College Persistence on the Rise? Changes in 5-Year Degree Completion and Postsecondary Persistence Rates Between 1994 and 2000

Abstract

The National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) is the primary federal entity for collecting, analyzing, and reporting data related to education in the United States and other nations. It fulfills a congressional mandate to collect, collate, analyze, and report full and complete statistics on the condition of education in the United States; conduct and publish reports and specialized analyses of the meaning and significance of such statistics; assist state and local education agencies in improving their statistical systems; and review and report on education activities in foreign countries. NCES activities are designed to address high priority education data needs; provide consistent, reliable, complete, and accurate indicators of education status and trends; and report timely, useful, and high quality data to the U.S. Department of Education, the Congress, the states, other education policymakers, practitioners, data users, and the general public. We strive to make our products available in a variety of formats and in language that is appropriate to a variety of audiences. You, as our customer, are the best judge of our success in communicating information effectively.

Are the Factors Affecting Dropout Behavior Related to Initial Enrollment Intensity for College Undergraduates?

“…However, as reported by Horn (1998) and Horn and Berger (2004), between twenty to thirty percent of all first-time undergraduates initially enroll as part-time students. While attrition rates are higher for part-time students, there has been little research explicitly comparing the reaction functions across these two student populations.…”

“…These individuals are not dropouts but stopouts. Recent work by Horn (1998), Horn and Berger (2004), Light (1996), as well as O'Toole, Stratton, and Wetzel (2003) discusses stopout behavior. Classifying temporary stopouts as long-term dropouts treats those who do continue their education, albeit in a discontinuous fashion, the same as those who permanently drop out.…”

Table of Contents

“…Persistence rates appear to have risen between the early and mid-1990s, though there was no perceptible change in graduation rates (Horn and Berger, 2004). This finding suggests that this cohort of students may be persisting longer and attending multiple institutions on the road to the baccalaureate.…”

“…Three-fifths of students in public two-year colleges and one-quarter in fouryear colleges and universities require at least one year of remedial coursework (Adelman, 2005;Horn and Berger, 2004;U.S. Department of Education, 2004).…”

A Conceptual Model on the Impact of Mattering, Sense of Belonging, Engagement/Involvement, and Socio-Academic Integrative Experiences on Community College Students’ Intent to Persist

“…Four decades of student retention research has shown that the vast majority of students who dropout of college will do so within their first-year of college (Horn, Berger, & Carroll, 2004;Tinto, 1993;Wood, 2012), but stopout and dropout occur throughout the college years.…”