Education and workforce

Owns an education level per citizen or the population's distribution over levels, and school capacity and coverage. Each period, school-age or eligible citizens with access and seats advance a level after a study period; capacity and budget limit throughput, and aging and migration change the mix. Jobs and buildings require minimum levels, so the distribution decides which industries can be staffed. Cities: Skylines uses uneducated, educated, well educated, and highly educated, with elementary schools of 300, high schools of 1,000, and universities of 4,500 seats; jobs carry education requirements, higher building levels need more educated workers, and citizens take lower jobs when nothing else is open. Victoria 3 moves literacy toward education access and grants pops qualifications for professions each month. Inputs: seats, budget, age structure. Outputs: the qualified worker distribution that labor matching reads.

The player invests now for a different city later: schools cost upkeep for years before industry can upgrade. Players watch over- and under-education and adjust capacity, policies, and job mix to avoid unemployable graduates or empty offices.

• number of levels and job requirements per level
• school capacity, upkeep, and study duration
• who studies: age gates, coverage radius, cost to citizens
• whether over-educated citizens accept lower jobs
• side effects of education on crime, garbage, or consumption

• Over-education: when educated citizens fill matching jobs first, basic industry reports worker shortages while graduates compete for offices.
• Long study times hide the lag between investment and effect, so players misread cause and effect.
• Single-step jumps with large schools make education a one-time checkbox.

• Education shifts the industry mix toward offices and high tech, changing pollution and land value.
• Generational lag: the education mix follows age structure, so baby booms create later waves of graduates.
• Mismatches between education and jobs produce unemployment and shortages simultaneously.

• Can agent-level career choice and schooling decisions by learned agents replace fixed education ladders without losing planning legibility?
• Which matching rule between education and jobs avoids both over-education collapse and meaningless education?