The higher education policies driving institutional behaviors are increasingly grounded in hard data. The data are used to diagnose issues in higher education and to monitor progress in a number of areas, including retention, completion, transfers, and financial aid. In this environment, the data sets of the National Student Clearinghouse, which cover 96 percent of U.S. students, are increasingly valuable.
The recent hand-wringing over a report on persistence and retention by the Clearinghouse’s Research Center is a case in point. As reported by Paul Fain in Inside Higher Ed (“Leaving the System” July 10, 2014) the one-year persistence rate for students who first enrolled in the fall of 2012 declined by 1.2 percentage points compared to students who enrolled in the fall of 2009. This translates into 37,000 students who would still be enrolled had the 2012 persistence rate matched the 2009 rate of 69.9 percent.
The Center’s analysis found that the largest decline occurred among students who just graduated from high school. The persistence rate for these first-year students attending four-year private schools dropped by 2.8 percentage points, compared to 2.3 percentage point declines at four-and-two-year public institutions. In contrast, the persistence rate at for-profit schools increased slightly by 0.7 percentage points.
The dip in persistence is concerning because it indicates that students left higher education. The retention rate, which does not count students who transferred to new schools, remained unchanged. Together, the two rates suggest that approximately one in nine students had transferred to a new institution by the next fall.
Though informative, the data published by the Clearinghouse Research Center can not tell us why the persistence rate decreased. One theory is that with the economy creating more jobs, some students are opting to leave college in order to work. Although this trade-off may make financial sense in the short run, other statistics indicates greater financial rewards from college completion in the long run.
College completion is being closely followed by the Lumina Foundation and by state lawmakers. Lumina’s goal is to have 60 percent of adults holding degrees by 2025, but the new data suggest that 48 percent of adults would hold degrees if current trends persist. State lawmakers are seeking to increase completion by tying funding to completion-oriented performance metrics such as graduation rates.
The growing importance of data, and the technology used to collect, store, and analyze it, was the subject of a recent presentation at AACRAO’s Technology and Transfer Conference. In his talk "Student Persistence and Campus-Based Financial Aid: Policy, Data, and Technology and How They Come Together,” Don Hossler, Director of the Center for Postsecondary Research & Professor of Educational Leadership and Policy Studies at Indiana University Bloomington, described the role played by technology and data in supporting policies in higher education. Data are used by organizations such as Lumina and the Gates Foundations to drive the policy agenda at the public level, which also affects policy at the institutional level. A review of Hossler’s presentation and other illuminating sessions can be accessed in the AACRAO post-conference summaries, sponsored by College Scheduler LLC.
The executive summary also includes:
- To Serve Authentically: The Challenge and Gifts of a Postmodern Generation (Sandy Shugart, President, Valencia College)
- Credit Hours, Credentials, and Competencies! Are We Creating New Currencies for Communicating the College Curriculum to our Colleagues in Commerce and Academe? (Mike Reilly (Moderator), Executive Director, AACRAO; Tom Black, Associate Vice Provost for Student Affairs and University Registrar, Stanford University; Matthew Pittinsky, CEO, Parchment)
- Effecting Sensible Change in Transfer and Articulation at the State Level—in a Hurry! (Jan Ignash, Vice Chancellor & Chief Academic Officer, State University System of Florida Board of Governors)
- Introduction to Load Testing Web Applications in the Cloud: Tools to Help You Simulate Student Traffic on Your Software and Systems! (Robert Strazzarino, Founder/CEO, College Scheduler LLC)
2 more professional development opportunities
AACRAO is offering a FREE webinar on Building Transfer Pathways to Traditional Four-Year Institutions: The University of California Plan and Best Practices, September 11, 2014, at 2p eastern. For more information and to register, click here.
Also: Save the date for the 2015 AACRAO Technology and Transfer Conference, July 12-14, 2015, at the JW Marriott Austin in Austin, Texas.