Uh Oh. New Cradle-to-Career Database Proposed Involving UC

The governor's January budget proposal includes some funding for a "Cradle-to-Career" database system that is supposed to track students through the entire educational system. UC apparently is supposed to be part of the proposed system.

The Legislative Analyst's Office (LAO) has put out a report on the proposal which very politely notes that "over the past few decades, the state has experienced considerable challenges successfully implementing IT projects." (Within UC, think UCPath.) Not surprisingly, LAO suggests that the legislature approve a slower, more methodical approach toward implementing the project.

Mentioned in the LAO report is the fact that "each public higher education segment has an agreement with the Employment Development Department (EDD) that allows it to identify the quarterly earnings of its graduates. The data are matched using social security numbers, which most students provide when they apply to college." Apparently, the idea of the proposed system is to integrate all of the separate systems the segments have for analytical purposes.

The LAO's report is at https://lao.ca.gov/reports/2021/4409/cradle-career-data-system-032621.pdf.