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This was one of those long weeks, longer even than the brief tenure of Santo Ono as president of the University of Florida. The best thing I read about that fiasco was this comment (her podcast is also excellent and one of the few things I consistently listen to).
But what else did I read?
On-ramps and off-ramps
A lot of people have covered the new National Student Clearinghouse Research Center (NSCRC) report on Some College, No Credential. The tl;dr is that the “some college, no credential” (SCNC) population in the U.S. has grown to 43.1 million students. This is despite the fact that, for the second year in a row, the number of students dropping out of college has gone down and the number of students re-enrolling has gone up. Still, the number of students stopping out continues to outpace those re-enrolling and those aging out of the sample population (i.e., adults aged 65+).
What I found particularly interesting was looking at the data about where students are dropping out and where they’re re-enrolling together. It’s no surprise that many students drop out of for-profit schools if you’re familiar with that sector.
That 2-year schools (community colleges and primarily associate degree granting baccalaureate -PAB) institutions account for such a large proportion of students stopping out is not surprising. It reflects the fact that they make up a significant part of US higher education and that their students are more likely to be part-time and less well-prepared compared to those in other parts of the sector. However, the steep drop-off between the community colleges’ share of last enrollment (57.0%) and their share of re-enrollment (50.0%) is surprising to me and should be a cause for concern for us. I would have expected re-enrollment to be higher, given the comparatively lower cost and convenience that many community colleges offer.
The drop-off from original enrollment to re-enrollment for public four-year institutions (16.5% to 12.9%) is also worrisome.
Even more surprising is that more students re-enrolled in for-profit institutions compared to their original enrollment. That’s something I’d love to research further. Some clues about why this might be happening come from the big shift we see in primarily online institutions.
For primarily online institutions, there is a large jump from their share of last enrollment (5.1%) to their share of re-enrollment (15.3%). This is the biggest shift we see across the sector. On many levels, this isn’t surprising. When students stop out, they often move on with their lives: getting jobs, starting families, and moving away. It makes sense that if they choose to re-enroll, they’d prefer the convenience and flexibility of primarily online institutions that let them fit their studies into their lives.
This underscores the particularly important role that primarily online institutions play as on-ramps for SCNC students. To support these students effectively, these institutions will need to provide some unique, or at least more intensive, supports to help them make the transition and succeed.
