2006 Collge Going Rates by In-State and Out-of-State

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CL Higher Education College Going Rate Data Release

CL Higher Education Center just added the 2005-06 in-state and out-state analysis to its College Going Rates by State data set.

The in-state rate is calculated for students who attended colleges in their home state while the out-state rate is for students who went to colleges that is outside of their home state. One interesting fact is that most of the North-Eastern states exhibit high out-state college going rates, which can due to the fact that all these states are close to each other and is well within the comfortable driving distances from each other.

State	Collge Going Total	Stay Total	Out Total
Alabama	72%	64%	7%
Alaska	50%	29%	21%
Arizona	49%	43%	6%
Arkansas	60%	53%	7%
California	63%	57%	6%
Colorado	69%	54%	15%
Connecticut	84%	45%	39%
Delaware	81%	53%	28%
District of Columbia	99%	34%	64%
Florida	71%	63%	8%
Georgia	77%	64%	13%
Hawaii	69%	44%	25%
Idaho	48%	35%	13%
Illinois	69%	51%	18%
Indiana	70%	61%	9%
Iowa	67%	57%	9%
Kansas	72%	61%	11%
Kentucky	68%	61%	7%
Louisiana	83%	74%	9%
Maine	77%	50%	27%
Maryland	78%	49%	29%
Massachusetts	87%	58%	29%
Michigan	72%	64%	7%
Minnesota	75%	55%	19%
Mississippi	86%	79%	7%
Missouri	66%	55%	11%
Montana	62%	46%	16%
Nebraska	73%	60%	13%
Nevada	56%	43%	13%
New Hampshire	76%	40%	37%
New Jersey	82%	47%	35%
New Mexico	77%	60%	17%
New York	89%	72%	18%
North Carolina	71%	64%	7%
North Dakota	78%	57%	21%
Ohio	68%	57%	11%
Oklahoma	67%	60%	7%
Oregon	53%	40%	12%
Pennsylvania	73%	60%	13%
Rhode Island	67%	41%	26%
South Carolina	52%	47%	5%
South Dakota	77%	59%	18%
Tennessee	74%	63%	11%
Texas	60%	53%	7%
Utah	49%	45%	4%
Vermont	66%	28%	37%
Virginia	75%	60%	15%
Washington	53%	41%	12%
West Virginia	63%	55%	8%
Wisconsin	68%	55%	13%
Wyoming	59%	43%	16%
US Total	69%	57%	13%

Again, the data is based on the 2005-06 Common Core Data (CCD) survey, the Private School Survey (PSS) and the Integrated Postsecondary Education System (IPEDS) migration survey managed by the National Center of Education Statistics (NCES) of the Department of Education (USDE).

See prior blog entry for detailed info on how these data is processed.

College Going Rates by State - an Analysis

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See Data Release:
College Going Rates by State - 2008 Early Release
College going rates by state 2008 analysis
Estimated US College Going Rates by State - 2005-06

The college going rate ( aka the college continuation rate) data for normal 2005-06 high school graduates went to degree-granting higher education institutions has been tabulated by both Tom Mortenson and Duncan Hsu. The later also includes information on un-normal high school graduates and the non-degree granting higher education institutions. All these tabulations are based on National Center for Education Statistics' (NCES') Common Core Data (CCD), Private School Survey (PSS) and the Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System (IPEDS).

Available reports so far were more interested in the overall degree-granting college going rates by state without looking into other details. Our analysis is aimed to provide a more complete picture.

Let's started with the US averages for college going rate. The average showed that, for normal high school graduates, 61.3% of them went to degree-granting colleges while 1.5% went to non-degree granting colleges. The list of rates are given below.

State	% Dgree-Granting	% Not-Dgree-Granting	% All College Going
Alabama	62.7%	0.3%	63.0%
Alaska	45.7%	2.1%	47.8%
Arizona	44.8%	1.9%	46.7%
Arkansas	56.6%	0.9%	57.5%
California	55.8%	1.2%	57.1%
Colorado	63.0%	1.6%	64.6%
Connecticut	70.4%	2.7%	73.1%
Delaware	64.2%	1.4%	65.6%
District of Columbia	56.9%	8.6%	65.5%
Florida	60.2%	2.8%	63.0%
Georgia	68.2%	1.7%	69.9%
Hawaii	59.7%	0.5%	60.2%
Idaho	45.7%	0.9%	46.6%
Illinois	60.8%	1.2%	61.9%
Indiana	63.5%	0.9%	64.4%
Iowa	61.6%	1.1%	62.7%
Kansas	65.7%	1.7%	67.4%
Kentucky	61.4%	0.8%	62.3%
Louisiana	65.7%	1.4%	67.0%
Maine	64.7%	0.8%	65.5%
Maryland	65.7%	2.1%	67.8%
Massachusetts	71.8%	2.1%	73.8%
Michigan	65.3%	1.3%	66.5%
Minnesota	68.4%	1.4%	69.7%
Mississippi	75.7%	0.7%	76.3%
Missouri	57.1%	0.8%	57.9%
Montana	58.1%	0.9%	59.0%
Nebraska	64.5%	1.0%	65.5%
Nevada	52.1%	1.7%	53.8%
New Hampshire	65.0%	1.1%	66.2%
New Jersey	69.7%	2.1%	71.8%
New Mexico	70.5%	1.0%	71.5%
New York	74.4%	1.6%	76.1%
North Carolina	65.6%	0.6%	66.2%
North Dakota	72.3%	1.0%	73.3%
Ohio	60.1%	1.0%	61.1%
Oklahoma	59.2%	4.4%	63.5%
Oregon	47.3%	1.0%	48.4%
Pennsylvania	62.1%	1.5%	63.7%
Rhode Island	54.7%	2.2%	56.9%
South Carolina	71.1%	0.7%	71.7%
South Dakota	71.9%	0.8%	72.7%
Tennessee	63.5%	2.7%	66.3%
Texas	55.2%	2.2%	57.4%
Utah	46.2%	1.1%	47.3%
Vermont	55.4%	0.8%	56.2%
Virginia	67.3%	1.0%	68.2%
Washington	48.0%	0.9%	49.0%
West Virginia	57.8%	2.8%	60.6%
Wisconsin	61.2%	0.7%	62.0%
Wyoming	58.1%	0.6%	58.6%
US Total	61.7%	1.5%	63.2%

Analyzing the non-degree granting college going rates reveals that most of the states have a rate of lower than 3% while the Oklahoma posted a rate of 4.4% and District of Columbia boasted a rate of 8.6%.



The frequency distribution of the degree-granting college going rates shows that while most of the states have a rate of greater than 54%, there are seven states that are away from the pack. These states are: Nevada(52.1%), South Carolina(49.0%), Washington(48.0%), Oregon(47.3%), Utah(46.2%), Alaska(45.7%), Idaho(45.7%) and Arizona(44.8%).



Diving into the degree-granting college going rate, we found that, in general, the four year college going rate is higher that of the two year college going rate. For the nation, the traditional four year colleges enrolled about 68% of all the degree-granting colleges going students, where the traditional four year colleges are defined as the public four year colleges plus the private non-for profit four year colleges. The overall degree-granting college going rate, separated into type of colleges and ranked by state is presented here.



As we can see from the chart the fractions taken by the traditional four year colleges varies from state to state. Analyzing the fraction, it reveals that the range varies from 35% (Mississippi) to about 95% (Alaska) and, except for on state (Mississippi, 35%), all states have fractions higher than 52%. While Alaska sending almost all of its students to traditional four year colleges, Mississippi sending only 35%. Looking for the Mississippi in the above chart, we notice that Mississippi achieving the highest degree-granting college going rate by sending most of its college going students to colleges other than the traditional four year colleges - noticeably, the two year public schools. District of Columbia(91%) and Vermont (90%) also send high percentage of their college going students to traditional four year schools.



The following chart ranked states by the traditional four year college going rate.



Rounding up the four year schools, we considered the private for-profit four year schools. On average, the college going rate for this sector is about 1%. Checking out the frequency distribution for this sector, it shows that for most of the states, this rate is lower than 1.6% while there are four states that with higher rates: Florida (2.7%), New Mexico (2.5%), New Hampshire (2.2%) and Arizona(1.9%).



For two years-or-less schools, the biggest sector is the public two year schools with an average of 17.7% college going rate. Analyzing the sector, it shows all states except three are confined within 2 to 24%. At the higher ends are Mississippi (48%), Wyoming (27.1%) and New Mexico (27%).



For private two years-or-less schools, the for-profit schools averaged at 0.8% while the not-for-profit schools averaged at 0.2%. The for-profit sector reveals that all states except three are falling within the range of 0.2 to 1.4%. The three at the higher end are Pennsylvania (2.8%), Colorado (2.5%) and Ohio (1.7%). In the not-for-profit sector, majority (25) of the states have a rate of 0.1% with all of them below 1%. The highest two states are Hawaii and South Carolina at a rate of 0.8%.





Rounding up the article, we like to note that there are much more to the college going rates than the overall degree-granting college going rate. Examining together with other factors like in-state, out-state college going rate, the college graduation rates and the industry hiring pattens can reveal even more information.

College Going Rate - Definition, Glossary and clarification

The lowering of US competitiveness in the education have promote thoughts about the 'Education Pipeline'. One of the measures that constitutes the idea of the Education Pipeline is the College Going Rates.

In general, the College Going Rate measures the percentage of high school graduates that went to colleges. However, in practice, the type of high school graduates and the type of colleges took into account could end up meaning different kind of rates.

For the high school graduates, possible variations are: On-Time Graduates, Public High School Graduates, GED graduates, High School equivalent Certificates ... etc. For type of colleges enrollment, the possible variations are: Fall First-Time freshmen enrollment. First-time enrollment within a year of high school graduation, the first-time freshmen that is younger than 19 years old or first-time freshmen enrolled in degree granting institution only.

Here are some of the examples:

1. Normal high school graduates with IPEDS degree-granting Fall first-time freshmen
Reported by CL Higher Education Center, Tom Mortenson, Nebraska CCPE

2. Normal high school graduates with all IPEDS Fall first-time freshmen
Reported by CL Higher Education Center.

3. Other (GED, Equivalent high school certificates) high school with all IPEDS Fall first-time freshmen
Reported by CL Higher Education Center.

4. Normal high school graduates with yearly college enrollment
Reported by Nebraska CCPE. This is done by using the National Students Clearing House data and filtering out students with the enrollment date.

5. With 19 years old limitation
Reported by California CPEC.

The 'Prior Learning' Edge

Original Article

Summary goes here!

For years, I have been advocated on the idea of test-out and evaluation-based transfer. It looks like this is a good supporting research for those ideas.

Personally, I am not surprised by the finding at all. There are plenty of experience of me that support my believes. Through my life, I changed jobs and learned things all by myself - even my school days is of no differences. I also met medical Doctors that are very good at electronics.

I have no intention of emphasizing the standardized test. But I do believe that there are objective measures that can be used to gauge students' ability.

I believe the use of objective measure should be extended for testing-out of classes and also for allowing transfer of credit - remember the fight between the National accredited and the regional accredited over the transfer?

The benefit I see for extending these object measure offering are:
1. Promote the real learning - to learn things to heart, you simply need put the efforts in and study. The instructor is there to help you but not to learn for you. 'Getting credit on you own' will echo the real idea of learning.
2. Lower the college cost: There are plenty of people out there that can learn by themselves, allowing them to test-out will save their college cost - I know this is what the institution don't like. But, to be truthful to the education, I can't see why should an institution deprive students’ right in doing so. This incentive will also promote students to study by themselves and made them more confident and independent.