Completing College – State – 2017

In the state supplement to our twelfth Signature Report, a national study on college completion, we take a state-by-state look at the six-year outcomes for students who began postsecondary education in fall 2010.

Suggested Citation: Shapiro, D., Dundar, A., Wakhungu, P., Yuan, X., Nathan, A & Hwang, Y., A. (2017, March). Completing College: A State-Level View of Student Attainment Rates (Signature Report No. 12a). Herndon, VA: National Student Clearinghouse Research Center.

Table of Contents

• About This Report
• Introduction
  • Cohort and Data Definitions
  • Highlighting State-Level Results
• Results
• Appendix A: Coverage
• Appendix B: Unique Student Headcounts by State and Institution Type

About This Report

AUTHORS

National Student Clearinghouse Research Center

• Doug Shapiro
• Afet Dundar

Project on Academic Success, Indiana University

• Phoebe Khasiala Wakhungu
• Xin Yuan
• Angel Nathan
• Youngsik Hwang

SPONSOR

This report was supported by a grant from the Lumina Foundation. Lumina Foundation, an Indianapolis-based private foundation, is committed to enrolling and graduating more students from college — especially 21st century students: low-income students, students of color, first-generation students and adult learners. Lumina’s goal is to increase the percentage of Americans who hold high-quality degrees and credentials to 60 percent by 2025. Lumina pursues this goal in three ways: by identifying and supporting effective practice, through public policy advocacy, and by using our communications and convening power to build public will for change. For more information, log on to www.luminafoundation.org.

Among the study’s findings:

• Nationally, 16.0 percent of two-year starters received a degree from a four-year institution within six years, with or without a prior associate’s degree. In 16 states, this percentage was higher than the national average. In four states (Iowa, Kansas, North Dakota, and Virginia), one in five students who started at a two-year public institution had a four-year degree within six years.

• In 19 states, more than five percent of the starting cohort at four-year public institutions completed at an institution in a different state. This was true in 30 states for students who started at four-year private nonprofit institutions.

• Nationally, one in three students who started at a two-year public institution and completed did so at an institution other than the one where they first enrolled. In 11 states, over one-third of all completions for two-year public starters happened elsewhere. In California, Idaho, Missouri, South Carolina, and Texas, more than 40 percent of all completions for students in this sector took place at an institution other than the one where they first enrolled.

• The college completion rate for students who started in four-year public institutions increased from 2009 to 2010 by 1.2 percentage points, from 61.2 percent to 62.4 percent, nationally. In the majority of the states, the college completion rate also increased from 2009 to 2010 (in 37 states). The states where the four-year college completion rate declined, the decrease was small, less than one percentage point in nearly all cases.

• In four states (Illinois, Massachusetts, New Jersey, and Virginia) at least one-third of the students who started in four-year public institutions and enrolled exclusively part time completed some type of degree within six years. Nationally, about 20 percent of exclusively part-time students at four-year public institutions completed a degree within the same period.

• Nationally, 44.8 percent of adult learners who started in a four-year institution completed a degree within six years. In five states (Arizona, Illinois, Michigan, New Jersey, and Virginia), more than 60 percent of adult learners received a degree within the same period. Among two-year starters, 36.2 percent of adult learners completed a degree, nationally. In five states (Minnesota, Montana, North Dakota, South Dakota, and Wisconsin) more than half of adult learners in this sector completed a degree within six years.

• The gap in the six-year completion rate of traditional-age students and adult learners among students who started in four-year institutions, nationally, was about 21 percentage points (65.6 percent and 44.8 percent, respectively). In seven states (Arizona, Illinois, Michigan, Nebraska, Oregon, Texas, and Utah), this gap was much narrower at less than 10 percentage points.

Introduction

As a supplement to Completing College: A National View of Student Attainment Rates – Fall 2010 Cohort (2016), hereafter “Completing College,” this report focuses on six-year student success outcomes and college completion rates by state. Three sets of tables organized by institution type display the results, presenting each state’s outcomes for students who started postsecondary education at four-year public institutions, two-year public institutions, and four-year private nonprofit institutions. Each set of tables provides state-level overviews of college completion outcomes.

Further results are included, displaying state-level six-year outcomes for students:

• By enrollment intensity across the six-year study period—exclusively full time (Tables 2, 11, 20), exclusively part time (Tables 3, 12, 21), and mixed (Tables 4, 13, 22);
• By age at first entry to college—age 20 and younger (Tables 5, 14, 23), over age 20 through age 24 (Tables 6, 15, 24), and over age 24 (Tables 7, 16, 25);
• By gender—women and men who started at each institution type (Tables 8, 17, 26 and 9, 18, 27, respectively).

As presented in Completing College, the overall six-year completion rate for first-time-in-college degree-seeking students who started college in fall 2010 was 54.8 percent, including 12.8 percent who completed at an institution different from their starting institution. In other words, nearly one in four students who completed a degree did so at an institution other than the one of their initial enrollment.  The rate was close to one in three for those who started at two-year public institutions. Findings from Completing College also showed that gains from completions elsewhere were higher for traditional-age students than for delayed entry students (over age 20 through age 24 at first entry) and adult learners (over age 24 at first entry).

When disaggregated by institution type, the total completion rate was highest for students who started at four-year private nonprofit institutions (73.9 percent), followed by 62.4 percent for students who started at four-year public institutions. The completion rate was 39.3 percent for those who started at two-year public institutions, see Table i below (see Completing College for further details). The overall proportion of students completing elsewhere, was about the same for students who started at any of these three institution types – about 13 percent of the starting cohort.

Table i. Six-Year Outcomes by Starting Institution Type (N=2,911,634)

Building on the findings presented in Completing College, this follow-up report examines college completion rates for each state where the Clearinghouse data coverage for the study cohort was at least 65 percent. Both Completing College and this supplement report focus on the fall 2010 cohort, following them through May 31, 2016, and highlighting six-year student outcomes including degree and certificate completion and continuing enrollment (persistence). Completions were established using a combination of degree/certificate award records submitted by institutions as part of their participation in DegreeVerify and StudentTracker. Details on weighting and the imputation of missing data can be found in Appendix A of Completing College.

COHORT AND DATA DEFINITIONS

Over 2.9 million first-time degree-seeking students who started their postsecondary studies in the fall of 2010 make up the cohort examined in this study. First-time status was established by confirming that a student (1) did not show a postsecondary enrollment record in the four years prior to summer 2010 and (2) did not receive a degree or certificate from any postsecondary institution prior to fall 2010, according to Clearinghouse data. Fall 2010 enrollments were defined as enrollment during any term starting August 15 through October 31, inclusive: if the institution had no term begin date during this period then between July 11 and August 14, 2010.

HIGHLIGHTING STATE-LEVEL RESULTS

This supplemental report presents student outcomes by the state where the students’ entering institution was located. Data coverage for the cohort identified in this study varies somewhat across states and institution types within states (see Appendix A of this report for coverage by state and institution type). Accordingly, we have included state-by-state results for four-year public, two-year public, and four-year private nonprofit institutions, including within each of these categories those states for which the historical data coverage (percentage of enrollments for the state/institution type) for the cohort is 65 percent or higher. Using this approach, we produced tables showing results for 49, 44 and 39 states of the 50 states for four-year public, two-year public, and four-year private nonprofit institutions, respectively. Table ii, below, shows states included in the tables presented for each institutional type in this supplement to the national report.

Table ii. Representation of Each State in Results Tables by Institution Type

X Included in report
* Fewer than three institutions
(blank) Lower than 65% coverage
^†† Results are not reported because the cohort includes both two-year and four-year enrollments.

To further guide readers regarding coverage, and consequently the relative confidence with which results should be interpreted, we grouped the states according to the following three levels of coverage:

• Low coverage: States with coverage between 65 and 79 percent
• Medium coverage: States with coverage between 80 and 89 percent
• High Coverage: States with coverage of 90 percent or higher

Results

Appendix A: Coverage

Appendix B: Unique Student Headcounts by State and Institution Type

Appendix B provides unique student headcounts by state for each institution type. The final data set was created, drawing from the full cohort of all students enrolled in each sector and state, selecting out students identified as first-time-in-college, and finally excluding students identified as nondegree-seeking and applying a few other conditions. (For further detail on the definition of degree-seeking status and other exclusions applied, please see Completing College: A National View, Appendix A at Signature Report 12.) Counts from the final data set (Fall 2010 First-Time Degree-Seeking Cohort) are further broken out by student enrollment status, age at first entry, and gender.

Table B1. Total Counts for Students Who Started at Four-Year Public Institutions by Origin State

NOTE: Counts represent unique students.
^* Fewer than three institutions.
^†† Results are not reported because the cohort includes both two-year and four-year enrollments.

Table B2. Total Counts for Students Who Started at Two-Year Public Institutions, by Origin State

^* Fewer than three institutions.
^** Fewer than 50 students in subgroup.

Table B3. Total Counts for Students Who Started at Four-Year Private Nonprofit Institutions, by Origin State

^* Fewer than three institutions.
^** Fewer than 50 students in subgroup
.