Overview & Methodologies

Updated 01/02/2026

Overview

Use of this interactive tool allows users to explore trends and compare student outcomes for systemwide student success metrics. The data views are designed to help community college faculty, administrators, and partners explore how student populations are performing across different programs and colleges in the Los Angeles region.  Comparative benchmarks for the college, LA region, and statewide are provided to aid interpretation and place the data in a broader context. Please review the Data Caveats and Disclaimers before analyzing and drawing any final conclusions based on the data displayed.

The views display metrics for colleges in the LA region from DataVista, California Community College Chancellor's Office (CCCCO) metrics platform, which is populated by LA colleges' MIS data submission and other CCCCO data sources. Metrics are available for all 19 LA colleges by sector or program (TOP4, TOP6) and by student demographics with benchmarks provided for the LA region and statewide. Data is from the DataVista 2.2 Release for the Snapshot view of General Admit Students with the data sets delivered to the Centers of Excellence in August 2025.

Metrics are organized into three groupings: Progress, Success, Employment & Earnings or Workforce. For the first release in winter 2026, four metrics are available for Employment & Earnings with plans for additional Progress and Success metrics to be added later in 2026.  Drilldowns on the data are available for Age, Economically Disadvantaged, Ethnicity, and Gender.

Three views of the metrics are provided to accommodate different uses of the data: 

1. Explore Time Trends & Equity for Programs at a LA College

2. Compare Programs at a LA College

3. Compare a Program across LA Colleges
   
   

Methodologies

FERPA Suppression: In accordance with the CCCCO Guidelines for Suppression on DataVista for Family Education Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA), the data  provided by the CCCCO for inclusion in the LA dashboards are already suppressed, and no further FERPA suppression is needed. In order to provide actionable student population data, generated or manufactured categories for gender and ethnicity have been removed including: All Masked Values, Multiple Values Reported, Unknown/Non-Respondent, and Unknown. 

3-Year Averages: Weighted averages are used for the calculation of 3-year averages displayed on the two Comparison views. For metrics where the percentage displayed is the value divided by the denominator, Attained the Living Wage (802) and Job in Field of Study (701), the sum of the values is divided by the sum of the denominators for the latest 3 years of data available to calculate and display a weighted 3-year average. For other metrics, Median Annual Earnings (800) and Median Change in Earnings (801), the denominator for each year is multiplied by the value and also divided by the sum of the denominators for the latest 3 years of data available to calculate and display a weighted 3-year average. Based on the selections made, if any of the latest three years are missing for a metric, then a 3-year average is neither calculated nor displayed. 

When summing the data for values and denominators across the three years, students are not deduplicated. Therefore, a student may be counted more than once in the 3-year averages displayed if that student met the metric outcome or was included in the metric denominator in more than one of the three years included. Since student level data from DataVista is not provided to the Centers of Excellence for Labor Market Research, then there is no way to deduplicate students for these averages.