About half of Washington's public high-school graduates aren't enrolled at any college sixteen months after graduation. What happens to them has always been the missing half of the story — until you look at the state's wage records. ERDC links every public-school graduating cohort to Washington's unemployment-insurance wage files and publishes median earnings by school, by years since graduation, and by the highest credential a graduate ever earns. For graduates whose highest credential is a high-school diploma, that's a direct, building-level answer to "what do the kids who don't go to college end up making?"
The college premium is real — but it takes three years to show up
WA ERDC High School Graduate Outcomes — Earnings
For the first two years out of high school, graduates who go straight to work out-earn the ones who will eventually hold a bachelor's degree — most of whom are still in class. The lines cross in year three, and the gap never closes again: by year fifteen, the bachelor's-or-higher median is $88,300 against $51,800 for diploma-only graduates. Spread over a career, that's the college premium in Washington's own administrative data, not in a survey.
The apprenticeship anomaly
WA ERDC High School Graduate Outcomes — Earnings
Graduates whose highest credential is a completed registered apprenticeship out-earn every other group — including bachelor's-and-higher graduates — at every single year the state measures. At year ten the medians are $103,700 against $69,900, and it isn't an hours story: apprenticeship completers logged a median 1,968 hours that year against 1,920 for degree holders, which works out to roughly $53 an hour against $36.
Where the non-college path pays: geography, not prestige
| Snohomish County | $35,200 | |
| King County | $32,550 | |
| Skagit County | $32,500 | |
| Franklin County | $32,150 | |
| Whatcom County | $31,600 | |
| Pierce County | $31,500 | |
| Okanogan County | $28,100 | |
| Walla Walla County | $27,400 | |
| Kitsap County | $27,200 | |
| Clark County | $26,500 |
WA ERDC High School Graduate Outcomes — Earnings
The map of where diploma-only graduates earn the most is a map of Washington's industrial labor markets. Snohomish County — the aerospace and manufacturing belt — leads the state, and the individual-school leaderboard is the working ring around the Sound plus the agricultural Columbia Basin: five Snohomish County schools, the Cascade-foothills districts, and Warden in Grant County.
| School | Median earnings, 5 years out |
|---|---|
| Kentlake High School (Kent) | $37,700 |
| Warden High School (Grant County) | $37,500 |
| Enumclaw High School | $36,900 |
| Arlington High School | $36,900 |
| Bonney Lake High School | $36,700 |
| Granite Falls High School | $36,600 |
| White River High School (Buckley) | $36,400 |
| Monroe High School | $36,400 |
| Glacier Peak High School (Snohomish) | $36,300 |
| Snohomish High School | $36,200 |
Universe: 228 comprehensive public high schools (enrollment ≥200, reported postsecondary cohort) with at least 300 year-5 wage records.
Here is the finding that should change how school lists get read: across the 266 comprehensive high schools with both numbers, the correlation between a school's 4-year college matriculation rate and what its diploma-only graduates earn is zero — r = 0.00. Mercer Island, the state's #1 school for 4-year matriculation at 75%, posts diploma-only earnings of $27,600; Granite Falls, where about a fifth of graduates go to a 4-year college, beats it by $9,000. A school's college pipeline tells you nothing about how its non-college graduates fare — that's set by the local labor market.