College Going Rates by State - 2008 Early Release

CL Higher Education Center

Related blogs:
College going rates by state 2008 analysis
2006: College Going Rates by State - an Analysis
Estimated US College Going Rates by State - 2005-06

CL Higher Education Center just released the Early Release of the 'estimated US College Going Rates by State for 2007-08 High School Graduates'.

The analysis is based on the 2007-08 Common Core Data (CCD) survey, the 2006-07 Private School Survey (PSS) and the 2008-09 Integrated Postsecondary Education System (IPEDS) migration survey managed by the National Center of Education Statistics (NCES) of the Department of Education (USDE).

The CCD and PSS survey is used to estimate the number of high school graduates from a state. The IPEDS migration survey provide the information of how many of those students went to colleges. Since PSS is collected every two year and the number of graduates collected by the 2007-08 PSS is that of 2006-07 academic year. By assuming that 2006-07 number is a good estimate for the 2007-08 number, we can add it to the number of public high school graduates collected by the CCD to produce the total number of high school graduates for a state.

This data release also include a file with some analysis results and charts.

State	2008 Normal HS Graduates	2008 Dgr-Grntng Total	2008 % to Dgr-Grntng Total	2008 Rank	2006 Rank
Mississippi	28,150	21,787	77.4%	1	1
Massachusetts	75,632	56,480	74.7%	2	5
New York	206,201	153,072	74.2%	3	2
South Dakota	9,138	6,587	72.1%	4	4
New Jersey	108,338	77,104	71.2%	5	9
Georgia	91,079	63,744	70.0%	6	11
South Carolina	38,851	26,995	69.5%	7	6
Minnesota	65,339	45,245	69.2%	8	10
Virginia	84,282	57,896	68.7%	9	12
Connecticut	46,412	31,596	68.1%	10	8
New Mexico	19,759	13,377	67.7%	11	7
Rhode Island	11,929	8,043	67.4%	12	44
Alabama	45,922	30,638	66.7%	13	25
Delaware	9,185	6,083	66.2%	14	21
North Carolina	88,901	58,681	66.0%	15	16
Indiana	66,689	43,815	65.7%	16	23
Nebraska	22,191	14,537	65.5%	17	20
Kansas	33,115	21,667	65.4%	18	14
California	409,439	267,835	65.4%	19	41
Louisiana	41,932	27,364	65.3%	20	15
Iowa	36,834	23,686	64.3%	21	27
Pennsylvania	147,775	94,789	64.1%	22	26
New Hampshire	17,276	11,038	63.9%	23	18
North Dakota	7,420	4,732	63.8%	24	3
Maryland	68,625	43,227	63.0%	25	13
Ohio	133,815	84,030	62.8%	26	32
Colorado	48,606	30,461	62.7%	27	24
Arkansas	30,104	18,821	62.5%	28	40
Hawaii	13,998	8,728	62.4%	29	33
Tennessee	63,375	39,073	61.7%	30	22
Maine	15,807	9,696	61.3%	31	19
Kentucky	43,367	26,426	60.9%	32	28
Missouri	69,047	41,446	60.0%	33	38
Michigan	123,705	74,134	59.9%	34	17
Wisconsin	70,609	41,741	59.1%	35	29
West Virginia	18,094	10,684	59.0%	36	37
Wyoming	5,544	3,266	58.9%	37	35
Florida	167,629	98,648	58.8%	38	31
Utah	29,518	17,259	58.5%	39	48
Montana	10,917	6,275	57.5%	40	36
Illinois	150,248	86,290	57.4%	41	30
Texas	264,044	150,206	56.9%	42	43
Oklahoma	39,663	22,215	56.0%	43	34
Nevada	17,844	9,917	55.6%	44	45
District of Columbia	5,017	2,680	53.4%	45	39
Arizona	64,260	33,025	51.4%	46	51
Washington	66,190	33,610	50.8%	47	46
Idaho	17,122	8,591	50.2%	48	50
Vermont	9,151	4,423	48.3%	49	42
Oregon	37,763	17,576	46.5%	50	47
Alaska	8,053	3,685	45.8%	51	49

Exam the ranking, the first surprise is the North Dakota, which drop from number 3 to number 24. A closer look at the data, the main drop on college enrollment occurred at 'North Dakota State College of Science'. The enrollment of recent North Dakota high school graduates dropped from 331 to 88. Also the 'Bismarck State College' seems to switch from public-2-year to the public-4-year sector with a drop in enrollment of recent North Dakota high school graduates from 554 to 297.

Rounding up the top 10, Massachusetts, New Jersey, Georgia, Minnesota and Virginia had moved up to number 2, 5, 6, 8 and 9 respectively.

For the second group of 10 states, Rhode Island and California showed the most improvements. For Rhode Island, a single entity: 'Community College of Rhode Island' reports a gain of about 1,400 enrollments from 826 to 2,251. For California, the gains are across the board: about 4,000 in the public-4-year sector, 1,000 in the private-not-for-profit-4-year sector, 800 in the private-for-profit-4-year sector, a whopping 52,000 in the public-2-year sector.

In this second tier, Rhode Island, Alabama, Delaware, North Carolina, Indiana, Nebraska, and California had moved up.