Utah Credential–Labor Alignment
Where Utah graduates more students than local jobs suggest, and where the opposite appears true.
- 19,184 Utah students finished credentials in Education in 2023–24—the field with the steepest graduate-to-job ratio (194 graduates per 1,000 mapped local jobs).
- Health professions and computer science also graduate large cohorts relative to Utah employment totals in related occupation groups.
- Strada rates Utah Advanced on employer alignment, yet only 65.0% of Utah credentials show positive ROI vs. 70.0% nationally. That is 5.0 percentage points below the national share.
- At the other end, Philosophy and religion produced fewer than 200 graduates while mapped related employment topped 124,650.
State leaders often ask whether Utah colleges are training students for jobs that exist here. Two public data streams speak to that question in different ways. Strada's State Opportunity Index scores whether typical credentials pay off after cost. Federal completion and wage files let us compare how many students finish in each broad field against how many people already work in related occupations statewide.
Neither measure is a forecast. A high graduate-to-job ratio does not mean graduates cannot find work—many leave the state, change fields, or fill jobs outside our occupation mapping. A low ratio does not guarantee shortage pay. Together, the benchmarks below show where local supply and demand look most out of balance—and where Utah's overall ROI lags the nation despite strong employer-alignment marks.
Credential ROI: Utah vs. the nation
The State Opportunity Index aggregates program-level earnings and cost data. Utah earns Strada's Advanced rating on employer alignment—employers and colleges coordinate more than in most states—but a smaller share of Utah credentials clear Strada's positive-ROI threshold than nationwide. Program-level pay and debt by major appear in our Program ROI snapshot.
Source: Strada Education Foundation · 2025 State Opportunity Index
Strada defines positive ROI as typical earnings exceeding credential cost within a benchmark window; not the same as graduates-per-job ratios below.
Local supply and demand by field
We sum 268,260 IPEDS completions across Utah institutions in 2023–24. About 128,856 fall into CIP families we can map to BLS occupation groups. For each field, we divide annual graduates by related Utah employment (OEWS May 2024) and scale to graduates per 1,000 jobs.
Source: IPEDS completions 2023–24 · BLS OEWS Utah May 2024
Education maps to postsecondary teaching occupations only; K–12 hiring uses different classifications.
Fields graduating many students per 1,000 local jobs
Education tops the list: Utah colleges issued nearly 20,000 education credentials while our crosswalk counts fewer than 100,000 related postsecondary teaching and training jobs statewide. Health and computing show similar pressure—large graduating classes against six-figure employment totals in mapped occupation groups.
| Field | Graduates | Related jobs | Per 1k jobs | Median wage |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Education | 19,184 | 98,960 | 193.9 | $65K |
| Health professions | 26,015 | 160,770 | 161.8 | $62K |
| Computer and information sciences | 13,565 | 104,310 | 130.0 | $97K |
| Liberal arts and sciences | 18,960 | 253,340 | 74.8 | $65K |
| Engineering | 2,949 | 49,550 | 59.5 | $82K |
| Business | 22,242 | 387,340 | 57.4 | $68K |
| Homeland security and law enforcement | 1,166 | 26,310 | 44.3 | $58K |
| Visual and performing arts | 2,453 | 64,050 | 38.3 | $59K |
Source: IPEDS completions 2023–24 · BLS OEWS Utah May 2024
Low ratios can reflect broad occupation mappings (e.g., liberal-arts-linked management jobs) or genuine hiring demand.
Fields graduating few students per 1,000 local jobs
Small programs in philosophy, architecture, and precision production sit at the opposite extreme—fewer than four graduates per 1,000 mapped jobs in several cases. Some reflect narrow CIP definitions; others, such as precision production, may deserve attention from workforce planners even when related employment is large.
| Field | Graduates | Related jobs | Per 1k jobs | Median wage |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Philosophy and religion | 101 | 124,650 | 0.8 | $65K |
| Architecture | 178 | 161,210 | 1.1 | $106K |
| Science technologies | 117 | 100,570 | 1.2 | $83K |
| Natural resources | 176 | 146,570 | 1.2 | $73K |
| Communications technologies | 196 | 97,480 | 2.0 | $97K |
| History | 316 | 115,730 | 2.7 | $73K |
| Multi/interdisciplinary studies | 839 | 227,390 | 3.7 | $106K |
| Precision production | 811 | 214,900 | 3.8 | $51K |
Supply = IPEDS completions by CIP 2-digit family. Demand = sum of Utah OEWS employment in mapped SOC major groups. Ratio is illustrative, not a forecast. Median wage is the median of related OEWS occupations in mapped SOC groups, not graduate starting pay.
Updated 2026-06-24. Sources: IPEDS Completions 2023-24 (Utah study universe), BLS OEWS Utah May 2024, CIP2→SOC crosswalk (Data/workforce/cip2-soc-crosswalk.json).