Beyond Student Right-to-Know Data: Factors That Can Explain Community College Graduation Rates

Abstract

Policymakers, educators, and researchers recognize the importance of community colleges as open door institutions that provide a wide range of students with access to college. At the same time, competing demands for the state funds that would support community colleges have resulted in reduced public allocations and higher student tuition fees. Understandably, therefore, both state policymakers and parents are increasingly focused on the returns to their public or private investments in education, and the outcomes of community college attendance are now under greater scrutiny. To facilitate the evaluation of the colleges, there are now available data, through the Student Right-to-Know and Campus Security Act (1990), which amended the Higher Education Act, on every college’s graduation rate for fall semester cohorts of first-time, fulltime (FTFT) students in degree programs. This information is known as the Student Right-to-Know (SRK) data. A related public concern is how the outcomes of community college students can be improved. Therefore, attempts are now being made to clarify the way that specific students define success and to identify the college policies and practices that can promote success for all students. For some community college students, college completion, defined as earning a degree or certificate, is the appropriate measure of success. For other students, success is demonstrated by transferring to a baccalaureate institution. Still others are satisfied with completing courses that increase their knowledge or skill level in a particular area even though their educational experience is not considered successful as defined by traditional educational outcomes. Because of this range of outcomes for their students, some community colleges argue that focusing on the completion rate of a college is misleading, because many students do not have graduation as an objective. Further, many students face insurmountable barriers to success in college, such as family and work responsibilities and deficient academic preparation, which are beyond the control of the college. Nevertheless, data on goals and expectations do indicate that community college students are ambitious and that a majority of students who state that they want to complete a degree fail to do so (Bailey, Jenkins, & Leinbach, 2005). Moreover, high aspirations make economic sense since earning only a few credits without completing a certificate or degree has few income returns (Bailey, Kienzl, & Marcotte, 2004). Given the importance of completions, this Brief reports on research conducted by the Community College Research Center designed to strengthen the public’s ability to assess and compare community college performance by measuring the effect of certain institutional characteristics on graduation rates. The research consisted of the development of models, based on SRK graduation rate data, which can identify the institutional characteristics that might influence those rates and then measure the effect of those characteristics on the rates. The ultimate goal of the research is to help community college’s improve the educational outcomes of their students.