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.