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Transparency
How we work.
Why it matters.
Most career tools hide their methodology. We publish ours. Here's exactly where our data comes from, how often it updates, and why we built PathDecider the way we did.
Our commitment.
Transparency is why PathDecider was created. Not to sell you something. Not to steer you toward a partner school. To put real, honest, multi-source data in your hands at the moment you need it most.
PathDecider is not endorsed by any school, employer, or institution. We don't take sponsorships. We don't accept advertising. We don't get paid when you choose one path over another. Our only interest is giving you accurate data so you can make better decisions.
The tools are free because the data should be accessible to everyone, not just people who can afford a college counselor. Paid tiers exist because deeper analysis through the PathDecider Matching Engine costs real money to run, and we'd rather charge you directly and stay independent than take sponsor money and compromise our recommendations.
Why multiple sources instead of one.
Most career tools use a single government source, usually BLS. We cross-reference government labor data, education outcome data, public research, and workforce trend reports. Here's why that matters:
1
Every source has blind spots
BLS is excellent for employment stats but slow on emerging roles. O*NET covers skills but not AI risk. No single source tells the full story.
2
Cross-referencing reveals real patterns
When Brookings, Goldman Sachs, and McKinsey all flag the same career as high AI-risk, that's a stronger signal than any one source alone.
3
Government data lags the real world
BLS publishes annually. Real labor markets move faster. Research institutions bridge the gap with more frequent analysis.
4
Salary alone doesn't tell you enough
Salary without AI risk is incomplete. AI risk without education cost is misleading. All factors together give you something actually actionable.
Our data sources.
All listed. Nothing hidden. Sources marked Future are planned, not yet active.
Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS)
U.S. Department of Labor
FreeAPI
Salary data, employment levels, job growth projections, and industry employment trends. The foundational source for career income data in the United States.
O*NET (Occupational Information Network)
U.S. Department of Labor
FreeLive API
Occupational tasks, required skills, work activities, job zone classifications, and SOC codes. The most detailed occupational taxonomy available, connects careers to specific skills and education requirements.
Education and Degree Outcome Data
College Scorecard
U.S. Department of Education
FreeAPI
Real earnings by major AND by specific school, graduation rates, loan repayment rates, and costs for 6,000+ institutions. Makes our Degree ROI tool school-specific rather than generic national averages.
IPEDS, Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System
National Center for Education Statistics
Free
Tuition costs, graduation rates, enrollment, financial aid, and completion data for every accredited U.S. institution, over 7,500 schools. Used to show real school-specific graduation rates and true cost of attendance.
CIP Codes, Classification of Instructional Programs
National Center for Education Statistics
Free
The standardized coding system connecting college degree programs to specific career occupations. The bridge between "what you study" and "what job you actually get." Without CIP codes, degree-to-career matching is guesswork.
Brookings Institution, Workforce Research
Independent nonpartisan research organization
Free
AI and automation displacement risk by occupation, workforce transition research, and labor market policy analysis. One of the most cited sources for AI impact on careers, informs our AI risk ratings.
Graduate Outcome and Underemployment Data
Federal Reserve Bank of New York
Federal Reserve System
Free
Graduate underemployment rates by degree type, wage growth by education level, and labor market tightness. The source behind our "only 27% of graduates work in their field" and "41% underemployment" statistics.
Human Decision Context
Pew Research Center
Independent nonprofit research organization
Free
Public perception of work and career change, generational workforce trends, technology adoption patterns, and attitudes toward education ROI. Helps understand how real people think about career decisions, not just what the numbers say.
McKinsey Global Institute
McKinsey & Company research division
Free
Future of work projections, automation impact by sector, skills transition analysis, and long-term workforce transformation research. Used to inform our longer-range AI risk and career durability assessments.
Goldman Sachs Global Investment Research
Goldman Sachs
Free
Sector-level automation risk, AI economic impact analysis, and workforce displacement projections. Goldman's research on AI and job displacement is a key input into our automation risk assessments.
Public Workforce and Compensation Signals
LinkedIn Workforce Reports
LinkedIn Economic Graph — publicly released research
Free
LinkedIn periodically publishes workforce research including Jobs on the Rise, Skills on the Rise, Workforce Confidence Index, and Economic Graph insights covering hiring trends, skills demand, salary ranges, and career transition patterns. PathDecider incorporates data from these publicly released reports — not via API or platform access.
Glassdoor Compensation and Hiring Data
Glassdoor — publicly released research and surveys
Free
Glassdoor publishes compensation surveys, jobs and hiring trend reports, and annual salary data derived from employee-reported information. PathDecider uses data from these publicly released reports to cross-reference salary estimates and hiring demand. We do not use the Glassdoor API or scrape the platform.
Future Premium Labor-Market Source
Lightcast (formerly EMSI Burning Glass) — Coming in Phase 3
Commercial labor market analytics
FuturePaid
Real-time job posting data, skills demand trends, and salary by zip code. Used by LinkedIn, Indeed, and enterprise HR platforms. When added, it will power live job market data for premium tier users.
What we don't do.
- ✕Take sponsorships or payments from schools, employers, or institutions to feature or promote them.
- ✕Sell your personal data, quiz responses, essay content, or email to third parties.
- ✕Grade your intelligence or potential. The quiz assesses fit, not capability.
- ✕Claim to predict the future. We give you the best available data with honest uncertainty.
- ✕Show inflated accuracy numbers. Free tier is ~70% accurate. We say so. Paid tiers are better. We explain why.
- ✕Hide our update schedule. If our data is from August 2025, we say so.
What we do.
- ✓Update our data manually within two weeks of each source's public release.
- ✓Publish our methodology so you can evaluate the quality of our recommendations yourself.
- ✓Follow up with users 12 months after their assessment to ask: "Did this actually work out?" That feedback improves future recommendations.
- ✓Keep useful free tools available while offering deeper paid reports for users who want more detail.
How PathDecider uses AI.
Consistent and explainable, not creative.
Where accuracy matters, PathDecider is designed to be consistent, not creative. We use AI to organize, compare, and explain structured data — not to invent outcomes. When the same inputs and source settings are used, results should remain stable and explainable.
AI helps summarize and compare evidence, but the goal is structured guidance, not imaginative prediction.
Building a structured decision engine.
PathDecider is designed to grow more accurate over time.
PathDecider is designed to build and maintain its own structured career and education database over time, combining public data, research signals, and tool-specific analysis into a consistent decision engine.
Over time, this allows users to compare how results change when different source groups are emphasized.
I built PathDecider as an educator who watched students make major financial decisions based on bad information, outdated salary data, oversimplified career advice, and guidance shaped by institutional incentives rather than student outcomes.
I'm not a tech company. I don't have venture capital. I have twenty-plus years of watching what happens when young people go in blind. These tools are my attempt to give everyone the honest, data-informed guidance that used to require an expensive counselor or a parent who already knew the system.
If something on this site is wrong or outdated, I want to know.
— PathDecider Founder
Current data freshness.
Last verified: May 2026.
| Source | Last updated | Next expected | Status |
|---|
| BLS Occupational Employment Statistics | May 2025 | May 2026 | ✓ Current |
| O*NET Occupational Database | August 2025 | Q2 2026 | ↻ Update pending |
| College Scorecard | January 2026 | Late 2026 | ✓ Current |
| IPEDS | March 2026 | Fall 2026 | ✓ Current |
| Brookings AI Displacement Research | 2024 major report | As published | ✓ Current |
| Federal Reserve NY Labor Data | Q1 2026 | Q2 2026 | ✓ Current |
| McKinsey / Goldman Sachs Research | 2024–2025 reports | As published | ✓ Current |
| LinkedIn Workforce Reports | 2024–2025 reports | As published | ✓ Current |
| Glassdoor Compensation Data | 2024–2025 reports | As published | ✓ Current |