The Most Complete Way to Measure College Completion With Current Data
By Michael Itzkowitz
We know that completing a postsecondary degree or certificate is one of the surest ways to put someone on track to live an economically secure, happier, and healthier life. And while federal law currently focuses more on incentivizing institutions to get students to — rather than through — college, there is increasing interest on both sides of the aisle in changing that equation so that federally-funded higher education institutions are truly serving their students well after they are successfully enrolled. But does the government have the right tools in place to hold institutions accountable for graduating their students after they enroll — especially given the current limitations in the data?
If this Congress reauthorizes the Higher Education Act (HEA), it is critical that policymakers remove the blindfold they have put on students and families, who are currently shut out from seeing the full picture of outcomes at an institution or program because of a federally-imposed data ban. That’s why any HEA should include the bipartisan College Transparency Act (CTA), which would provide more complete information about which institutions and programs are best suited to students’ interests and to yield their desired outcomes. But taking action to address our college completion crisis need not be contingent on passage of the CTA. The stakes are way too high, and the data infrastructure we have in place can be used to hold federally-funded institutions accountable for failing large swaths of the students they enroll. For example, we know that last year alone over $108 million in federal grants and loans went to institutions where fewer than one in 10 students earned a college credential within eight years of enrolling.
This post lays out a roadmap for how lawmakers can feasibly use currently-available completion data to hold institutions accountable — until we have more robust student-level data enabled by the CTA.
How does the federal government measure completion today?
For the past 29 years, Congress has instructed the US Department of Education (Department) to collect and report completion data based only upon the outcomes of students who enroll for the first-time and on a full-time basis. Yet, the type of student included within a first-time, full-time graduation rate is not representative of the typical student who enrolls in an institution of higher education today. “Traditional” students are no longer the norm: 38% of students enrolled in higher education today are older than 25 years old, and four out of 10 students now attend on a part-time basis. It’s also increasingly likely that students enroll in other semesters, rather than just the fall or summer as measured by the current federal completion data. What’s the result of all these changes? The current federal graduation rate only captures 47% of today’s students.
That’s why beginning in October 2017, the Department started publishing information more representative of today’s students through its Outcome Measures component of the Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System (IPEDS) survey. For the first time, this allowed degree-granting institutions to report completion rates for students beyond those enrolling for the first-time on a full-time basis, including part-time students, those who have transferred into an institution, and those who enroll in the spring semester. And while the new Outcome Measures data comes with its own set of limitations, it gives lawmakers a much more representative way to hold institutions accountable for graduating the students they enroll.
How could Congress best use existing federal data to hold institutions accountable for their completion rates?
In order to effectively hold institutions accountable for completing the students they enroll, the Outcome Measures survey should be expanded to apply to all federally funded institutions, not just degree-granting institutions that are already included within the survey. While the Department can require certificate-granting institutions to also report Outcome Measure completion rates on its own through scheduled changes to the IPEDS database, Congressional action could ensure that these adjustments get implemented quickly and apply for years to come. It must also determine the appropriate time period to measure completion for accountability purposes. Being that part-time students are included within the new Outcome Measures survey, it’s reasonable to have a measurement period that allows for those students to finish their studies if they were to continue as a part-time student for the entire time they are enrolled. Therefore, while an eight-year rate may make more sense at the bachelor’s level — allowing part-time to complete their studies — a shorter completion period could also be considered for institutions that offer shorter-term programs.
However, one of the most important considerations is how to treat students who transfer into and out of institutions.
The Outcome Measures survey currently includes all students who transfer into an institution as part of the entering cohort regardless of the amount of credits they transfer with. This means transfer students will be included in the same cohort as first-time students, even if they enter an institution with 10, 30, or 60 credits. This may help explain why students who transfer into an institution are shown to graduate at slightly higher rates than those who enroll for the first time. On the surface, this may appear to provide an unfair advantage to institutions that enroll a higher number of transfer students. However, from a public policy perspective, this may not be a bad thing. It could incentivize institutions to accept more transfer students, along with their credits, and increase overall completion rates.
If lawmakers decided to use the Outcome Measures survey instead of the statutory first-time, full-time rate that is used today, they will also have to determine how to account for students who transfer out of an institution. The statutory first-time, full-time graduation rate currently treats students who transfer to other institutions as non-completers. Yet many institutions, especially community colleges, pride themselves on providing students with a general education that ultimately leads to a degree at another institution that offers higher credentials. While some institutions may do this better than others, it’s often the exception: fewer than one in seven students who begin their studies at a community college end up transferring and earning a bachelor’s degree. Being that the Department does not currently have the infrastructure in place to determine whether students end up graduating after they transfer, lawmakers are left with two options for how to best consider transfer outcomes: 1) treat transfer students as a success, or 2) only count completion rates for students who entered, but never transferred to another institution.
Including transfer students as a success may provide some colleges with some of the credit they deserve for adequately preparing students to enter and complete a bachelor’s degree. However, it may also falsely deem it a success if students laterally transfer to another two-year or certificate-granting institution, or if they transfer and simply never graduate at all.
Option 1
Conversely, if policymakers decide to remove transfer students from the numerator and denominator completely, the completion rate would represent proportion of students who enter an institution, never transfer, and graduate from that institution. While this has the advantage of not misclassifying transfer students as a success or failure, it may provide for a calculation that is less representative at institutions that transfer a lot of students.
Option 2
Using either of these methods would provide for a more comprehensive and accurate picture of student completion than we have today by accounting for part-time students and those who transfer into an institution. And by using a completion metric as a floor to determine an institution’s eligibility to receive federal student aid, lawmakers can better target limited resources toward institutions that help students persist toward earning a college credential.
With billions of dollars flowing to institutions every single year, it’s imperative that we have laws in place that hold schools accountable for graduating their students, preparing them to enter the workforce, and providing them with an education that is worth their time and money. And if policies for more complete and comprehensive data are not included within the upcoming HEA — or if they will require years to collect and report on college completion rates — lawmakers must use what we have now to set a minimum college completion floor for all institutions. A few quick tweaks to the existing Outcome Measures survey may allow them to do this sooner rather than later.
