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.

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.

Estimated US College Going Rates by State - 2005-06

CL Higher Education Center

New: College Going Rates by State - 2008 Early Release

CL Higher Education Center just released the estimated US College Going Rates by State for 2005-06 High School Graduates.

The analysis 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).

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 2005-06 PSS is that of 2004-05 academic year. By assuming that 2004-05 number is a good estimate for the 2005-06 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.

Estimated Number of High School Graduates by State 2005-06

CL Higher Education Center

CL Higher Education Center just released the total Number of High School Graduates by State for the 2005-06 academic year.

The analysis is based on the 2005-06 Common Core Data (CCD) survey and the Private School Survey (PSS) managed by the National Center of Education Statistics (NCES) of the Department of Education (USDE). Since PSS is collected every two year and the number of graduates collected by the 2005-06 PSS is that of 2004-05 academic year. By assuming that 2004-05 number is a good estimate for the 2005-06 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.

The data in these table can later be used to estimate the college going rate for a state when combined with the migration data from the Integrate Postsecondary Education Data System (IPEDS).