Abstract
This paper examines the graduation rates between 2000 and 2015 of United States colleges and universities at the national, state, and institutional levels. This research focuses on two-year and four-year programs. Rates are investigated longitudinally along with variables that distinguish between public/private institutions, percentages of full-time and part-time enrollments, a variety of completion times, and levels of academic achievement at entry that include SAT scores and high school GPAs. The paper uses a logistic growth function that has been used by other researchers to model four-, five-, and six-year graduation rates of individuals and selected cohort groups; graduation rate trajectories for students of differing academic achievement backgrounds are projected into the future to demonstrate maximum graduation rates expected for entering cohorts. Included is the analysis of national, state, and institutional graduation-rate results in four-year institutions of the 50 states; examples from 14 public colleges and universities in Indiana and several surrounding states are also considered. In addition to fitting their graduation rates to the logistic function and extracting associated growth variables, we use percentages of part-time students to predict two- and four-year graduation rates at the national, state, and institutional levels in the 50 states. The analysis examined the graduation rates between 2000 and 2015 of United States colleges and universities and showed no correlation between a state’s two-year and four-year cohort graduation rates; verified an inverse mathematical relationship between graduation rates and percentage of part-time students; confirmed that for median SAT scores of 800 or lower one expects very low on-time graduation rates.
Highlights
With the passage of the Student Right-to-Know and Campus Security Act of 1990, colleges and universities that receive federal funding for student financial aid programs were required to provide completion or graduation rate information
The data do not support the following: if a state has the best graduation rate in a two-year program, it will have the best rate in a four-year program; having a high four-year graduation rate does not correlate with having a high two-year graduation rate
Results for the predictions of the 919 two-year institutions are shown in Table 2 and Figures 6a and 6b for students graduating in two years and three years, respectively; the two-year rate and three-year rate are referred to as 100% and
Summary
With the passage of the Student Right-to-Know and Campus Security Act of 1990, colleges and universities that receive federal funding for student financial aid programs were required to provide completion or graduation rate information. In 1997, the Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System (IPEDS) began collecting these and other appropriate institutional measures for annual cohorts of first-time full-time students seeking certificates, and two-year and four-year degrees; included were percentages of students completing programs and degrees in 150 percent of normal times. With passage of the Higher Education Opportunity Act of 2008, institutions began reporting graduation rates for 200 percent of normal times, or 4 years and 8 years for associate and bachelor’s degrees, respectively. It is of interest to the students and their families, as well as to the states and communities that provide such education, to study the graduation rates of the students. Such research must separate programs (certificates, two-years, and four-years) and may investigate measures that include academic achievement and aptitude at entry, enrollment intensity (full-time versus part-time students), lengths of time to complete programs (such as 100, 150, and 200 percent of normal time), and family variables of the students (socioeconomic status and ethnicity)
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