Analyzing the Long-Term Outcomes of Postsecondary Education in Alberta
Governments invest substantially in postsecondary education, but understanding the full value of that investment requires looking beyond enrolment and graduation. Senior decisionmakers need reliable evidence about what happens afterward: how graduates fare in the labour market, how outcomes differ across programs, and whether graduates remain in the jurisdiction where they studied.
Beginning in 2020, Alberta Advanced Education (AAE) engaged Blueprint to support the Benefits to Post-Secondary Education Project, an initiative led by the Government of Alberta. The project demonstrates how governments can use existing administrative data to answer important policy questions without creating new reporting burdens for students or institutions.
Blueprint analyzed data from Statistics Canada’s Education and Labour Market Longitudinal Platform. The platform links post-secondary and apprenticeship records with tax data, creating a longitudinal view of graduates’ employment income and province of taxation in the years following graduation or trade certification.
Working with these data required Blueprint to translate broad policy questions into rigorous analytical plans. We produced detailed tabulations by institution, credential, and field of study, alongside reports examining graduate earnings, geographic retention, and taxes paid. Repeated rounds of analysis allowed Alberta to update its evidence as new cohorts and additional years of tax data became available.
The work went beyond reporting overall averages. Blueprint tracked cohorts over time, examined differences across credentials and fields of study, and assessed how outcomes varied under changing economic conditions. Our analysis also explored graduate mobility, including how retention differed by student origin, credential, and area of study. Where the evidence supported deeper investigation, we used statistical and counterfactual analysis to examine factors that might help explain observed patterns while clearly communicating the limits of what the data could establish.
Blueprint translated this technical work into accessible public reports. The reports explain the methodology and privacy protections underpinning the analysis, present findings through clear visualizations, and help readers interpret differences across groups and over time. This makes the evidence useful to government while also supporting greater transparency for institutions, prospective students, and the public.
This work demonstrates Blueprint’s ability to connect secure administrative data with practical policy questions. We help public institutions move from complex datasets to credible, decision-ready evidence that can strengthen planning, improve public reporting, and show how investments translate into long-term outcomes.
Research and resources
Our team and partners live and work on the traditional territory of many Indigenous people across Turtle Island. Blueprint’s home office is situated in the area known as Tkaronto, an area that has been caretaken by the Anishinabek Nation, the Haudenosaunee Confederacy, and the Huron-Wendat for thousands of years. We strive to meaningfully incorporate principles of reconciliation with First Nations, Inuit, and Métis peoples in our day-to-day work, as is our collective responsibility as treaty people, which requires ongoing reflection and collective action.
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