Projections of Educational Attainment of the Labor Force Aged Population in Texas

Xiuhong You, University of Texas at San Antonio
Lloyd Potter, University of Texas at San Antonio

Texas has one of the highest percentages of adults without a high school diploma suggesting concern about the skilled workforce in the future. We project the education composition the Texas adult population for the next 40 years under two scenarios. In the first, we use 2001 to 2010 ACS PUMS to generate trends in educational attainment by age, sex and race/ethnic groups. Multinomial regression is used to produce education composition rates by age, sex and race/ethnicity at eight educational attainment levels. These rates, applied to population projections produce education attainment projections. In the second scenario we assume constant age-sex-race specific educational attainment. Results using trends suggest the education attainment of Texas’ labor force will improve, although the Hispanics will continue to be the most poorly educated race/ethnic group. Constant rates of education attainment, suggest the education of the labor force in Texas will decline. Policy implications are discussed.