The data systems states use to track students’ progress over time from pre-K to career have taken on new importance as educators and lawmakers try to keep up with rapidly shifting workforce needs.
But state leaders fear an unstable future for those efforts as they confront declining funding and shifts in state priorities, finds a new report from the Education Commission of the States, a nonpartisan research organization.
The rapid growth of artificial intelligence, the popularization of alternative career pathways like apprenticeships, and a changing global economy have fueled urgency for states and schools to dig into data and identify policies that support the most successful trajectories for students. But will their current data systems be up to the task?
“State leaders are considering how all of these big shifts in the labor market will affect people in their states,” said Claus von Zastrow, a senior policy director at the organization. “If they don’t have really robust data systems at a time when [the workforce] is changing really fast, then they are going to be making changes in the dark.”
Statewide longitudinal data systems securely collect multiple data points—like grades, course completion, and wages—about individual students over time and across sectors. Depending on the state, that data often spans from early childhood to K-12 to college and beyond to military service and careers. It can be analyzed to look for trends that inform student career planning, school improvement, and policy.
“It creates a much clearer sense of how people are faring from all of those really crucial transitions from one level of education to the next,” von Zastrow said. “And it allows us to see whether the things we are doing are actually having the impact we want over time.”
States aim to use data in innovative ways
The Education Commission of the States identified 32 states with active longitudinal data systems that connect data across at least two sectors. Twenty-seven of those states responded to a survey conducted in February 2025, and researchers conducted follow-up interviews with a panel of anonymous state leaders.
Leaders said they would need more funding and staffing to modernize their systems through strategies like using AI to help analyze troves of data, or creating public-facing interfaces that would allow users to explore trend data about various career and educational choices.
Mostly, they saw benefits for shaping policy and informing the public. Of the 27 leaders surveyed, 23 said research is a “very important” use of their current systems, and 21 said public reporting. Just three states said allowing individual users to interact with their data is “very important.”
The focus on innovation is a big shift from early conversations about data systems 20 years ago, when the queries states had of data were much more simplistic, said Paige Kowalski, the executive vice president of the Data Quality Campaign, an organization that promotes state longitudinal systems.
“Twenty years ago, we were trying to understand how many students graduated [from] each high school every year that started there in 9th grade,” she said.
Now, state leaders are exploring questions about dual enrollment, career outcomes for apprenticeship programs, and other questions that require agile, well-sourced systems, Kowalski said.
Only one state leader responding to the survey said they had no concerns about the long-term sustainability of their data system. Those respondents who were concerned identified primary risks including decreasing state appropriations, shifting state priorities, uncertain grant renewals, and changes in federal policy.
Concerns about state and federal funding
Sixteen leaders said state appropriations are the primary source of funding for their systems, while eight identified federal grants, and two identified private philanthropy as primary funders.
Concerns about sustainability fall against the backdrop of unpredictable moves in federal education policy and funding—often made quickly by President Donald Trump’s administration without the support of Congress.
In June, Trump’s fiscal 2026 budget proposal called for eliminating designated funding for the $28.5 million Statewide Longitudinal Data Systems grant, merging it with five other programs, and reducing their total funding.
That grant, created in 2005, has provided awards totaling more than $930 million to all 50 states to help launch, expand, or improve their data systems. The most recent round of new grants was made in 2023.
Fears about drops in state funding may be sparked by concerns that federal changes to programs like Medicaid and nutrition assistance will saddle states with additional costs, taking away money that could be directed to education, said Kowalski.
State leaders had similar concerns when budgets were strained during the 2008 recession and the 2020 onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, she said. But economic uncertainty created by those events actually led states to invest more in their systems.
“When you see economies start to struggle, unemployment going up … those are really big problems,” Kowalski said. “These are things that get governors’ attention. That’s where these data systems provide the most value. When things are going smoothly, we don’t ask as many questions.”
