Alabama has more college-educated adults than it did 10 years ago, but the gains — and the wages tied to them — vary sharply across the state, according to a new report from the Alabama Commission on Higher Education.
The State and Regional Workforce Profiles report compares two points in time, 2014 and 2024, for Alabama, other states and the nation as a whole.
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It also examines how education, wages and labor force participation differ across Alabama’s seven workforce regions.
Patrick Kelly, ACHE’s assistant director for Workforce Alignment, said those metrics answer three basic questions.
“How educated are we? Are we participating? And what do we get in return?” Kelly said.
ACHE has produced regional workforce reports for several years, but this is the first time the agency has compared Alabama’s progress with other states.
Kelly said that broader comparison matters because Alabama can improve its own numbers without gaining ground nationally if other states are improving faster.
“With snapshots, you get our current ranking, but it’s an ongoing competition,” he said. “Everybody can improve, and you can improve as well, but you can still lose your competitive advantage.”
Alabama’s education numbers show both sides of that equation.
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EDITOR’S NOTE — This story was written by Trisha Powell Crain and originally published by Alabama Daily News.
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