Postsecondary Success: Exploring the Data
Photo by Lukas
Postsecondary Success: Exploring the Data
By: Evan Rhinesmith, Ph.D.
Earlier this month, we released our second report examining postsecondary education in Missouri. This report focused on postsecondary success for those Missouri high school graduates who enroll as first-time, full-time degree-seeking students at one of Missouri’s public institutions of higher education (IHEs). Today, we are releasing the data we used to conduct these analyses, allowing anyone to see the information and take a deeper dive into the postsecondary success of students graduating from specific high schools.
What is included?
The data used in these analyses included publicly available information provided by the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education (DESE) and the Department of Higher Education and Workforce Development (DHEWD). Every year, as part of the state’s Comprehensive School Improvement Plan (CSIP), public school districts serving high school age students report their 180-day follow-up data. In doing so, schools report whether their students have enrolled in postsecondary education at a public or private 4-year or 2-year institution, entered directly into the workforce, entered the military, etc. The DESE follow-up data covers students who stay in Missouri, leave the state, and enroll at private institutions. Therefore, we report these data as the “Immediate College Enrollment'' variable. DHEWD provides data in the High School Graduates Report that examines enrollment, performance, and completion data for those immediate college enrollees starting as first-time, full-time students at one of the state’s public postsecondary institutions. These data provide a detailed look at a portion of high school graduates, but not for every student who enrolls in postsecondary education.
In the downloadable dataset, users can select a district, high school, and a specific high school graduating class to explore postsecondary access and success metrics.
What is available?
The focus of this dataset is the dynamic lookup tool. This includes enrollment and demographic information for every public school district in the state and every school that enrolls high school students between 2005 and 2019. This includes the high school graduating classes of 2005 through 2019. Users will also be able to examine basic postsecondary access data for these graduating cohorts, which we describe in greater detail in our first report in this series. When users select a school and year, they will see early college success information (persistence and remediation rates), and, for some classes, credential completion. In addition to the dynamic lookup tool, users can also access separate tabs of data on the 180-day follow-up and postsecondary enrollment, performance, and completion data. Finally, we have included a tab that includes all supporting data.
Using the dynamic lookup tool, you can examine characteristics of the high school, early college success metrics, and college completion for a specific cohort compared to their region and the state.
What will you learn?
As we show in the full report, about half of the class of 2015 completed a postsecondary credential within six years of enrolling. Unsurprisingly, these results vary significantly across school characteristics. In the new downloadable data file, you can see if your school’s graduates outperform the state and regional trends. Specifically, you will be able to examine all of the success measures we describe in the full report for the classes of 2005 through 2015. Additionally, you will be able to see the early college success measures (enrollment, first fall completion, first spring completion, and persistence to the second year) for classes 2005 through 2019.
We hope this information is useful and that you are able to learn more about how your school has done in preparing students for postsecondary education. We look forward to the next report on postsecondary access coming in the fall of 2022.
