Thursday, March 18, 2010

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

Interact with the author through EduStats - We value your input.

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.

Tuesday, March 16, 2010

College Going Rates by State - an Analysis

Interact with the author through EduStats - We value your input.

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%.

N_Degree-Granting

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%).

Degree-Granting

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.

Degree-Granting college going rates by state

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.

distribution of the Percentage of traditional four year college

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

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%).

Private four-year for-profit College Going Rates

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%).

Public two-year College Going Rates

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%.

Private for-profit two-year College Going Rates

Private not-for-profit two-year College Going Rates

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.

Sunday, March 07, 2010

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.

Monday, March 01, 2010

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.