Some College, No Credential Student Outcomes
2025 Report for the Nation and the States
June 4, 2025
Re-engaging with the tens of millions of U.S. adults who left higher education without receiving a postsecondary credential has become a key objective for most states as they pursue postsecondary attainment goals. To achieve this, accurate and timely information about this Some College, No Credential (SCNC) population, and their re-enrollment in and progress through higher education, is essential. Our annual progress report series, developed with the support of Lumina Foundation, sheds light on these critical factors.
The Some College, No Credential (SCNC) report series seeks to understand the educational trajectories of SCNC individuals. 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 continuing enrollment into a second academic year. State and institutional leaders can leverage this data to inform strategies for bringing SCNC students back into higher education.
Below, you can download the full report (PDF), as well as access the data dashboard, which provides national and state data for the latest year. You can also access our two data appendices: The National Demographics and State Data Appendix (xlsx) contains a demographic overview of the national SCNC population as well as detailed data on state SCNC populations and outcomes (re-enrollment, first credential, perseverance). The National Outcomes Data Appendix (Tableau) provides detailed data on SCNC outcomes at the national level.
Highlights
- The SCNC population is 43.1 million as of the start of the 2023-24 academic year. The working age SCNC population currently under 65 comprises 37.6 million people, an increase of 2.2 percent from the start of the prior academic year.
- The number of students stopping out from higher education declined for the second year in a row, and the number of SCNC students re-enrolling in postsecondary education increased for the second year in a row. However, the SCNC population still grew as the 2.1 million students who were newly stopped out between January 2022 and July 2023 far outpaced SCNC re-enrollment in the 2022-23 academic year and the number of individuals aging out of the working age SCNC population.
- All institution sectors saw fewer stopouts between January 2022 and July 2023 compared to the same period starting a year prior, except for private for-profit four-year institutions and primarily online institutions.
- All states saw increases in the size of their SCNC populations, while 42 states and the District of Columbia saw increases in SCNC re-enrollment in 2023-24 compared to the previous year.
- Nationally, the share of re-enrollees earning a credential in their first year of re-enrollment ticked up to 4.7 percent (+0.3pp).
- Despite persistent disparities in SCNC outcomes by race/ethnicity, all groups saw some gains in re-enrollment, perseverance, or credential earning over the past three years.
- Potential Completers — students with at least two years of full-time equivalent enrollment prior to stopping out — are more likely to re-enroll, earn a credential in their first year back, persevere into a second year of re-enrollment, and complete a credential in their second year.
- Community colleges and primarily online institutions stand out for the outsized role they play in SCNC dynamics. Community colleges are both the major source of stopout and the primary destination for returning SCNC students. Primarily online institutions account for a disproportionately high share of re-enrollees compared to the share of SCNC individuals who last attended these institutions.
- Each year, about 1 in 4 SCNC credential earners earn a credential without having to re-enroll. While our data does not identify causes, these completers may be the beneficiaries of policies that remove administrative barriers to completion or award credentials based on the number of credits already earned in the past.
