A Data System for All Californians with Mary Ann Bates

We’re excited to bring you Crystal Clear: A Vision for the Future of California Higher Ed, a new season of Degrees of Change marking our organization’s 15th anniversary—our crystal anniversary.

Throughout this season, we'll delve into some of the toughest issues facing higher education: college affordability, artificial intelligence, the pathways between education and work, supporting underserved students and prospective students like those with children, workers in low-wage jobs, and other underserved and often unseen populations, along with using data to drive equitable outcomes and more.

For our first episode, California Competes CEO Su Jin Jez sits down with Mary Ann Bates, Executive Director of California's Office of Cradle-to-Career Data (C2C)—an initiative linking data across education, workforce, and social services to reveal pathways, outcomes, and opportunity gaps across the state.

Key Topics

• What California's data landscape looked like before C2C—and the vision for something better
• Real examples of how linked data helps answer questions that were previously impossible to tackle
• Why a community co-design approach, rooted in a "listen first, then build" mentality, has been foundational to creating a truly useful resource
• Where the C2C data system is headed and its potential to transform education and workforce outcomes

Our Guest

Mary Ann Bates is the Executive Director of California's Office of Cradle-to-Career Data (C2C). C2C links data across California's education, workforce, and social service agencies to provide a clearer picture of pathways, outcomes, and equity gaps. It offers transparent, actionable insights that help policymakers, educators, and communities understand what works—and importantly, for whom.

Prior to leading C2C, Mary Ann served as a senior fellow in the White House Office of Management and Budget, and prior to that served as the Executive Director of the North America Abdul Latif Jameel Poverty Action Lab at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, which aims to reduce poverty by ensuring that policy is informed by scientific evidence.

In This Episode

• Higher Ed RISE (Higher Education Research Informing Solutions for Excellence): https://californiacompetes.org/higher-ed-rise/
• CalKIDS College Savings Program: https://calkids.org/
• California Labor & Workforce Development Agency: https://www.labor.ca.gov/
• CalFresh (California SNAP Program): https://www.cdss.ca.gov/calfresh
• Medi-Cal (California Medicaid Program): https://www.dhcs.ca.gov/services/medi-cal

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