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Privacy Policy

Information Collection and Sharing

NC TOWER is strongly committed to maintaining the privacy of your personal information and the security of our computer systems. With respect to the collection, use and disclosure of personal information, NC TOWER makes every effort to ensure compliance with applicable Federal and state law, including but not limited to, the Privacy Act of 1974, the Paperwork Reduction Act of 1995, and the Freedom of Information Act.

NC TOWER maintains logs of site usage in order to improve the site. We gather information such as the date and time users access the site, how often users visit the site, the pages users visit within the site, the links made to other websites through the site, the internet domain and IP address from which you access the site, how often content is accessed, frequency of responses for assessment questions and average length of user session. Information is sent to Google Analytics and the data is immediately aggregated. Neither NC TOWER nor Google ever have access to the specifics of your site visits.

Website Security

For website security purposes and to ensure that this service remains available to all users, NC TOWER employs software programs to monitor network traffic to identify unauthorized attempts to upload or change information, or otherwise cause damage. Use of this site constitutes consent to such monitoring. Unauthorized attempts to upload information and/or change information on this website are strictly prohibited and subject to legal action to include the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act of 1986 and National Infrastructure Protection Act of 1996.

Email

If you e-mail us and include personal information, we may use that information in responding to your request. E-mail is not necessarily secure or confidential. Send only the information that is necessary for us to answer your question. The e-mail is subject to the North Carolina Public Records Law and is not confidential unless a specific provision has been made in the law.

Cookies

We do not use persistent cookies on our website. Temporary or session cookies are used on NC TOWER pages to temporarily save information entered by a user as long as the user’s browser is open. These cookies do not collect personal information and are erased as soon as you close your web browser.

Links to Other Sites

Our site provides links to other websites. The privacy policies described here do not necessarily apply to any external sites.

This Privacy Policy was last updated on July 7, 2022.

Graduates by Year
Total graduates for selected graduation years
Employment Location
NC regions where graduates from all graduation years were employed in 2025
Top Employment Sectors
Top 5 sectors by total employment, first year after graduation, total for all selected years
Median Wage
Median annual wage earnings by year after graduation
Employment by Industry
Number employed per sector
Years after graduation:
Mean Wage by Industry
Average annual earnings by industry of employment
Years after graduation:
Employment by Industry over Time
Employment Rate (%) by industry sector across years after graduation
Graduation year:
Overall Post-Secondary Enrollment Rate
Enrollment Rate (%) by years after graduation
Further Enrollment by Type
Number of students enrolled after graduation by post-secondary enrollment type
Years after graduation:
Enrollment Rate Trend by Type
Enrollment Rate (%) across years after graduation, by post-secondary enrollment type
Graduation year:
Employment Rate Trend
Employment Rate (%) by years after graduation
Mean Wage
Average annual wage earnings by year after graduation
Median Wage
Median annual wage earnings by year after graduation
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The charts on this page show a few ways NC TOWER data can be put to work: analyzing outcomes, telling stories, and uncovering trends

Which bachelor’s degree programs have the highest share of graduates who pursue a graduate degree?
Share of UNC Audiology and Speech-Language Pathology bachelor’s graduates who pursued graduate education
Which bachelor’s degree programs lead to the highest earnings?
Median annual earnings for 2015 UNC Computer Engineering graduates
Which community college programs have the highest share of graduates who go on to work in Manufacturing?
Top industries of employment for NCCCS Computer-Integrated Machining graduates five years after graduation (Class of 2020)
Graduating Into a Recession vs. a Boom: Does Timing Matter?
Real Average Wage Earnings in the First Year After Graduation vs. Jobseekers per Job Opening
Average wage is adjusted to 2023 price levels using the CPI. Data on Jobseekers per Job Opening is provided by the Labor Supply and Demand Analyzer.
About NC TOWER

NC TOWER: North Carolina’s Tool for Online Workforce and Education Reporting
NC TOWER provides aggregate information on students who attended public universities, high schools, and community colleges in North Carolina — including programs of study, degrees attained, further enrollment, and wage and employment information.

NC TOWER is maintained by the Labor and Economic Analysis Division (LEAD) of the North Carolina Department of Commerce.

Data are derived from the NC Common Follow-up System (CFS), a longitudinal repository of workforce and education data going back to the late 1990s, maintained collaboratively by NC DIT’s Government Data Analytics Center and LEAD.

Student data are submitted to the CFS by the UNC System, NC Community College System, and NC Department of Public Instruction.

The employment and earnings data are derived from information provided by employers to the state unemployment insurance system operated by the Department of Commerce’s Division of Employment Security (DES).

NC Commerce Labor & Economic Analysis NC Common Follow-up System NC Department of Public Instruction NC Community College System The University of North Carolina System
About the Data

The data available in NC TOWER can be downloaded in Comma Separated Values (CSV) format for further reporting and analysis. Some data has been suppressed (hidden) to protect the privacy of students and employers. A value of -1 represents a suppressed value of a record. Due to their size, these data sets cannot be opened in basic spreadsheet software packages. New data will be added to NC TOWER on an annual basis.

NC Department of Public Instruction
DPI Graduates Counts DPI Graduates Main Outcomes DPI Graduates Enrollment by Type DPI Graduates Employment by Industry
NC Community College System
NCCCS Graduates Counts NCCCS Graduates Main Outcomes NCCCS Graduates Enrollment by Type NCCCS Graduates Employment by Industry
UNC System
UNC Graduates Counts UNC Graduates Main Outcomes UNC Graduates Enrollment by Type UNC Graduates Employment by Industry
Frequently Asked Questions
Two reasons account for slight discrepancies: (1) NC TOWER counts unique individuals enrolled or graduating during the July 1–June 30 program year, which may differ from fall semester or degrees-conferred counts used by agencies. (2) Records with invalid Social Security Numbers are excluded to maintain data integrity, meaning NC TOWER counts will be slightly lower than agency statistics.
NC TOWER measures post-graduate outcomes starting one quarter after degree conferral. “After 1 Year” covers the four quarters following graduation. Mean wages reflect the sum of wages in those four quarters; quarters with no wages earned are excluded. Wage data is not adjusted for inflation.
NC TOWER always counts unique individuals. A student majoring in both History and Sociology is counted once per major and once in the total. The same applies to employment sectors — a graduate working in both Retail and Education during year one is counted once in each sector but only once in total employment.
Covered employment includes all jobs subject to NC unemployment insurance tax laws (Chapter 96, Article 2 of the NC General Statutes), representing over 90% of NC’s total employment. Not included:
  • Self-employed individuals
  • Federal government and military employees
  • Individuals working outside North Carolina
Industry sectors are based on NAICS “supersectors” used by the BLS Quarterly Census of Employment and Wages. Within NC TOWER, Retail Trade, Educational Services, and Health Care and Social Assistance have been broken out of their BLS-designated supersectors. Graduates working for employers with an unknown industry sector are not reported.
Enrollment after graduation reflects the number of graduates enrolled in further education at NC public higher-ed institutions. A student’s enrollment status is determined by examining enrollment records across the four quarters representing a given number of years after graduation.
Employment rates reflect the number of graduates employed in covered employment in NC. An individual’s yearly employment status is determined by examining quarterly UI wage records across the four quarters representing a given number of years after graduation. When a student graduated multiple times in a school year, the last relevant graduation date is used as the reference point.
Median wage reflects the 50th percentile annual wage of employed graduates. Annual wages are the sum of quarterly UI wages across the four quarters following graduation. Graduates not employed in NC covered employment ($0 annual wages) are excluded from percentile calculations. Note that median wages by sector may be lower than overall median wages because a graduate working part of the year in one sector will have lower sector wages than total wages.
Even though all NC TOWER data are reported in aggregated form, some numbers are withheld as needed to prevent disclosure of personally identifiable information (PII). Suppressed values are shown as “*” throughout the dashboard.