ITA Peformance
Completion Rate
Employment Rate
Training-Related Placement Rate
Median Hourly Wage

Requirements: This performance measure is required in the second year of WIA eligibility.

Brief Definition: The median of the wages (converted to $/hour) earned by all students who, within 180 days of successfully completing the program, were gainfully employed in an unsubsidized position.

Training institutions must calculate the median hourly wage of program graduates independently and enter the calculated figure.

• Median Hourly Wage: Enter the median of the wages (converted to $/hour) of all students who, within 180 days of successfully completing the program, were gainfully employed in an unsubsidized position. The median is the hourly wage earned by the individual in the middle of the earnings distribution: half of those with reported wages will earn less on an hourly basis, and half will earn more. If you have an even number of surveys and hence no true center of the earnings distribution, take the two wage-earners in the middle and report the average of their hourly wages.

  The graduates included in the calculation of median hourly wage are those graduates counted as "Employed in an Unsubsidized Position.” This figure must be specific to your graduates. You may not use an industry standard or general earnings data as a substitute for gathering information about the earnings of your specific graduates. The wages of graduates who are considered “employed completers” because they have transferred to another educational institution, entered the military, or become self-employed are not measured for this calculation. The median hourly wage is based on only the wages of those who are in “gainful unsubsidized employment.”

  
  Example:

  Six people graduated from the certificate-level medical assistant program at the ABC school over the course of the reporting year (July 1, 1999-June 30, 2000). Of these, one refused to provide placement and wage status and another could not be located. Surveys determined that two students were employed within 180 days of the date of graduation. One was employed as a medical assistant earning $12.00 per hour, while the other was employed as a telemarketer earning $8.50 per hour. One graduate was unemployed. The final graduate entered a nursing program at another school.

The program median hourly wage rate is $10.25 per hour, or the midpoint between the $8.50 per hour and $12.00 per hour earnings of the two employed graduates whose placement and wage status is known.