We recently shared our 2023-2024 placement rates as part of our 2024 Community Impact Report. We have shared placement rates every year in our community impact reports but we got a couple of questions about the numbers we shared this year which in turn suggested that it might be time again to take a deeper dive into  the source of the placement / student outcome stats that we share every year and the methodology by which those stats are created. 

THEC’s annual reports

So starting from the beginning - NSS is regulated by the Tennessee Higher Education Commission (THEC) as an adult vocation school. We’re what’s called in Tennessee an approved post-secondary school. Every year THEC compiles and publishes reports on student outcomes and demographics for all approved post-secondary schools covering the prior state fiscal year (state fiscal years in TN start on July 1st and end on June 30th the following year). THEC has been compiling the reports on NSS since 2016-2017 and recently posted their annual report for 2023-2024. The placement stats we shared in our just published community impact report for (calendar year) 2024 came from the THEC annual report of NSS student outcomes for (state fiscal year) 2023-2024. 

The good news about the Tennessee outcomes reporting methodology is that it exists and makes the information publicly available. Having a consistent state-wide reporting methodology allows prospective students to evaluate and compare similar schools. We’ve come to realize that many states have no similar public reporting mechanism for vocational schools (and let’s not even talk about trying to find useful outcomes data for colleges and universities). However, the Tennessee system has a couple of quirks that we’ll explain below.  Those quirks need to be understood in order to accurately assess a school’s performance, especially in years with slow job markets. 

We’re appreciative of the fact that Tennessee has such a reporting system because as a non-profit we feel that transparency is important. That’s easier in good years, when the job market is hot and average job search times are relatively short and placement rates are high, than in not-so-good years. And by our standards last year was a not-so-good year. But we still shared our outcomes in the Community Impact Report as we do in our monthly information sessions and when we discuss admissions with individual prospective students. 

The THEC annual report includes a breakdown of each program, past and present, offered by NSS as well as an “overall” column that combines student outcomes and demographics for all programs. The combined overall placement rate is what we share annually in our Community Impact Report. 

Before we dive in further, here are a few timelines that are important to understand when reviewing a THEC annual report.

1. Each report covers students who were active during a single state fiscal year–so between July 1, 2023, and June 30, 2024 for the most recent report. 
2. Only students who graduate during the fiscal year are considered in the placement rate. (Active students as of June 30th roll over to the next fiscal year.)
3. NSS had until October 15, 2024 to submit placements and demographic information to THEC. That means graduates had until Oct. 15th to find employment, and report that employment to NSS, in order for us to report them as "placed." This means students graduating very early in the state fiscal year have over a year to find a job while those that graduate in April, May, and June have 3 - 5 months. This is the principal quirk that we see in the Tennessee reporting system - it would be a more fair system if all graduates had equivalent job search periods. 
4. Once the October 15th deadline passes, the official placement statistics are locked in and cannot be updated, even as graduates find employment after this date. These statistics are the only ones the state regulations allow us to share, no matter what happens after Oct. 15. 

Placement rate

As we shared in our 2024 Community Impact Report, our placement rate for graduates from July 2023 to June 2024 who were placed by Oct. 15, 2024 was 48%. This placement rate is well below our historical average and clearly reflects the reduced number of junior tech jobs available and the resulting longer job search times. 

The 48% placement rate means that 164 students who graduated during the state fiscal year were able to secure a job using the skills they learned at NSS by October 15, 2024. It does not mean that our unplaced graduates from that year have not subsequently found positions or are not continuing their job searches. Fully a third of our students graduated between late April and the end of June, giving them only 3-5 months of search time to find their first tech job. In years with good job markets, as in most years prior to 2023, 3 to 5 months is adequate for many graduates to find jobs, but in years with slow job markets, it’s simply not enough time. 

We recommend you read the Community Impact Report and review the Monthly Job Postings chart included in the impact report so that you can understand the challenge our graduates have faced in securing their first tech job over the past couple of years. We plan to go deeper into this data in a future blog post. The Impact Report also shares how we’re increasing support for our Seekers and reducing cohort sizes to match the current job market.

When is a graduate considered placed?

We share the same end-goal as our graduates–for them to be hired in roles where they’re using skills they learned at NSS. We, and THEC, call this an in-field placement. When a graduate notifies us (or we hear through the grapevine) that they have a job, we send them a placement survey. In this placement survey, the graduate tells us about their new job. We collect data on their new job title and company, on the technologies they expect to use on the job, and their starting salary. We also ask them directly, “Did the skills you learned at NSS help you get the job?” Very few answer this question with a no, but if they do, we review their job title and the technologies they shared and follow up with the graduate if necessary.

In-field placements include full-time, part-time, and contract roles.

What doesn’t count as an in-field placement? Volunteer work. Some of our grads will take on volunteer work to keep their skills sharp while they’re searching for employment. This can give them another project to highlight on their resume and in interviews, but it's not their end goal.

When is a graduate considered not-placed?

In the THEC methodology, graduates who have not secured an in-field placement by Oct. 15th are considered not placed. This includes graduates who couldn’t wait out the job market and returned to their prior non-technical career or found other employment not using the skills they learned at NSS but it also includes those who simply are continuing their job search. 

Some of our graduates don’t pursue a job search or end their search before the reporting year is up due to special circumstances. These can include continuing their education (such as pursuing a degree), a health or family issue, or full-time military service. These graduates are considered by THEC to be “special circumstance non-placement” and are not counted towards or against the placement rate. 

So what about graduates who get a job after October 15th?

State regulations only allow us to share the official state-audited placement rate. So while we continue to track and celebrate placements, they do not impact the official placement rate. Since graduates continue to get jobs after the Oct. 15th cutoff, the placement rate we share is the lowest it will ever be for graduates from that fiscal year. And by the time the placement rate is published, the number of placements will have increased. 

Our support for our graduates doesn’t end on October 15th. If they are continuing their job search, we support their efforts until they find their first job in tech. Over the next few weeks, we’ll be diving into how we prepare students for their job search and support them after graduation, taking a deeper look at monthly job postings for software developers and data analysts, and sharing recent reports and articles on how these careers are evolving, but not going away.

Note: In the 2024 Community Impact Report we linked to a prior blog post talking about how student outcomes were calculated, but the link to THEC in that post was broken. THEC recently reorganized their website and changed the URL. We updated the link as soon as we discovered it, but wanted to acknowledge that there was a broken link.