records of those employed to ascertain the highest education level received and wages earned. Students are included if they received their high school or postsecondary education in Michigan and are currently employed in Michigan. Students may have earned their college certificate or degree from an out-of-state college or university. Students who are continuing in education are excluded from the report. 

A cohort of students is then determined for calculating median wages one year after their award completion. For example, students who earned their award in 2016-17 and are no longer enrolled make up the base population for the 2017-18 Year of Employment value. Former students can be counted in different education levels across multiple years, but are only counted once per year. 

Median wages are calculated by educational attainment ranging from students who did not complete their high school diploma through students who earned a master’s or higher degree. Median wages have been rounded to the nearest $100. There must be at least 10 former students employed for a median wage to be calculated.

Report Labels

Entry Level Wage: The point at which half of workers earned more than that amount and half earned less four quarters after the data of completing an education level.

Education Level: No high school diploma, high school diploma, certificate, associate degree, bachelor’s degree, and master’s or higher degree.

Year of Employment: Represented by four quarters (or one year) of wage data. For example, 2017-18 represents third quarter 2017 through second quarter 2018 wage data.

Number Employed: The number of former students whose wages were used in the median annual wage calculation.

 Data Collection

The Center for Educational Performance and Information, National Student Clearinghouse and the Michigan Department of Labor and Economic Opportunity-Workforce Development collected the data used to complete this report:

• Student Transcript and Academic Record Repository to locate enrollment in a Michigan public community college or university. For details on the data definitions and how the data are collected, refer to the STARR Data Collection Manual.
• The NSC StudentTracker database to locate enrollment from out-of-state or non-STARR participating colleges or universities. For a list of all colleges and universities that CEPI has available in its postsecondary data system, refer to the Postsecondary Entity List.
• Unemployment insurance wage record data submitted by employers through Michigan’s Unemployment Insurance Agency.