Some College, No Credential Student Outcomes

2024 Report for the Nation and the States

June 6, 2024

As of July 2022, the Some College, No Credential (SCNC) population under 65 has reached 36.8 million, up 2.9 percent from the previous year. While the number of students newly stopped out (Recent Stopouts) declined since our last report, comparatively fewer SCNC students re-engaged with higher education through re-enrollment and credential attainment, driving continued increases in the SCNC population.

SCNC outcomes exhibited varying trends. With 943,200 SCNC re-enrollees in the 2022-23 academic year, the re-enrollment rate increased slightly to 2.6 percent (+0.2pp), while the first-year credential earning rate declined slightly (4.4%, -0.2pp). The perseverance and two-year credential earning rates for 2021-22 re-enrollees were the same as for the previous cohort.

Re-engaging with SCNC individuals has become a key objective for most states as they pursue postsecondary attainment goals. To achieve this, accurate and timely information about the current SCNC population, their re-re-enrollment patterns, and subsequent progress is essential. Our annual progress report series, developed with the support of Lumina Foundation, sheds light on these critical factors. State and institutional leaders can leverage this data to inform strategies for bringing SCNC students back into higher education.

The Some College, No Credential (SCNC) report series seeks to understand the educational trajectories of the tens of millions of U.S. adults who left postsecondary education without receiving a postsecondary credential and are no longer enrolled. Reports in this series identify the levels of opportunity within each state for re-engaging SCNC students in the postsecondary attainment pipeline by tracking the following SCNC student outcomes annually: Re-Enrollment after stopout, completion of a First Credential, and Perseverance as indicated by continuous enrollment into a second academic year.

Highlights

The SCNC population currently under 65 stood at more than 36.8 million at the end of July 2022, an increase of 2.9 percent from the previous year.
Pandemic-related enrollment declines at community colleges led to fewer Recent Stopouts between January 2021 and July 2022 compared with the same period a year prior.
Declines in Recent Stopouts did little to impact the SCNC population, which increased in nearly all states.
The SCNC population continues to be less White and more male than the overall undergraduate population. Recent Stopouts, however, continue to be younger and more female than the overall SCNC population.
SCNC student re-enrollment increased in the 2022-23 academic year (+9.1%).
Primarily online institutions (POIs) are an increasingly popular destination sector for students who switch schools at re-enrollment, although students re-enrolling at POIs have the lowest credential earning rate of all sectors after two years.
Although men and Hispanic, Black, and Native American students are disproportionately represented among the overall SCNC population, women and White and Asian re-enrollees are more likely to complete a credential in the first year or persevere into a second year of enrollment.
Potential completer re-enrollees earn credentials at nearly twice the rate of their SCNC peers and earn more associate and bachelor’s degrees within two years.